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"...after most ICOC leaders rejected and opposed our efforts to call out a remnant to revive the ICOC, God put on the hearts of my dear brother Steve Johnson and many others to urge me to begin again."
-- Kip McKean, City of Angels International Church website
July 5, 2007
Less than 5 years after being pushed out as top leader of the Los Angeles-based International Churches of Christ (ICC/ICOC), a movement he founded, Kip McKean returned to LA, leading a "mission team" in early April to found the new City Of Angels International Christian Church. As documented in recent articles on the City Of Angels website, McKean once again is leading a movement of churches, currently numbering twenty, and using the same title of World Missions Evangelist he held as leader of the ICC. It appears McKean has rallied a new movement to himself by using all his past methods, with little changed.
"Like Joshua, who saw all the sins and mistakes in the 40 years of wandering in the desert, we have learned from our own sins and mistakes." -- Kip McKean
[Note: This article doesn't have a section called "What has changed" in McKean's International Christian Church movement, for the simple reason that McKean's groups have no statements of change listing former practices they have dropped.]
Kip McKean says he and the leaders of his new movement have learned from the past, but it appears very little has changed about his new movement. He certainly does not seem to have changed.
The methods that McKean has used to consolidate his new movement have not changed, and are eerily similar to what led to the ICC (see the The Boston Era summary on the reveal.org website), and what led to the Crossroads Movement (see the Crossroads Era summary on reveal.org). McKean himself was baptized at Crossroads.
McKean's teachings do not seem to have changed (though he is now quoting more Old Testament scriptures to support the same ideas). He still teaches one generation evangelism of the world, based on one of his idiosyncratic interpretations of the Bible. He still uses the same recruitment Bible study series he devised in Boston, which we have analyzed in detail on this site.
In a more recent example McKean repackaging old teachings, an approximately 800-word section of an article recently posted to his new LA church website is copied nearly verbatim from another McKean article published last year in Portland -- he merely reframed the old article and published it as new.
McKean's habit of misquoting of scripture hasn't changed. McKean now writes that "God, through this pouring of 'new wine into old wineskins,' created a new movement…" Perhaps he forgot that Jesus said:
And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins. (Mark 2:22)
McKean's tendency to revise history (or at least to portray it in the most personally-favorable light) has not changed. In one recent article, McKean writes that "After publicly apologizing for our sins and shortcomings in the open letter, Revolution through Restoration III, God sent us to Portland, Oregon to be healed and rekindle our faith!" The timing here is false. McKean had already apparently started in Portland by this time, as he actually mentioned his work in Portland several times in Revolution through Restoration III, and in fact signed the letter "Kip McKean, Evangelist and fellow servant of Christ, Portland, Oregon" [emphasis added]. McKean now writes that "…in April 2003, the LA leadership asked us to leave the ministry, since we no longer shared the same vision and convictions." Actually, the full story is not that simple. McKean ceased leading the ICC starting with a sabbatical beginning in November 2001, and officially resigned from senior ICC leadership in November 2002, saying that his leadership had damaged the church. Later it was revealed he had been asked to resign.
McKean's habit of making his own will out to be God's has not changed. McKean wrote in Revolution through Restoration III that "my most devastating sin was claiming God's victory as mine." While there may be truth in that, one of the greatest dangers of Kip McKean is that he manipulatively claims his own victories to be God's. In this way he creates an aura of divine involvement in his charade of conquest, deception and manipulation:
"On Sunday May 6, 2007, God moved in our inaugural service for the City of Angels International Christian Church as 324 were in attendance!"
"It has now been seven weeks since the Holy Spirit sent a Portland Mission Team to plant the City of Angels International Christian Church. During this brief time, God has more than doubled our number…"
"…His great cause to evangelize the [world] in our generation! Come and gather from the nations to define this hour, future generations and eternity."
While McKean likes to end messages saying "To God be the glory," considering how he frames his own intentions of God's, he may as well say "To Kip be the glory!"
"The truly 'sold-out' disciples must be willing to lose sleep, lose money, lose relationships – even lose their own lives – for the sake of the truth and for the sake of spreading the truth." -- DJ Comisford, Associate Evangelist, City of Angels Christian Church
McKean has always been clever at differentiating his church from similar ones (see Disciples' Baptism). To distinguish his new movement today from the ICC churches that no longer follow him, McKean has adopted a new term, saying that "'sold-out' baptized disciples compose God's church universal." McKean says that the "sold out" out term is necessary because "so many have cheapened the word 'disciple'". In truth, "sold out" is just a new term for the "total commitment" doctrine/slogan that has been used in McKean's movements going all the way back to Crossroads. McKean now writes, "To be 'fully committed' is to be sold-out."
Another way of looking at "sold out"/total commitment is that it is a subjective standard that can be used to manipulate people. In the REVEAL article "Control Mechanisms in the ICC", Keith Stump concluded that this total commitment doctrine was central to the abuses of McKean's ICC, and that reform was not possible without removing this doctrine:
The crux of the matter, that element of the ICC that empowers the control mechanisms, is the doctrine that one must be totally committed in order to be saved. As I have already demonstrated, this doctrine is not merely being well-committed nor fully devoted. In practice, the doctrine becomes a matter of being committed BEYOND the capacity of a human being WHILE it is SIMULTANEOUSLY maintained [that] such a level is the minimum level necessary for salvation. As long as this doctrine remains intact, no amount of leadership change nor other reforms will stop the abuse of the ICC.
But, one might say, does not the Bible teach that one must love God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength? Yes, it does. But it does not teach that one must do more than that. The ICC teaches that one must be committed beyond one's capacity - even if it does not officially say so in such terse terms. Therefore, in practice, the doctrine of total commitment morphs into a commandment to be devoted to the ICC (supposedly God, but redirected onto the ICC, as mentioned in Section I) with more than all of one's heart, mind, soul and strength….
The very foundation of the ICC's doctrine of salvation consists of an impossible-to-obtain level of piety as a requisite for receiving and maintaining salvation. This is why reform efforts have to be massive to be of significant value: they must change the foundation of the ICC in order to stop the abusive control.
[bold emphasis added]
Note that McKean is still using the total commitment doctrine under a new name ("sold out"), inevitably to manipulate people. In a recent City of Angels article, McKean says "grumbling" and "bitterness" (McKean-speak for any complaints or dissatisfaction with leadership) will send people to hell:
"…grumbling and bitterness among disciples indicates a "non-sold-out" heart. These sins cause people's hearts to drift from God (Hebrews 2:1-2) and their sold-out commitment of "Jesus is Lord" confessed at baptism. (Romans 10:9-13, Acts 22:16) Ultimately, if there is no repentance, they will lose their salvation."
It seems that the only real way to be considered "sold out" in McKean's eyes is to join his latest movement, and do whatever he says.
Aligned with McKean in the "Portland Discipling Movement" are several other churches. It has become more confusing than ever to identify a McKean-aligned church by name alone, since they range from "Church of Christ" to "International Church of Christ" to "International Christian Church." "International Christian Church" seems to the preferred name for future movement churches.
Interestingly, one leader currently joined with McKean's LA church as a non-staff person is former ICC "Kingdom Teacher" Marty Wooten. Wooten in 2003 was among the first ICC leaders to defend Henry Kriete for Kreite's letter that was a catalyst for the crumbling of the ICC. Wooten wrote a letter praising Kreite for his courage and leadership. McKean, on the other hand, has been sharply critical of Kriete, accusing him of "bitterness," "misinformation" and having "poisoned" members toward leaders.
Below is a listing of movement churches and leaders from the City of Angels church directory.
Sources:
Kip McKean, "Sold-Out" Disciples, October 8, 2006, portlandchurch.org.
McKean, Welcome Home, May 5, 2007, cityofangelsicc.org.
McKean, Tear Down This Wall!, May 19, 2007, cityofangelsicc.org.
McKean, Sold-Out Disciples, May 27, 2007, cityofangelsicc.org
McKean, World Missions Jubilee, June 9, 2007, cityofangelsicc.org.
DJ Comisford, Blanket Statements, June 12, 2007, cityofangelsicc.org.
Marty and Cathy Wooten, Why I Am A Member Of The City of Angels Christian Church (Part One), June 24, 2007, cityofangelsicc.org.
Copyright © 2007 Dave Anderson. All rights reserved.
