Promise Keepers
Promise Keepers (PK) is an international Christian organization and men's movement based in Denver .
history
The club was founded in 1990 by then head coach for American football at the University of Colorado Boulder , Bill McCartney . According to the organization, a Fellowship of Christian Athletes event in Pueblo, Colorado, McCartney, in 1990 inspired a movement to open his home stadium, Folsom Field in Boulder, with men who, instead of their enthusiasm for football, would celebrate their faith together, should fill. In July of that year, 72 men gathered at the Boulder Valley Christian Church to organize the first Promise Keepers event at the University's Event Center. In December 1990, Promise Keepers was founded as an association. The number of members subsequently rose rapidly, so that the first official PK conference in July of the following year attracted around 4,200 visitors.
At the Folsom Field Congregation in June 1992, PK brought his first manual entitled What Makes a Man? (German meaning: "What makes a man"), published by Navpress der Navigatoren . In the same month McCartney was invited by James Dobson in his US-wide radio show Focus on the Family . In 1994 McCartney quit his coaching position in order to devote himself fully to the work of the Promise Keepers .
The biggest event in the history of the Promise Keepers took place on October 4th 1997 open air under the motto “Stand in the Gap: A Sacred Assembly of Men” (German: “Step into the gap: A holy men's assembly ”) at the National Mall held in Washington, DC , with a larger number of participants than the Million-Man March of October 16, 1995, currently the largest mass gathering of men in the United States. The event was broadcast in full by C-SPAN .
After McCartney resigned as President of the organization in October 2003, Thomas Fortson, his deputy since 1996, took over the position of President and CEO . After five years, McCartney returned to the organization as CEO in 2008, while Raleigh Washington was appointed President.
The movement spread across the United States worldwide. This is how autonomous organizations arose in Canada and New Zealand , but also in Asia and Europe. In Germany, the movement was formed in 1996 on the initiative of Heinrich Christian Rust and Willfried Gasser . In June of the same year, according to their own statements, “fifty representatives of Protestant groups” gathered in Hanover for an initial exchange of information. The participants included representatives of the Biblical Association , the New Life for Families Association , the Spiritual Community Renewal in the Evangelical Church , the Campus for Christ Association , the Missionswerk Jugend mit einer Mission as well as representatives of various forms of men's work within the Evangelical Church in Germany . Rust, former pastor of the Evangelical Free Church Community in Hanover-Walderseestrasse and at that time head of the home mission of the Federation of Evangelical Free Churches based in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe , has been in charge of the Promise Keepers coordination office in Germany since then . At the beginning of 2004, the German branch closed its work. The office in Garbsen announced that the general meeting had decided to end the association due to spiritual and personal development.
The seven promises
In the seven promises correspond to the values and beliefs of the association:
- A promise keeper honors Jesus Christ through worship, prayer, and obedience to His word.
- A promise keeper seeks living relationships with some other men because a man needs brothers to help him keep his promise.
- A promise keeper practices spiritual, moral, ethical, and sexual purity.
- A promise keeper is committed to a strong marriage and family by instilling love, protection, and biblical values.
- A Promise Keeper supports the mission of the church by honoring and praying for his pastor and investing his time, strength and gifts.
- A promise keeper transcends race and denomination barriers to show the power of biblical unity.
- A promise keeper influences the world through obedience to the great commandment (Mark 12.30-31) and the great commission (Matthew 28: 19-20).
literature
- Heinrich Christian Rust : Promise Keepers - men who keep their word. When dreams come true. Projektion J Buch- und Musikverlag , 1997, ISBN 3-89490-223-X (93 pages)
- Promise Keepers (Ed.): The Seven Promise Keepers. Projektion J Buch- und Musikverlag, 1997, ISBN 3-89490-222-1 (312 pages)