National evangelical women’s groups continue to mushroom, and this could be the year they achieve the huge success that has marked the Promise Keepers men’s movement.
The most ambitious undertaking may be that of Chosen Women: Daughters of the King. The new Pasadena, California-based group hopes to attract 80,000 women to the Rose Bowl May 16-17 with speakers such as Ruth Graham, Anne Graham Lotz, and Jill Briscoe.
Women of Faith Joyful Journey meetings nationwide are expected to draw 150,000 women in arenas and stadiums in 13 cities this year. They are sponsored by New Life Clinics, the mental health-care provider with headquarters in Laguna Beach, California.
“It was time for the clinics to do something for women in America [to] help them celebrate life and God’s grace,” says New Life’s Stephen Arterburn.
Several speakers on the Women of Faith circuit are best known as humor writers, including Patsy Clairmont, Barbara Johnson, and Luci Swindoll.
But it is the agreements that Women of Faith has forged with existing ministries that may give it the staying power to outlast other Promise Keeper complements. Zondervan is producing a Women of Faith Bible and study guides; Integrity Music is planning worship music products; and Campus Crusade’s Women Today International will provide follow-up materials.
Women of Faith executive director Pamela McCann, based in Richardson, Texas, says the organization’s mission “is to help edify, encourage, renew, and unify women in their commitment to God.”
Other groups that have sprung up in recent months include Heritage Keepers and Keys for Abundant Living: A Promise Keepers Counterpart (CT, July 16, 1996, p. 63); Suitable Helpers of Wheat Ridge, Colorado; Promise Reapers of Houston; A Promise Kept of Los Angeles; and Praise Keepers of Eldon, Missouri.
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