SID: Hello Sid Roth your investigative reporter, with coach Bill McCartney, and I am so excited about what he has been telling me about football, how God can go into football, whether it is college football, professional football, but if he can go into football he can take over any situation. Promise Keepers – You started with just a few men, gathering early in the morning. Tell me about the first meeting of Promise Keepers.
BILL: Well, what happened was, I had felt like the Lord had prompted me, to go out and ask men to come together, That God would bless it. So I used, you know as a football coach your month off is July, that is how we did it anyway; so I took the whole month of July and drove throughout the state of Colorado, and knocked on doors of churches and asked pastors if they would send their men to a special event on the last Saturday of July? Forty-two hundred men showed up; it was off the charts. No one had ever seen, just men, that many just worship God. Six hundred men got saved. It was just a magnificent setting all together. And I was standing by the stage waiting to be reintroduced to close out the program and as I was standing there looking at the men, and I had felt like God whispered to me, well tell me what you see? And I said God, I see guys that are excited about the gospel of Jesus Christ; this is amazing really. And he said well what else do you see? And I said well, they are almost all white guys. He said you get up and tell them; because we had been talking about filling the stadium next year with fifty thousand guys. These guys were going to go out and get these guys. He said you get up and tell them that if they fill that stadium up with fifty thousand white guys, I ain’t coming.
SID: Yeah, what good is fifty thousand if God doesn’t show?
BILL: So I got up there, you know I’m a football coach; you can get away with things! I got up there and I said God said to tell us if we fill this stadium with fifty thousand white guys he’s not coming. Well I got under attack. They said you just violated God’s Word. God’s word says when two or more gather in my name I am there, but I hadn’t violated his Word, because when two or more gather in his name, you gather in the fullness of his heart. And the heart of God is that all his sons would be represented, and so in my mind that was the line in the sand. And when we stepped over that line that is when God really released the anointing on the ministry, and it exploded after that.
SID: It was so important to God to have this unity,
BILL: Yes,
SID: Among races, so important to God to have this unity among denominations just out of curiosity the thing that I admire the most about how God has used you, is you have pulled off something that I don’t know anyone else has. You have gotten charismatics, non-charismatics, Catholics, Protestants, black, white, Hispanic. All of these groups together; how did you pull it off without having it all explode?
BILL: Really that is how you know God is in it. Again you always know,
SID: When it is bigger than you
BILL: Right because no one can do this.
SID: No
BILL: But what was in our heart was the bonding of the brotherhood. What was in our heart was, the father heart of God is for us to come together across the boundaries and barriers and to worship Jesus Christ in that setting; and that is what happened at Promise Keepers. And to my mind that is the most purest and most powerful thing that happened.
SID: How many pastors did you get together in Promise Keepers?
BILL: In 1996 we has forty thousand pastors come to the…
SID: Did you hear that, forty thousand pastors, from all different backgrounds black, white, Hispanic, Asian; I mean, do you know how many people that represents coach?
BILL: Really.
SID: Okay, but what happened?
BILL: Well it was a three day event and on the third day there was a about a forty five minute time frame where the Shekinah glory came; I am telling you the glory of God came down over that place. I have never in my life experienced anything quite like that. It was euphoric, it was like there was a time when everybody was just like, time was suspended, I think there is something in the father heart of God for his Shepherds. You know the highest calling that anyone can have in their life is to be called to divide the word of God, to lead the sheep. And so when these guys came like that, the power of God came over that place.
SID: But you found out at your events that there was one significant people group that was left out, tell me about that.
BILL: Well quite frankly, the Messianic community the Jewish believers, they were there, but somehow in the exchange they were compromised. They were only introduced after the fact; it was shameful. And really it was right there at that pastor’s conference, when really they should’ve been first when they should have been honored, they weren’t. But that was so sobering, and so convicting that we have never really ever been the same as a result of that omission. In other words, it was called to our attention, and when we realized what happened, we really did repent. And I know that the way that God has worked in my heart, was really a result of that happening.
SID: Now you left Promise Keepers – why and what did you do?
BILL: Well what happened was, we had another pastor’s conference; it was in Phoenix, Arizona and it was in February of 2003. And the first, it was a three day conference; there were about ten thousand pastors there. But this night the first night, the Messianic community did come forward; they told us it’s the first time in 1700 years that the church has properly recognized them. And when that event ended I felt like the Lord said step back. And I can honestly tell you I haven’t one time even had a little inkling to go back. The Lord told me that I was done, and he showed me – I went into the waiting room; those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.
SID: I will tell you what, hold that thought; when he was in the waiting room, he heard what I believe is the catalyst for the last and the greatest move of Gods Spirit in history. Don’t go away we will be right back.
