Promise Keepers is planning the largest gathering of ministers in the history of Christianity. Why? On February 13-15, 1996, Promise Keepers is holding a conference for male clergy. If PK fills the Georgia Dome with 70,000 pastors, it would be the largest number of Christian clergy ever assembled. What will Promise Keepers say to men in ministry?
To find out, LEADERSHIP executive editor Marshall Shelley and editor Kevin Miller sat with Dale Schlafer, vice-president of pastoral ministries for Promise Keepers, and Wes Roberts, president of Life Enrichment, a consultant to Schlafer, and a key planner of the conference.
LEADERSHIP: Why are you planning a conference for male clergy?
DALE SCHLAFER: History has shown that clergy-led revivals have a longer impact than lay-led revivals. Understanding that, we hope the Holy Spirit will move at the clergy conference–across denominational traditions and ethnic traditions–and bring 70,000 ministers together. We hope to see pastors go back to their churches revived and praying that God will revive their churches and bring the lost in their communities to Christ.
The pastoral ministries division of PK exists to help men in pastoral ministry keep their promises–and to assist those pastors in helping their men become promise keepers. The conference is one way we hope to do that.
WES ROBERTS: We also hope to help men in ministry understand who God is in their life. That sounds almost simplistic, but in this day when pastors are stretched to the limit as program chairmen, CEOS, and organizational directors, many pastors have gotten away from “Who is God to me?” and “What does it mean to be a shepherd as I and my church move toward the twenty-first century?
During the conference, we will reflect on four areas: communion with God, character before God, call from God, and how that’s lived out in community (both in a small group and the area in which they live). We’ll encourage pastors to ask, “How do I want God to enlarge my heart for him? What can the church of Jesus Christ do in our part of the world? What part does he want me to play in his plans?”
SCHLAFER: We’re expecting God to show up. We are also expecting the unexpected. We may have speakers not speak, because we’re willing to change the program midstream.
LEADERSHIP: Who will speak at the conference?
SCHLAFER: Coach Mac once said to me, “Don’t be in a hurry to assume you know who’s going to be the speaker, ’cause God’s been preparing these men all their lives for this moment.” That haunts me.
Invitations have been extended. What we can say now is that we want to move across various traditions and ethnic boundaries, and we want speakers with large hearts for God. We’re on the lookout for those who are finishing well, because a lot of us don’t have adequate mentors. In fact, we plan to use videos of interviews with people who have walked faithfully for a lifetime.
LEADERSHIP: Pastors by nature may be a little independent, cautious, reflective. How do you plan to get that many to come to a conference?
SCHLAFER: That’s not our job. That’s God’s job.
LEADERSHIP: How do you define your job?
SCHLAFER: To be obedient. In one sense, what we’re doing is insane–trying to pull off a conference this fast for 70,000 guys. Yet the one thing I don’t spend much time thinking about is whether we’re going to fill the Georgia Dome.
Why? At our men’s events this summer, we have included a simple brochure in the confirmation materials that says, “By the way, if pastors and worship leaders will come before the conference for a free, three-hour event, we’d like to have you there.”
One of these was scheduled to start at 9 A.m., and by 8:30 the church, which seated 900 people, was full. At 8:45, the balcony and choir loft were full. Then they put two rows of chairs down the aisles. Then guys stood around the walls. Then there was a knock on the windows of this old, inner-city church. Men said, “Open the windows. We want to stand out here to listen.” For three hours, guys stood outside the church with the windows open to listen. And this was the last weekend of April, and it was cold outside.
ROBERTS: We believe pastors will come because in their best moments they know they need personal revival if they are going to lead their church in revival.
LEADERSHIP: What scares you as you look forward to the conference?
SCHLAFER: That we won’t listen carefully enough to God.
ROBERTS: A lingering concern is that we may be trying to do too much, and not giving enough time at the conference for people to reflect before Almighty God. As we work out the conference events, that will remain a priority.
SCHLAFER: We plan to have interaction in small groups, in which pastors can talk with each other, pray together, and apply what they’ve heard.
LEADERSHIP: Will there be follow-up events to the clergy conference?
SCHLAFER: Yes. One of our aims is to have hundreds of pastors’ groups around the country within months after this event. We see men coming together out of this common experience and giving each other support. God wants men from churches praying together across ethnic and denominational lines. We are not looking just to have more large stadium events. We’re looking at smaller, regional conferences that would focus more on practical, competency areas and on the personal life of the pastor.
LEADERSHIP: What reaction have you gotten from pastors to Promise Keepers?
SCHLAFER: Sometimes pastors ask, “What are you doing with our men? Are they joining a club? Are you going to take them away?” But the essence of Promise Keepers is to help a man go back home to support his wife and family and pastor and the work of his church in the community. We’re not trying to pull men out to join a national organization; our focus is on how to support and serve the church.
ROBERTS: Recently a pastor friend called me after a Promise Keepers men’s event. He hadn’t gone. But he said, “Roberts, what went on down there? Most of the men in our church know I pray on Sunday morning at 7 A.m., but rarely do more than two or three men join me. Today, the men who had gone to the conference were all waiting for me. They laid hands on me and prayed for me.”
I asked, “Are you complaining?”
He said, “No. It was just so startlingly different that I didn’t know what to do. Something like this has never happened in my ministry.” Then he wept.
I’ve heard Bill McCartney say that God may have used Promise Keepers to stir up all these men because he knew there was no way to bring his clergy together unless the support and encouragement came from men in the congregations.
SCHLAFER: Of course, many pastors have been touched by the time at Promise Keepers conferences when the pastors come forward and we honor them. When Coach invites the pastors to the front of the stage, there is thunderous shouting and clapping for fifteen or twenty minutes.
I have gotten stacks of letters from pastors saying, “That was the most important thing that’s happened in my life.” One guy said, “That was more important to me than my ordination.” Last week a lady wrote, “Something happened to my husband at D.C. He cannot speak of it without crying. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.”
LEADERSHIP: What do you hope will be the long-term impact of Promise Keepers’ work with men in ministry?
SCHLAFER: Revival. In revival, denominational walls come down, all the churches grow, and society is affected.
Last fall, a woman told me, “I’ve been praying for forty-three years that God would raise up a men’s ministry. I’m finally seeing that prayer answered.”
Forty-three years! We realize others have done the plowing; we’re just reaping.
No man can bring revival. But we can put ourselves in the way of revival. If this event in Atlanta is catalytic, if we look back years from now and say this event was a major turning point in the church of Jesus Christ to bring revival, it will have been worth it. Clergy-led revivals have a longer impact than lay-led revivals.
–Dale Schlafer
Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./LEADERSHIP Journal
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Copyright © 1995 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
