Thousands of Women Expected at Rally

By the tens of thousands, evangelical Christians are expected to pour into the Rose Bowl next weekend to praise Jesus and listen to exhortations to follow their Lord.

But you would be wrong to assume this is another massive stadium event staged by Promise Keepers, the nationwide evangelical men’s group. In fact, you wouldn’t even have the gender right.

This group calls itself Chosen Women. Six years after Promise Keepers tapped a well of unmet male yearnings for spiritual direction and purpose, women are coming together to focus on their own lives and how they fit--or don’t fit--into what organizers call God’s plan.

Backers of the event are calling the gathering historic. Never before, they said, have so many women come together in a stadium to “celebrate their faith, rejoice and pray together.”

Their message is as old as the Gospel: Wherever women find themselves, they are called to follow God’s will. Backers hope the conference will encourage women to look at their lives and ask if they are living for themselves or for God.

For the most part, conference speakers will be preaching to the choir. Most women attending are expected to be evangelical Christians drawn from churches around the country. But organizers also hope they attract former churchgoers and non-Christian women as well.

Based on their latest estimates, Chosen Women is expecting less than 55,000 participants, about half the predictions made in March. That won’t fill the Rose Bowl, which seats 100,000.

Still such a turnout would be a welcome sight to organizers. No one has been any more astonished at the apparent widespread interest than the woman organizing the event, Susan Kimes of Tustin, a founder of the Network of Evangelical Women in Ministry, a 12-year-old group that sponsors retreats and other events to support and encourage women in Christian ministries.

Kimes, the 49-year-old mother of three grown sons, recalled how she broke the news to her husband in July 1995.

“It’s not easy walking up to your husband and say this is what I believe the Lord is asking me to do. Is it OK to rent a stadium? I had to have pretty strong feelings about this,” she said.

Backers hope that costs for the two-day event, as much as $850,000, will be raised by registration fees. But Kimes said several anonymous donors have guaranteed to cover any shortfall.

The rally’s speakers include:

* Jill Briscoe, an author and a director of World Relief and Christianity Today magazine

* Elisabeth Elliot, an author

* Anne Graham Lotz, an author, founder of AnGel Ministries and a director of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Assn.

* Bunny Wilson, an author and speaker.

* Alaina Reed-Hall, known for her role as “Olivia” on television’s Sesame Street and as “Rose” on NBC’s 227 show.

A video featuring remarks by Ruth Bell Graham, the wife of evangelist Billy Graham, will also be shown.

The speakers, Chosen Women spokeswoman Joanne Herdrich said, won’t be proscribing roles for women. That, she said, is between women and God.

Kimes said, for example, that she agrees with what many see as a biblical model of the family with “male headship.” But she said she would never suggest that a woman’s place is always in the home.

“I love Scripture and I believe God has given us a model. But cultures change and the Lord is in that,” said Kimes, who has been married 32 years. From 1985 to 1989, Kimes, 49, was director of women’s ministry at Calvary Church in Santa Ana.

“We just need to ask God, ‘Where would you have us?’ and be obedient to that,” she said. “I think it would be different for every woman, because God is not in the habit of putting us in boxes.”

But too often, she said, Christian women go about their lives with little or no thought about whether they are living according to God’s will.

Unhappiness can result from straying from the faith, she said. “I think that shows with all the divorces. . . . Also, in areas of abusing one another with words, the emotional despair. God has a different plan than that,” she said. “I believe that we’re not confronting one another in love.”

Nonetheless, women tend to have different issues from those faced by men at Promise Keepers rallies. A primary difference, Herdrich said, is in the area of commitment. Men are continually exhorted to be “promise keepers instead of promise breakers,” for example.

“We’re not struggling with our family commitments,” Herdrich said. “That’s a difference. Women tend to almost live with that. We don’t have a problem with a commitment necessarily. But I think we tend to do a lot of things in the name of Christ. We keep real busy volunteering. We’re attending Bible studies. We’re going to church on Sunday. But that heartfelt passion and closeness to God is missing a lot of the time--and we don’t know how to get it.”

Kimes said she does not know whether the Rose Bowl gathering will be a one-of-a-kind event or will be repeated. That, she said, is up to God.

“This started with a longing and a desire to see women come together in unity to praise and worship our Lord and savior Jesus Christ,” she said.

“It’s very frightening in some respects,” she added. “But I know if I turned away from it, I’d be absolutely disobedient.”

The Rose Bowl gates open at 4 p.m. Friday. That day’s events begin at 6:30 p.m. and end at 9:30 p.m. The Saturday schedule runs from 9 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Walk-up registration is $71. For more information, call (714) 245-2591.