Promises Can’t Keep Stadiums Packed Forever

At a rally last month at Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville, Ark., thunderbolts and heavy rain forced Promise Keepers, an evangelistic men’s ministry, to temporarily evacuate 20,000 men from their outdoor seats. The service resumed when the storm passed.

Such weather-related interruptions have been rare for Promise Keepers for nearly a decade because the organization has stopped holding most of its gatherings at outdoor stadiums. Facing smaller attendance, most Promise Keeper events, such as the July 15-16 gathering at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim, are being held in smaller indoor basketball arenas.

“Whether we go back to that [big event] model, I’m not sure,” said Thomas S. Fortson Jr., Promise Keepers president and chief executive. But avoiding bad weather is one advantage of going indoors: “You don’t have to worry about those things in a basketball arena.”

As Promise Keepers enters its 15th year, Fortson reflected on his organization’s future during a recent interview at the Los Angeles Times.

The ministry first exploded on the national scene in the mid-1990s when tens of thousands of hymn-singing, hand-clapping, repentant men rocked stadiums with shouts of “We love Jesus, yes we do! We love Jesus, how ‘bout you?”

Promise Keepers and its since retired founder, former University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney, amazed the Christian world with a testosterone-charged outreach that appealed to many men who hadn’t gone to church in years. But Promise Keepers also triggered criticism from feminists and others who saw it as a force for social and political conservatism.

Participants these days are no less fervent. Conferences still rock, albeit in smaller venues. Promise Keepers still markets its conferences with masculine themes of challenge and heroism. The theme for the group’s 21 conferences around the country this year is “The Awakening: An Unpredictable Adventure.” Last year’s theme was “Uprising -- the Revolution of a Man’s Soul.”

But deep budget cuts and staff reductions have hobbled its capacity to stage its large-scale signature events.

Promise Keepers, which has its headquarters in Denver, may be in for more changes. Preliminary planning has begun for a possible new television, radio and Internet ministry that eventually could eclipse its rallies, Fortson said.

“As we look at the future, can we be as effective by going into radio and television?” Fortson answered his own question, referring to the group’s seven core principles stressing Christian faith, morality and family. “Our mission says to ignite and unite men through effective communication of the Seven Promises. It doesn’t say anything about events.”

Fortson said he has spoken with executives of the Trinity Broadcasting Network about possibly carrying Promise Keepers broadcasts. He said he hoped that they could be on the air within three years. Programming could draw heavily on video archives of conferences, with sermons on issues such as divorce, pornography addiction, unemployment and what it means to be a good husband and father. There could also be call-in shows.

“It doesn’t mean we don’t do events anymore. I think it’s good that men assemble together and enjoy each other,” Fortson said. “But I think because things have changed -- the world is changing -- we live more in a global environment. If, in fact, we’re going to really tackle the Great Commission ... then we’re going to have to change our strategies.”

The Great Commission is understood by Christians as the command of the resurrected Jesus to his followers to proclaim the “good news” and to baptize converts.

At its high point, more than a million men in 1996 and 1997 attended Promise Keepers rallies, including the “Stand in the Gap” rally in the nation’s capital, which drew more than 500,000 men from across the country. Last year, conferences attracted 176,000 men, up slightly from the previous year.

The primary reason for the decline, Fortson said, was the drastic cutback in budget and staffing after the group dropped its then $60 admission fee in 1998. The goal was to encourage more men in lower income brackets to attend, with the hope that new donations would make up the difference. But with far fewer staff and less revenue, it became difficult to stage and pay for huge stadium events.

“We made a big mistake,” said Fortson, 57, a former General Motors administrator who served as Promise Keepers’ chief operating officer before succeeding McCartney as president in 2003.

Promise Keepers has re-imposed admission fees, $89 for men and $69 for those under 18. Scholarships are offered for those who can’t afford the cost.

It now operates with a 80-member full-time staff on an annual budget of $30 million, compared with a staff of 452 and a budget of $70 million in 1997.

Others have said that the novelty may have worn off and that the ministry had run its natural course. Some in Promise Keepers’ core constituency of white evangelical Protestants said they were put off by the ministry’s venture into social issues such as racism instead of sticking to what they saw as the basic Gospel message of sin and forgiveness.

Promise Keepers spokesman Steve Chavis dismissed complaints that the stance against racism caused any large part of the declining attendance. From the start, he said, one of the ministry’s Seven Promises asked men to reach “beyond any racial or denominational barriers to demonstrate the power of biblical unity.” Fortson is the first African American president of the group, and about 11% of active participants are nonwhite, Chavis said.

Promise Keepers still faces criticism from feminists and others for proclaiming what it sees as the biblical standard placing a man at the head of the household. But the goal, Fortson said, is not to dominate but to lead and be responsible for the home. He said men are to love their wives as Christ loved the church, in sacrificial love and servant-hood. The organization has also spoken out against abortion and homosexual lifestyles.

The two-day Anaheim conference runs 6:30 to 10 p.m. July 15 and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. July 16. Speakers include Vietnam veteran and motivational speaker Dave Roever; pastors Jack Hayford of the Church on the Way in Van Nuys and Erwin McManus of Mosaic, a youth-oriented Los Angeles church; author and family advocate John Trent; and comedian Brad Stine.

Whatever Promise Keepers’ future, Fortson said there remains a vacancy inside many men that only brotherhood can fill.

“In America, there are probably five characteristics of men. One, they’re friendless. You don’t find too many men who have really close friends,” Fortson said. “He’s emotionally isolated. Who does he go talk to? You see a guy who’s angry. Why is he angry? He’s probably hurt. He’s confused over masculinity. What’s a man today? He’s success-driven, so he avoids many times the time he needs to spend at home. And he’s spiritually searching.”