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About the ICC
Of course, this entire Web site is full of information about the International Churches of Christ (ICC, ICOC). This section provides a historical overview.
The ICC movement grew from the “mainline” Churches of Christ. Traits typifying the mainline Churches of Christ -- the largest branch from the 19th Century Restoration Movement -- included their goal of "restoring" the First Century, New Testament church; their sola scriptura (Bible only) emphasis; their teaching of adult baptism by immersion for the forgiveness of sins and their aversion to formal creeds of belief or practice.
The ICC also rose from an era of Christian "shepherding" churches, which during the 1960s and 1970s used the practice of putting personal spiritual overseers (shepherds) in the lives of their members. Certain Charismatic (e.g. Pentecostal) groups used shepherding techniques until the idea fell out of favor in the 1970s after repeated problems with authority abuses by shepherds. (1)
Mainline Church of Christ doctrine and shepherding techniques were blended at a Gainesville, Florida church, where a Church of Christ launched an initiative "to penetrate the Campus of the University of Florida with the Gospel of Christ." (2) The man most responsible for this innovation, campus minister Chuck Lucas, implemented “discipling” techniques such as "prayer partners" and "soul talks," with an emphasis on evangelistic recruiting and the spiritual accountability of members to other members. Among Lucas’ reported influences were the US Campus Crusade movement, and a book written by evangelical Christian author Robert Coleman called The Master Plan of Evangelism.(3) (Coleman in an interview has since opposed the Crossroads/ICC interpretation of his book.)
Discipling techniques and mainline Church of Christ doctrine proved to be an explosive mixture. Lucas’ campus ministry grew rapidly. By this time known as the Crossroads Church of Christ, the Gainesville church also faced intense criticism from the media and former members for alleged spiritual abuse. Crossroads’ sphere of influence increased nonetheless, as it began training campus ministers for deployment around the United States.
The Crossroads Movement’s most notable convert, future ICC founder Kip McKean, was baptized April 11, 1972 as a 17-year-old college freshman and was discipled by Chuck Lucas.
McKean was hired as a campus minister at the Heritage Chapel Church of Christ in Charleston, Illinois in 1976. Controversy followed McKean, and his sponsor church in Houston withdrew financial support from McKean and his Charleston co-minister Roger Lamb in a letter from the elders:
We believe that Brother McKean has brought unBiblical practices, peculiar language, and subtle, deceitful doctrines to Charleston from the Crossroads church at Gainesville, Florida.
Both ministers [Kip McKean and Roger Lamb] constantly refused to admit there was even a problem, and they refused to accept a warning about where some “minor departures” would lead (even in Charleston).
….we are left with no choice but to immediately terminate our association with both Roger and Kip. (6)
McKean and Lamb stayed on in Charleston and the Charleston elders raised financial support for them elsewhere, although years later one of these elders said that they had had their own serious reservations about the techniques being used by Lamb and McKean. (7) Today the Heritage Chapel Church of Christ no longer exists.
In June, 1979, Kip McKean was invited to lead the Lexington, Massachusetts Church of Christ and he brought Crossroads methodology with him. A new outgrowth of the Crossroads movement began from "thirty would-be disciples." Rapid growth followed and the group soon called itself the Boston Church of Christ. Eventually, criticism from former members and the Boston media would also follow.
In Boston, McKean built upon the Crossroads concept of “prayer partners” – a buddy system for spiritual growth and monitoring – to come up with “discipleship partners,” a similar system but with partners chosen by leadership rather than the members themselves. (8) McKean claims that in early 1982, God placed on his heart a plan to evangelize the world. (9) As the Boston Church of Christ began "planting" other churches around the world during the 80s, they became collectively known as the “Boston Movement,” with Boston as the hub and "mother church." At this time, the Boston Movement remained in fellowship with mainline Churches of Christ and still considered them "saved" bretheren. During this same period, Boston “reconstructed” mainline Churches of Christ by controversially imposing its discipling methodology and bringing these churches under the authority of McKean and Boston. The Boston Movement and mainline Churches of Christ ceased fellowship around 1987. The Movement changed many of its core doctrines around this time (see Changing Tunes).
McKean in 1988 appointed several of his most loyal and talented leaders to be his "Focused Few," (10) later to be called “World Sector Leaders,” each of whom was assigned a portion of the world to evangelize. In June 1989, McKean stepped down as Boston Lead Evangelist to assume a new position as World Missions Evangelist, working with new congregation plantings “as [the Apostle] Paul had done in the first century.” (11)
Los Angeles replaced Boston as the “flagship” church for the movement soon after McKean moved to Los Angeles in January 1990 and took over the movement’s new Los Angeles Church of Christ. (13) In 1991, the movement's charitable arm, HOPE Worldwide, was founded, and has since enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship with the church (see The ICC and HOPE Worldwide). The movement officially took the name “International Churches of Christ” in 1993. (14)
Criticism of the ICC continued from former members and in media stories around the world. In 1994, an entire ICC congregation -- the Indianapolis Church of Christ -- was split in two as the ICC disenfranchised hundreds of members for attempting reform in the local church.
To commit the ICC formally to McKean's goal of world evangelism within one generation, McKean authored the Evangelization Proclamation, signed by his World Sector Leaders on February 4, 1994. (15) The Proclamation charged the ICC to plant a church in every nation worldwide with a city of at least 100,000 people by the year 2000. The Evangelization Proclamation goal was completed in July of 2000, at which time the ICC claimed over 120,000 members. The ICC then shifted its focus to the “Beyond 2000 Plan,” which called for the ICC to plant churches in the world’s remaining nations, and to plant additional churches in nations where the ICC was already established. (16)
The ICC entered a period of declining growth, and then leadership crisis. On November 11, 2001, it was announced that Kip McKean and his wife Elena would take a sabbatical from day-to-day leadership to work on "serious shortcomings in [their] marriage and family." In November 2002, Kip McKean resigned his positions of World Missions Evangelist and leader of the ICC World Sector leaders, apologizing for leadership sins, but not renouncing the elaborate system of ICC teachings and practices he helped to create.
The ICC crisis escalated in early 2003, when a letter called Honest to God was written by veteran ICC evangelist and author Henry Kriete, and distributed by others quickly around the globe. Kriete's letter spoke openly about "four systemic evils" in ICC leadership, and called for massive reform. Many ICC congregations did reform in various degrees and the ICC's central leadership dissolved.
Also in 2003, Kip McKean resurfaced as evangelist of the Portland (Oregon) Church of Christ, using nearly identical teachings and practices and planting other churches in the state of Oregon. In 2005, McKean called for ICC churches to unite behind Portland in a new push to evangelize the world, or risk having a McKean-controlled church planted in the same city (17). For the first time, McKean was then publicly opposed by multiple ICC churches and called "divisive," leading to a split in the movement.
Today, the ICC remains a splintered movement with many of the unhealthy dynamics of its past.
Because this Web site makes many criticisms of the International Churches of Christ, it must also acknowledge that not everything about the ICC is negative. In fact, it has notable strengths. Here are ten positive things about the ICC:
1. The members are sincere. The ICC's members are largely well-intentioned, very committed people mostly trying to do what they think is right.
2. The leaders are talented. The ICC has recruited a strong and talented leadership. ICC leaders are typically bright, charismatic people who are strong communicators. Many of the ICC's leaders are just as sincere as the typical ICC member.
3. The group is conscientious. The organization has taken the assumption that "we're the only organization that's saved" and is trying to do something about it (i.e. evangelize the world). Although we'd like to see the organization banish this wrong assumption, it is admirable that the ICC's actions are often in line with its convictions.
4. The organization is efficient. Top-down, hierarchical authority produces a few benefits, and efficiency is one of them (it is no wonder the military chooses to organize itself that way).
5. The group fosters close relationships. In an age when many people have lost touch with any kind of immediate community, the ICC gives members something to belong to and feel a part of. In fact, many members seem to stay for the relationships and not because of the group's doctrine or practice.
6. The organization's scale is impressive. It is impressive that the ICC has achieved such size and reach since its founding in the 1970s.
7. The group promotes some admirable spiritual principles. Because the ICC uses the Bible as the basis for certain practices and teachings, members can learn things that benefit their personal or spiritual lives.
8. The organization is innovative. While some of the ICC's practices (e.g. discipling) actually have their roots in previous groups, the ICC has its own share of innovations (e.g. daytime ministries in large cities), which make it different than your typical "church down the street."
9. Services and events can be exciting. Designed to inspire, ICC services can be captivating and motivating.
10. The group is diverse. Global, multiracial, and for the most part not plagued by discrimination, the ICC often sets a good example for other organziations with its diversity.
The rest of this website will share viewpoints often critical of the ICC. These "bad points" do not contradict the good -- both are there, often simultaneously, often inseparable (in fact, some of the good points may have negative "side effects"). Once readers have fully researched the ICC, they can decide for themselves whether the good really outweighs the bad.
Click one of the blue nav buttons above the top of this frame to begin browsing the site.
Notes:
(1) Don Vinzant, “Roots of the Modern Discipling Movement” in The Discipling Dilemma, Flavil Yeakley, Ed., Gospel Advocate Co., Nashville, 1988, p. 130-134.
(2) 14th Street Church of Christ, Campus Advance: A Stratery to Penetrate the Campus of the University of Florida with the Gospel of Christ, September 15, 1967.
(3) Robert E. Coleman, The Master Plan of Evangelism, 30th Anniversary Edition, Fleming H. Revell, Grand Rapids, MI, 1993.
(6) Delbert Burkhart, chairman of elders, Memorial Church of Christ, letter written to Heritage Chapel Church of Christ in Charleston, April 14, 1977.
(7) Reginald Replogle telephone conversation with the author, February 15, 1999.
(8) Kip McKean (Founder), “Revolution Through Restoration: From Jerusalem to Rome: From Boston to Moscow,” Upside Down, Issue Two, 1992, p. 8.
(9) Kip McKean, "Revolution Through Restoration II," icoc.org, 1994.
(10) Kip McKean, “The Focused Few,” Boston Church of Christ bulletin, Vol. IX, No. 35, Boston, MA, September 4, 1988.
(11) Tom Jones & Roger Lamb (Editor-in-Chief, Director of Media), “You Might Be Fighting God,” First Principles, 1993.
(13) Los Angeles Church of Christ, Kip McKean and Elena Garcia-McKean biography, losangeles.icoc.org, 1998.
(14) Kip McKean & Elena McKean, memo to Lead Evangelists and Women's Ministry Leaders, July 22, 1993.
(15) Kip McKean and World Sector Leaders, “The Evangelization Proclamation,” Upside Down, Issue 11, August 1994, centerfold.
(16) International Churches of Christ, “1997: Beyond 2000,” LA Story, August 1999, p. 9.
(17) Kip McKean, "The Portland Story," portlandchurch.org, August 21, 2005.
Copyright © 2001-2005 Dave Anderson. All rights reserved.
