For a few rare seconds, the only sound in the Pepsi Center is the rustling of 10,000 Bibles.
The rest of the Promise Keepers rally rocks along with a chain saw-wielding speaker, a rowdy basketball skit and men in sports T-shirts cheering wildly for God.
Shouts of “Amen” and “Hooah” echo through the arena, where men sip soda from the concession booths and wear magenta rubber Promise Keepers bracelets with their jeans.
The two-day, $69 conference in Denver, the home base of the Christian men’s organization, was one of the last stops on Promise Keepers’ 21-city schedule – the most ambitious since 1999. The Denver “awakening” drew about 10,000 people from as far as New Mexico, Nebraska and Wyoming, though organizers would have liked to sell out at 14,000, spokesman Steve Chavis said.
Promise Keepers expects to finish the year with a total attendance of 175,000, far below its peak of 1.1 million in 1996.
The organization might never reach that number again, president Tom Fortson said.
“That was a movement of God,” he said. “We can’t explain that.”
But it’s not about the numbers, said Fortson, who took over for former University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney in 2003.
“We’re trying to get guys into the kingdom of God,” he said.
Still, Promise Keepers is planning to target college students and minorities, Fortson said. An event solely in Spanish is planned next year in Houston.
Fortson called the nonprofit organization’s financial situation “marginal,” but certainly improved since 1998, when it had to furlough its entire staff for six weeks.
Ron Montano, who drove from Albuquerque, wished he had brought his girlfriend’s son to see so many men devoted to Christ.
“I’m going to go home and light a fire under ’em,” said Montano, who says he found religion in a jail cell.
He loves that Promise Keepers teaches men to take responsibility for their lives, he said.
“Men need to be the leaders of the household,” Montano said. “It’s like the man is the head, and the woman is the body. I can’t wait till God brings me a good Christian woman in my life. It’s going to be over. I might even be pastor Ron.”
Gary Klein, chaplain for the Christian Motorcyclists Association’s Aurora chapter, said Promise Keepers shows men that it’s OK to ask each other for help.
“It’s to lovingly – and lovingly isn’t a word men usually use – help other men along,” he said. “It’s to help us be better fathers, sons, husbands.”
In a designated prayer room, where a loaf of bread and a plastic bottle of grape juice sit on a table, volunteers gather in shifts to pray for the men in the arena. Many volunteers are women.
“We love our men,” said prayer manager Rose Opp, whose husband and three adult sons attended the conference. “We know that if the men get saved, usually the whole family does.”
Staff writer Jennifer Brown can be reached at 303-820-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com.
