Promise Keepers are planning a rally in St. Petersburg, Florida in October of 1999. "Contracts still have to be signed and they plan 15 events in the Tampa Bay area.
Much is being said today about the financial woes of Promise Keepers but they seem to be maintaining with donations from churches and volunteers who want them to keep up with it.
"While introducing Washington, McCartney stressed the urgency of meeting Promise Keeper's objective to unite all the churches by the end of the millennium. This, he said, amounted to four hundred twenty-one churches per day that would need to join Promise Keeper's agenda. To do this, Promise Keepers needs a staff.
"What is in the heart of God and what He is asking us to do now is turn to the church to support bringing the body together. I feel the Lord is asking the churches to give $1,000 each." (McCartney's Vision 2000 speech at Pastor's Conference, Portland, Oregon)
Media Spotlight has the most comprehensive information about the Promise Keeper movement. In their issue Vol. 21 - No. 2, I'll touch some of the important recent highlights. The Moses Complex which McCartney indulges in with his authoritarian model, when speakers from Promise Keepers equate the role of pastors - both men and women - to that of Moses - accountable to no one but God. Crawford Loritts stressed that deacons don't have power over pastors. Rick Kingham said: "I believe that God is calling the men and women of God - leaders, the pastors, the shepherds, the priests, the rabbis - he is calling us anyone who is leading churches today.. to a greater commitment of prayer than we have ever experienced before."
All saints are to be submissive to God's Word.. There is no Scriptural precedence (other than how it is read into the Word by ecclesiastical authorities, infallible head pastors. That is papacy on a smaller scale. In the process of placing the pastors in the role of Moses, Promise Keepers proposes that the pastors, like Moses, can "change God's mind." Crawford Loritts stated: "the Scripture says (and I have checked it out in the original) that because of Moses' intimate communion and relationship with, he changed God's mind." Exodus 32:9-14 does seem to indicate that.. But if that is the case, then had Moses not changed God's mind, God would have broken His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Israel? This, God could never have done.
McCartney made an amazing statement about authority. It is an outgrowth of knowledge, which results in the ability to take people where they cannot take themselves. "There is a principle in the heart of God that says knowledge always converts to authority. I suggest to you that when a man has been born again, there is something that God has placed in him that is hungering and thirsting for you [pastor] to take him [man] where he can't take himself. Take him deeper. He needs you to divide the Word for him. He needs you to open it up. He needs you to draw him in. He will give it up for you - for the Gospel. This suggests that believers cannot go where God wants them go unless they go where the pastor wants to go. In other words, the pastor's vision is God's vision in all cases, and the individual's relationship to the Father is predicated upon his relationship to the pastor. By placing pastors in the role of spiritual mediators, Promise Keepers destroys the Father-son relationship that Jesus died to establish.
"And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give [it] you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father. At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God." (John 16:23-27)
In the context of the above promise Jesus tells us that our relationship with the Father guarantees us His truth through the ministry of the Holy Spirit [not men]: "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, [that] shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come." (John 16:13) It is the privilege of all sons of God to enter without reservation into His presence because of intercession by Christ on our behalf:
"Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." (Hebrews 4:16) (write to Media Spotlight, ask for Vol 21 - No 2 PO Box 290 - Redmond, WA 98073-0290 for the rest of the article)