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The Christian men's movement was never as big as some imagined, nor is it now as small as some may think. In the 1990s, Promise Keepers (PK) stumbled across the idea of the century by bringing men together in environments where they already felt comfortable: football stadiums. It has since become the most visible representative of the men's movement in America, drawing millions of men for weekends of bonding, worship, and spiritual teaching.

In 1996 the group marked its highest cumulative attendance of about 1 million at 22 events. In October 1997, nearly 1 million men gathered on the Washington Mall for the historic "Stand in the Gap" prayer meeting. This year about 13,000 men attended the group's 100th conference at Pittsburgh's Mellon Arena on June 23–24—a far cry from the scads of sweaty guys that packed stadiums during PK's heyday in the '90s.

Today's PK rallies have largely moved from stadiums to arenas. PK has cut staff members from its apex of about 400 nationwide to about 90 this year; annual budgets of around $100 million are now trimmed to about $30 million. This is exactly what PK leaders themselves predicted would happen. It is part of a natural and needed evolution in the nature of the men's movement.

Perhaps more telling of PK's evolution, and that of the larger men's movement, is the recent change in PK's vision statement. PK leaders say that more is needed than stadium gatherings: men need regular one-on-one contact that only the local church can render. The revised vision statement reads: "Impacting churches to transform their cities by equipping leaders to disciple men in the masculine context." PK is recognizing what God already is doing. "We've left the stadiums and we're going to the churches," says Chuck Brew ster, director of HonorBound, the men's ministry department of the Assemblies of God. "You can't operate outside of the churches."

As a former businessman and now president of Man in the Mirror, an Orlando-based men's ministry, I've spoken to tens of thousands of men. I've discovered that today's average American male is desperate for Christ but doesn't know it. Consider this comment from Rick: "At 38, I had it all. I opened the package I had worked on for all those years, and it was empty." Then there's James, 55. "I need organized religion," he says. "I need to get back in the fold. I need to get back to where I belong."

What such men lack, only churches can adequately supply for the long term. "Men need to go to church," Brewster says. "To have men just go to the Shoney's once a week—I don't think that is scriptural." Men do need Shoney's-type gatherings; most meaningful change takes place in the context of Christ-centered relationships. Still, the best way to create and sustain these relationships is through the local church.

Respected Christian pollster George Barna recently said that no significant movement of God really occurred among men during the last decade. In fact, he said, the condition of American men declined. "Some good things have happened among men during the 1990s," says Barna's report, The State of the Church, 2000, "but it does not appear that there has been massive reawakening of the male soul in the last ten years."

Among America's 94 million men, only 26 million attend church, and 85 percent of all currently unchurched men were previously churchgoers, Barna says. He notes a small proportional increase in American men who claim to be "born again," but he adds that church attendance, Sunday-school attendance, and church volunteerism are down among men.

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September 4 2000, Vol. 44, No. 10