Promise Keepers Pass Plate Financially Strapped Group Opens Gathering To Women

Thu., March 12, 1998

Associated Press

The founder of the financially strapped Promise Keepers movement has asked ministers from Oregon and Washington to contribute $1,000 each to help pay the ministry’s bills.

“We don’t want you for a minute to think this is about Promise Keepers,” former University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney told the ministers on Tuesday. “This is about the father’s heart. There isn’t a father who doesn’t want to see his sons come together.”

McCartney was in Portland for a one-day Promise Keepers clergy conference at Bible Temple Church.

Some 3,000 clergy attended the gathering. The clergy conferences, which are being conducted in nine cities, are the first Promise Keepers events open to women - in this case, ministers. The theme of the conference is how to lead godly men.

Some women’s groups have criticized Promise Keepers for restricting attendance at its massive revival meetings in football stadiums to men. Since 1991, 2.7 million men have attended meetings across the United States.

Promise Keepers is nearly bankrupt after spending its savings on the massive “Stand in the Gap” event in Washington, D.C.

The ministry might have to lay off 345 employees in its Boulder, Colo., office by April 1.

A year ago, McCartney said he believed God was telling him to stop charging a $60 fee to attend meetings. By October, the Promise Keepers board voted unanimously to drop the fees in 1998 in hopes of reaching more men.

Now McCartney is asking churches and donors to pick up the tab so more men will able to come to the meetings and be converted.

McCartney said he hopes the ministry will have enough money to pay the entire staff by April 1. Otherwise, it will stop paying everyone. McCartney wants some staff to stay on as volunteers.

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