What's next for the Promise Keepers?

During the Vietnam era, Chuck Colson and others on Richard Nixon's White House staff became experts at analyzing aerial photographs of antiwar rallies. So Colson knows how many bodies it takes – give or take 100,000 – to form a shoulder-to-shoulder mass from the Capitol to the Washington Monument and beyond. Thus, he believes there were 1.5 million praying, singing, weeping, hugging and Bible- waving men on the National Mall during last fall's Promise Keepers "Stand in the Gap" rally. This wasn't an event, he said. It was "a cultural icon."

Commenting on the rally for the MSNBC news network, I called it the capstone on an era in which Pentecostalism became an undeniable force in mainstream America – the Woodstock of the charismatic movement. Colson picked up on this image in a recent essay written for his organization Prison Fellowship.

"Woodstock symbolized the counterculture – thousands of young people rollicking in the mud, celebrating cheap drugs and free love," he said. "'Stand in the Gap' symbolized exactly the opposite: repentance and responsibility. And it proved that Christian men, on their knees, can potentially transform society."

Now, the question facing the Promise Keepers movement is not whether it can transform homes and communities, but whether it can pay its bills. Many supporters of the Denver-based group were shocked to hear that it is laying off all 345 members of its global staff. The group hopes to rebuild with funds raised through voluntary donations.

This news was painful, but not surprising, said Colson, a veteran Promise Keeper speaker. He also has built Prison Fellowship into a thriving ministry active in 50-plus nations.

"I have never seen Promise Keepers as an ongoing organization. I saw it as a wonderful movement, as a phenomenon, in the true sense of that word. I never thought they had a chance to sustain that," he said. "The refreshing thing about Promise Keepers was that it wasn't something that anybody planned."

The debate over Promise Keeper's future began at the beginning, in the early 1990s. I was teaching at Denver Seminary at that time and, on a number of occasions, spoke to audiences that included early Promise Keepers staff members. Some where already convinced they should pledge to ride the stadium-rally wave for five years and then make a planned retreat. Some believed that the long-range goal should be to create a small, efficient group that would help other groups reach men – not a massive structure built on a statistical explosion.

So far, nearly 3 million men have attended these events. Thus, the group estimates that 72 percent of its operating funds – the 1996 budget reached $87 million – have come from ticket sales. Founder Bill McCartney has pledged that the group will no longer charge admission fees, in order to reach a wider spectrum of men.

It will be hard, but Promise Keepers must now focus on working with churches at all levels, said Colson.

"They must begin facilitating the work of others. They have to provide the materials and the expertise that help churches find ways to help men keep their promises," he said. "All of those giant events got everyone's attention and got their message out. But they have to get past that. It's time for sustaining what they have begun."

The movement's charismatic leaders also have to face a painful tension built into their cornerstone document, "The Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper." Its sixth promise commits them to reach "beyond any denominational barriers to demonstrate the power of biblical unity." This will require new efforts to negotiate the deadly doctrinal minefields that separate many Christians – especially charismatics, Calvinists and Catholics.

"Promise Keepers has to have a faith statement that all true Christians can affirm. That will not be easy, but it can be done," said Colson, a Baptist who is a leader in the controversial "Evangelicals and Catholics Together" movement. "They can't back down on this. They have to be able to work with traditional Catholics and Baptists and the Orthodox and all kinds of solid Christian groups. They need as broad a support base as possible."

Mount Sinai on the World Wide Web

There comes a time in most Jewish debates when matters hit a final snag and someone says, "We need to ask a rabbi about that."

These kinds of questions tend to be both practical and theoretical, nitpicky and cosmic. In that spirit, the organizers of next week's Jewish Web/Net Week (www.JWW.org) are asking this question: How many Jews have to be camped on the Internet to somehow equal the spiritual clout of the 600,000 who gathered 3,700 years ago at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah?

By the way, do all these people have to be online on at the same time? What if they gathered in different chat rooms? And what would happen if, when the 600,000th person signed on, everyone in this global assembly stopped and prayed this ancient prayer: "Blessed are You, our God, creator of the Universe, Knower of Secrets."

"There has always been this understanding that if you could get that many Jews together at one time and have them pray that prayer together, then three would be some mysterious meeting of the minds and spirits," said co-director Yosef Abramowitz, editor of the online magazine called Jewish Family & Life! "The idea is that we might learn something new about who we are, learn some truth with a capital 'T' or even some secret known only to God."

The event begins Saturday (Feb.21) with a "pre-game show" in Jerusalem. In addition to targeting the symbolic 600,000 figure, organizers have lined up 613 Web sites to take part – the precise number of "mitzvot," or commandments, which shape Jewish life. The week will end with three 4 p.m. prayer services on Friday, Feb. 27 – just before the beginning of the Sabbath in the time zones in Jerusalem, New York City and Los Angeles.

No one really knows what to expect, said Martin Kaminer, the event's other co-director. At the very least, the project will try to create a sense of community in an era in which the pursuit of any kind of spiritual unity has become one of the most divisive issues in Judaism.

"That number – 600,000 – has great power. It suggests the totality of the Jewish people or even the totality of human knowledge," he said. "I went over to Jewish Theological Seminary and asked the rabbis what kind of secrets we might hope to learn by taking part in all of this. Of course, as is the case with any Jewish theological question, there turned out to be more opinions than there were people. So who knows?"

The seeds of this event where planted last June at a technology conference sponsored by the Jewish Educational Service of North America. The goal has been to bring together groups of Jews that, under normal conditions, wouldn't even sit at the same table for discussions of issues such as intermarriage and conversion. Thus, the roster of sites linked to Jewish Web/Net Week ranges from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's home page to pages run by his fiercest critics on the Israeli left, from ultra-Orthodox education projects to hip sites plugging alternative forms of Jewish spirituality.

At least 70 sites will offer live programs – from storytelling sessions to singles parties, from artistic fun and games for children to adult forums led by entertainers, politicians, journalists and scholars. Those with multimedia computers will be able to tune in six channels of music and commentary. Throughout the week, programmers will collect images, prayers, stories and opinions to include in a final online prayer service. Children can help build a digital mural to mark the 50th anniversary of the modern state of Israel.

And there will be a dizzying number of chances for people to ask all kinds of questions to all kinds of rabbis and to hear all kinds of different answers.

"Right now, so many groups in the Jewish community are, literally, not even on speaking terms," said Abramowitz. "Yet we've got all of them hooked up to this in one way or another – from the ultra-orthodox all the way over to the most liberal Reform groups. That's a minor miracle in and of itself."

A Baptist's Baptist in the Oval Office

It was the right sermon to the right flock at the right time.

"My father was certain that Cain and Abel were the first Baptists because they introduced fratricide to the Bible," said Bill Moyers, a Baptist preacher turned media guru, hours before Bill Clinton's first inauguration. Moyers was speaking at the First Baptist Church of Washington, D.C., and the congregation included Clinton and Al Gore, who are both Southern Baptists.

"At the core of our faith is what we call soul competency," he said. "Created with the imprint of divinity, from the mixed clay of earth, we are endowed with the capacity to choose, to be ^E a grown-up before God, making my own case, accounting for my own sins, asking my own questions and expecting in good faith that when all is said and done I'll get a fair hearing and just verdict."

To which the born-again believer in the Oval Office says, "Amen." Clinton has always prided himself on being part of an unruly crowd that has few if any doctrines that cannot be submitted to a yea-or-nay vote in a local church or even a single pew. Baptists are their own priests. Each can read the Bible and make up his or her own mind. Clinton has a Bible, too.

It's hard to understand the morality plays in this White House without understanding that Clinton is a Baptist's Baptist. His Baptist critics say he makes up his rules of faith as he goes along. Yet they have no catechism or tradition that authoritatively says he is wrong. If they do, then they're not really Baptists.

Naturally, Baptists have been free to offer a variety of responses to the latest firestorm. Here's a sample.

* The Southern Baptist Convention's president noted that the Bible teaches Christians to pray for their leaders – no matter what. "God is far more concerned than any of us about the character of our leaders," said the Rev. Tom Elliff, speaking at an evangelism conference in Alabama. After all, God "knows more truths than we will ever know." While Elliff avoided the current scandal, he said America is in "big trouble" and that "every citizen has a right to expect good character on the part of all our leaders."

* One progressive Baptist friend of Bill stressed that he won't abandon Clinton, in part because of the president's support for the poor and the oppressed. Tony Campolo of Eastern College in St. Davids, Pa., told the Associated Baptist Press that he would treat Clinton as Jesus would treat him. "I follow a man who really didn't give a hoot about his reputation. As a matter of fact, I think Jesus had the worst reputation in Jerusalem," said Campolo.

* In Little Rock, Ark., Clinton's pastor is hearing tough biblical questions, especially about the president's reported view that sexual acts short of intercourse do not violate the Sixth Commandment against adultery. "No, I wouldn't defend his interpretation of that," said the Rev. Rex Horne of Immanuel Baptist Church, quoted in the Washington Times. "I know it's too early to know or tell what's happening here, the truth from the allegations, but I feel pain and am praying for the president and his family and our country at this time."

* Another Baptist with a unique perspective is Donna Rice Hughes, who once was trapped in a media storm with presidential candidate Gary Hart. She told World magazine that she is offering special prayers for Monica Lewinsky. It's so easy, she said, for people to label a woman a "bimbo," "obsessed" or "attention- starved." It's even easy for Christians to say, "Oh, I'm better than that person. I didn't make that mistake," said Hughes, who is now a conservative Christian activist.

* The president, meanwhile, simply told those at the National Prayer Breakfast that he is thankful for the prayers and "scriptural instruction" he has received recently. "I ask also for your prayers as we work together to continue to take our country to higher ground and to remember the admonition of Micah, which I try to repeat to myself on a very regular basis. I ask your prayers that I and we might act justly and love mercy and walk humbly with our God."

'Seeker' churches for gays and lesbians

Since "worship service" sounded stuffy, ads for the new Saturday night gathering called it a "celebration."

Greeters handed out "celebration folders" instead of bulletins. Clergy wore jeans and polo shirts instead of vestments and the faithful sang along to slides projected on a wall, instead of using hymnals. The call to worship became a "warm up" and the service ended with a "see you next week" benediction, followed by pizza. The "action words" – that's the sermon – led into question and-answer sessions. Often, the clergy yielded the floor to "guest headliners" who sang, spoke on social issues or discussed their latest books.

In other words, this Southern California church created a "seeker" service to try to reach "unchurched" people who are more interested in spiritual issues than in conventional churches. This is happening nationwide, especially in the Protestant congregations that researchers call "megachurches."

What makes this case study interesting is that the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) of San Diego isn't exactly what most people would call a "conventional church." It's part of a growing denomination composed almost entirely of gays and lesbians and their families.

These days, even niche churches need to be user-friendly.

"A whole lot of the evangelical church-growth literature has been quite helpful to us," said the Rev. Don Eastman, who leads his denomination's Strategic Growth Initiative. The former Assembly of God pastor serves on the MCC's seven-member board of elders and works in it's global headquarters in West Hollywood, Calif. "What we're learning is that it's crucial for a church to have a clear sense of how it views the world and to be able to communicate that vision to others. That's the challenge all churches face, today. It just isn't easy to reach new people."

In fact, the San Diego church's Saturday night "celebrations" weren't a big success. So now it plans to experiment with Sunday night gospel music services. The congregation has set a goal of being a megachurch – with 1,000 to 2,000 members or more – within a decade.

Others have caught this vision. The 30-year-old Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches sent a 50-member delegation to one of the spotlighted events on the church-growth scene – the Robert H. Schuller Institute for Successful Church Leadership at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif. Last month's gathering drew more than 2,000, including a Moslem cleric, said Eastman. The program included leaders from giant mainline Protestant churches, as well superstars such as Schuller and the Rev. Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Community Church outside of Chicago.

"I have always felt right at home at these meetings," said Eastman. "It's not that the people at the Schuller Institute have endorsed us. It's probably more of a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy. But the whole point is to focus on what unites us, instead of what divides us. These meetings aren't about doctrine. They're about churches improving their music, their worship and how they communicate their message."

Eastman first attended the Schuller Institute in 1981, when he was the pastor of the MCC's new Dallas congregation. Today, the Cathedral of Hope has about 2,000 members and a mailing list of 30,000 names taken from its visitor's book. It's the flagship church in a 285-church network that is "determined to be taken seriously as a church, not just as another activist group in the gay and lesbian community," he said.

Reaching that goal may require gathering tips from leaders in a wide range of churches, including some that reject the MCC's stands on gender and sexual orientation. That's the reality of life in the American marketplace, said Eastman. Many people are using the same techniques, even if they are delivering different messages.

"Obviously, many churches interpret scripture in many different ways. Everybody knows that," he said. "What we have to do is present our view of the Bible with a sense of integrity. We have to offer a clear, coherent biblical viewpoint that makes sense to people. We're convinced we can find new ways to do that. We're getting better at it all the time."