Many years ago in another lifetime I took a group of 30 men to the first Promise Keepers event held in a football stadium. I wrote this story when I returned from the trip. It is told in 3rd person and still makes me laugh when I read it today.
A new intern at his home church, Chad has been thrust into a position of helping organize the men's trip down to the Promise Keeper's conference in Boulder, Colorado. Most of his time is spent trying to collect pre-registration fees, making room reservations, and shuffling men's names on and off the traveling list. Chad feels he has done well just getting the 30 men from Boise, Idaho to Boulder in three vans after a grueling 18-hour road trip, but then the drama really began...
The three vans park in the University parking are and men of all shapes and sizes start pouring out of the doors. The only thing in common was that they all had an opinion to express.
Man #1 - "Hey, how come nobody warned me we were going to have to park 3 miles away from the stadium. I would have worn different shoes."
Man #2 - "Ya, well nobody told me that the conference was outdoors. I would have brought a tarp and set up a shelter."
Chad has a fleeting thought of Jesus rebuking Peter for wanting to build a tabernacle for him, Moses, and Elijah on the mount of Transfiguration. He wisely decides it is not the best time for that particular object lesson.
The group of men starts heading toward the stadium. Some are walking like football fans eager for a contest, others walking slower, not sure what lay inside the quickly approaching walls of Folsum Field. Just outside of the stadium the group is accosted by a multitude of loud voices and hands full propaganda papers being thrust at them by very liberal people groups.
Man #3 - "Hey, home come nobody warned me we would be accosted by protesters? I could have brought a bull whip and cleared this area like Jesus did the Temple."
Man #4 - "At least we could have brought earplugs so we wouldn't have to listen to this garbage."
Thankfully the pressing of the crowd moved the group of men past the protesters and towards the entrance.
Man #5 - "We should have left Boise two hours earlier. We won't get any of the good seats."
Many #6 - "Well I don't need to hear any of this preliminary stuff. We should have checked in at the hotel and taken a nap until later."
The gate attendants asked all the men to show their nametags and registration forms. Needless to say, some had been left on the vans, some folded beyond recognition, and one guy could only find his Winchells doughnut card.
Man #7 - "Hey, they spelled my name wrong. I'm not going in there like this."
Another man who had only decided to come to the conference at the last minute was upset that his nametag was handwritten and not printed like the other men's.
Chad slips away from the group to head to the main gate. He looks around for the men from his church who traveled to Boulder by themselves. He was supposed to meet them at the main gate and give the their registration forms. They were nowhere in sight, at least as Chad saw at first glance. Then it dawns on him that he really didn't know these men, all he had was their names on his clipboard. Chad quickly deduces he could do one of two things: go into the information center to see if a message had been left for him, or go outside and join the vocal protesters by yelling out the names of the men he was looking for. He decides to go inside.
He was directed to the table for special messages only to find it stacked with huge piles of notes. The conference had only started 10 minutes before yet there seemed to be two or three messages for every one of the 22,000 men in attendance. Chad dutifully attacks the first pile of notes. He observes two things: most of the notes were birthday messages to someone named Martin O'Brien, and the rest were generically labeled to Dave, John, Bob, or Steve. Chad has four "Steves" in his group alone. So he gives up this futile search. He sends a prayer heavenward that these men he was abandoning were be able to talk their way past the ticket-takers.
Chad wonders if he would be able to find his group or not. When he finally enters the stadium and sees the turnout was even better than expected he thinks he has safely avoided his group until later. But then he notices pairs of piercing eyes staring in his direction. With a cover-up smile on his face, he walks over to the staircase leading to the top rows of the stadium and to his colleagues.
He reaches the group just in time to overhear some of the conversations;
Man #8 - "This elevation is too high (gasp) should have (gasp) brought oxygen."
Man #9 is sympathetic to the man. He leans over and asks Man #9 to sigh the last will and testament he had just scribbled on the back of the conference program.
Man #11 was just finishing making a comment about how cold the aluminum bleachers were and how he would have brought a padded bleacher and a blanket if he had known more about the conference details.
Chad decides it would be a good idea to leave his own blanket in his backpack for the time being and later consider if it was safe to bring it out.
The first speaker was just getting started when it began to drizzle, rain, and then pour. Chad thought it was incredible to look out across the stadium to see ever man pull out either an umbrella or Gore-Tex rain wear; all of them is except for thirty…
As the rain begins to drench the men they simultaneously look over at Chad. He responds by nervously looking down at his clipboard, acting like he is checking something official on his list.
The conference continues with great lectures and speakers who encourage the men about keeping their word, being evangelists, and developing the spiritual atmosphere in their homes. During one point a speaker encourages the men to "get down on the front room floor and wrestle with your boys." Man #12 stands up and yells back across the stadium, "are you crazy? My kid has got big and would knock the tar out of me." Chad looks over to see it was his own dad making the comment.
As the meeting concluded the opinionated discussions were once again prevalent. Half of the men wanted to go straight to the hotel and the other half want to get something to eat first. They also discuss the departure time from the hotel to the conference for the next morning. Most of the men want to leave an hour early so they could get better seats. But the "I hate the morning" group of men were very opposed to the idea. They proceeded to question the validity of worship at that early hour.
Chad was in the last van to arrive at the Denver hotel where they would be staying. He walks into the lobby only to find his entire group at the counter demanding their keys from the registration clerks. One clerk was frantically pounding the keys on a computer, one was in tears, and the third was on the phone, dialing either the manager or the Denver police.
Half an hour later Chad finishes distributing keys to 19 rooms throughout the hotel, ignoring the grumblings of the roommate selections. Only when he gets to his own room did he realize he was only prepared to pay for 17 rooms. The girls behind the reservation desk agree with Chad that it would be much easier at this point to give the two additional rooms to Chad for free if he promised to keep the men away from the front desk during the rest of their stay.
If the first day had been an example of why God decided man needed a helpmate, the second day was an example of how God has created man in His image. Upon arrival at the stadium, half the men reserved seats close to the front while the other half went to the hardware store for rain ponchos. Chad went to the registration desk to pick up that day's materials only to find the group had already done it for him. He then runs into the men that he had left outside the night before without a registration packet. He prepares himself for an earful but is greeted with a firm handshake and a hug. The front office had made them new nametags and had let them in. They were happy and enjoying the conference.
Throughout the day, Chad continues to see the men laughing and developing friendships together. By the evening session most of the men were sitting together, worshipping the Lord, shielding each other from the rain and actually enjoying this male-bonding experience.
As Chad looks out over the half stadium of people he realizes he is sitting right in the middle of the most fired up, gung-ho for Jesus men around. As the speakers encourage the men to live righteously and make a difference in this world by being men of integrity Chad's group responds with tears, nods, and shouts of assent. The group talks of returning the next year and filling up the entire stadium.
The 18-hour ride back to Boise is once again filled with opinions. This time though, they had a different flavor.
Man #1 - "That was the best conference that I've ever been to."
Man #2 - "Boulder sure was a beautiful city."
Man #3 - "The campus was a great location too."
Man #4 - "Yep, I'd even be willing to stay in the college dorm rooms."
Man #5 - "I think we may have to. The lady at the Red Lion told me their hotel is already booked."
Man #6 - "I bet we could charter a bus for next years trip, maybe even two if we had a good turn-out."
Man #7 - "We could even make scholarships available to those who can't afford to go by selling rain-gear to the other men."
Man #8 - "Next year I'll be ready to show God's love to those protesters.
Man #9 - "Yep, next year we will be prepared."
Man #10 - "Thanks for your help with this conference, Chad."
Man #11 - "Ya, kid. You are going to do alright."
Man #12 - "Want to wrestle, son?"
Afterward
The next year I returned to Boulder with two chartered busses and 90 men. We
helped fill the stadium to capacity with 50,000 men.
Register
online for the Promise Keepers Conference
