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A number of
current ICOC leaders claim the church has changed. In this section
we examine current articles, published transcripts and audio sermons by
Kip McKean and others -then- research our archives for historical quotes
expressing similar thoughts. Does history repeat itself? To
see more quotes by Topic, click here.
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Question: Is the ICOC God's true church?
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1994 - "I believe with
all my heart that the Boston Movement is God's modern-day movement. For
the past several years, through love, prayer, Bible study and intense
conversations, we have tried to pull into God's movement the remnant of
all those who are surrendered to the Scriptures and who believe God's
dream is to evangelize the world in one generation. We will continue to
seek other isolated disciples who may be members in false churches."
Revolution Through Restoration Part II: The 20th Century Church,
Kip Mckean, 1994
1994 - "Early in 1979, a group
of 30 would-be disciples gathered in the living room and commit themselves
to at that time, an ideal that had not yet been seen that the true church
would be composed of only disciples, only those people that are totally
committed to Jesus Christ and those that refuse to heed the call of Jesus
would be unwelcome in that fellowship and not recognized by God or his
human leaders." Kip McKean, 1994 Manila World Leadership
Conference, Malachi:
God's Radical Demand for Remaining Radical
1996 - "I mean the question
that the lost world and even sometimes the church asks is, why is their so
much suffering. Why is there so much EVIL ? Why is the darkness around the
world closing, tighter and tighter around us, even as we call ourselves
the true church?"
"And no-one knows you are a Christian, 'cause you got the veil up.
They don't see the light because you got the veil up. They don't know who
you really are at work, because you got the veil up and the Glory is
fading because you're afraid to be identified as a member of the Lord's
church, the true Church of Christ in Sydney."
"(in speaking of the Moscow church)..."Thursday, Friday,
Saturday, with 17 people we had 286 people there at our first service. The
next 16 days before I left we had 16 baptisms. God unleashed a historic
movement. The coup.. we didn't stop...with all the denominational weak
faithed people, that's very kind terminology for them, they just got out
of Russia. And I was happy about it because it just left the true
church right there."
"Another thing.. I'm fired.. I'm...I'm.. fired up about getting the true
church back in Jerusalem. What do you think about that? I mean of all
cities... that one."
"I'm fired up about Henry Kramer leading the team there. Say why are
you so fired up about that, see .. well Henry... well this guy's awesome.
He's president student body at my school, he's a quarterback, he went to
Stanford, one of our top universities, became a doctor and says AS AWESOME
AS ALL THOSE THINGS ARE I'M GIVING THEM UP SO I CAN LEAD A MISSION TEAM IN
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL, AND REESTABLISH THE TRUE CHURCH OF CHRIST...
DOES THAT FIRE YOU ON UP?" Kip Mckean, Sydney, Australia
Church of Christ, Oceania
Conference May 5, 1996
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2004 - "I shared
that in the past I never believed we were the only saved people. However,
in order to perpetuate God's church around the world, we could not
collectively embrace other restoration "churches" partially
composed of disciples but also tolerant of perpetual sin, lukewarmness and
non-disciples. This approach not only watered down their message and
fellowship, but also it fundamentally destroyed their ability to multiply
disciples. Churches composed of only baptized disciples can and will
reproduce disciples locally and plant "teams" of disciples in
their sphere of influence. This is still our plan in the Portland Church
and now Eugene shares the same dream. Oregon will be "evangelized in
our day!"" Kip McKean, If
You Build It They Will Come, 2004
2004 - The church universal comprises all disciples of the
world that God sees when he looks down from heaven into people's hearts,
whether they are in the ICOC, the mainline Churches of Christ
(non-instrumental), the conservative Christian Churches (instrumental), in
breakaway small groups, or a single disciple in a denominational church.
God adds baptized disciples to his "church universal." Kip
McKean, The Mandate of God for World
Evangelism Part 6, 2004
2004 - "Now,
with the questioning and in some cases the abandonment of
"discipling," the acceptance of autonomy, no overseeing
evangelists, the distinctiveness of the ICOC churches from the mainline
has greatly lessened. Sadly, some who were among our members feel they
were deceived because we said the ICOC was "the true church."
Granted, we were not clear there are Christians in other
"fellowships." Yet by "true church," we simply meant
it was a church as in the Bible, composed of only disciples. This
uniqueness produced a dynamic fellowship and outreach, unseen in church
history since the first century. Though there were flaws and sins in our
building of the churches, a closeness and warmth existed between all ICOC
churches around the world because of the cross of Christ and our common
mission." Kip
McKean,
The Mandate of God for World
Evangelism Part 6, 2004
2004 - Speaking of the church planting going to Eugene "The city of Eugene is located at the center of the state of Oregon and is just
110 miles south of Portland. The present metropolitan population is 250,000 and
is rapidly growing......Benton County and Corvallis have a population of almost
100,000 people.......Please pray that our God will bless this effort to reach the 250,000 lost souls
of Eugene and the almost 100, 000 of Corvallis "with the true gospel of
Christ." Kip McKean, Eugene
Church Planting, 11/16/03
2005 -
"We believe God's church universal is composed of all the disciples
in the world. We believe local congregations should be composed of only
disciples. That does not mean that International Church of Christ members
are the only disciples. But we do believe we are the only fellowship with
congregations of only disciples. Presently we are reaching out to several
leaders who share this conviction in order to help reunite
"discipling churches" through relationships between
leaders." Kip McKean,
Love in
Any Language, 2005
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Question: Is Discipling optional?
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1990 - "...the acid test of the
ministry is the fruit of making disciples. You bring glory to God by bearing
much fruit. John 15 verse 8--he's talking about disciples right there, that have
been baptized in Jesus Christ." Kip McKean, Congregational Meeting,
Boston, May 6, 1990
1992 - "Some of you guys, let me
just lay it out, you flat didn't have a church of disciples till we did the
cotton-pickin reconstruction. Now remember that and flat get grateful....You had
a group of some disciples, and some yo-yos that you let in that you couldn't
tell the difference between the rest of you." Kip McKean, Super Church,
Boston Leadership Conference, Aug 1992
1994 -
"Discipling is God's plan. It's not a choice. You don't get to vote
on it. You can't go half way with it anymore you can go half way in
marriage. "Well, honey, I'll stick with you three nights of the week,
and the other three, I don't know." That's how it goes. You can't
think that way." Kip McKean, Indy
Tapes, 1994
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2003 - "Every
disciple must be discipled by God, by the Scriptures and by man. God is
sovereign and disciples us through our experiences of both victory and
defeat. (Hebrews 12:1-15) The Scriptures disciple us and mature us as we
learn to obey them more and more. (Hebrews 5:11-14) Jesus exemplified
discipling in his relationships with the apostles and then commanded
discipling not only to become a Christian, but also after baptism … “teach
them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:20) Though
the methodologies of discipleship partners, prayer partners, discipleship
groups, as well as the changing nature of the discipling relationship as
disciples mature from being a parent / child to adult / adult may all be
debated, being discipled is an absolute command of God and makes God’s
true movement distinctive." Kip McKean,
RtR
III, 2003
2003 - "Discipling
is how you got saved! It is why there are churches of thousands that did
not even exist just a few years ago. To stop discipling people within our
congregations will mean that the untold thousands in our cities will die
untold. Discipling is not only for the salvation of the lost, but I
believe it is the salvation of the saved." Kip McKean,
RtR
III,
2003
2003 - "Methods
are neither right nor wrong; people can use them for good and for evil.
But denying the principles of discipling in time will lead us directly
back to the mainline Church of Christ as well as to other denominations in
which people are not involved in each other’s lives. Some have argued
that one-over-one discipling is wrong because people have been hurt, and
therefore we should not do it. However, even in the church, we have
marriages in which husbands and wives have hurt each other, but we are not
about to abandon marriage. We need to constantly work on humility,
listening, kindness and forgiving as Jesus forgave us. As our discipling
relationships mature, our dynamic of parent/child (teacher/student), will
take on more of an adult/adult nature. We must not abandon discipling. We
must reaffirm it because it is one of the key ways God changes us through
the Spirit and the Word. Jesus calls everyone to be a disciple. Jesus
calls everyone to be discipled. And Jesus calls everyone to make
disciples." Kip McKean,
RtR
III, 2003
2004 - "This summer both the men and women are studying
the principles of Scripture in Robert Coleman's book, The Master Plan of
Evangelism. Since I received salvation through God's principle of disciple
making, I am very grateful for discipling's impact as well as Jesus'
"plan of evangelism" - discipling - to change the world in our
lifetime. As Robert Coleman wrote, "It all started by Jesus calling a
few men to follow Him. This revealed immediately the direction his
evangelistic strategy would take. His concern was not with programs to
reach the multitudes, but with men whom the multitudes would follow...Men
were to be His method of winning the world to God." (p. 27)" Kip
McKean, Wednesday Night Services!
7/11/2004
2004 - "For us over 2600 years
later, it is almost unimaginable that our "brothers of faith"
could have lost the en tire Book of Deuteronomy! In our day,
something especially shocking has been lost; God's plan to give everyone
on earth the opportunity to be saved. Truth: Jesus is God's only
path for salvation. (John 14:6) Truth: there is only one Biblical
response to be saved - faith, repentance and baptism. (Acts 2:38)
However, hidden in God's Word for centuries, most have lost God's only
plan to save the entire world in a lifetime - the multiplication of
disciples. Truth."
"After His resurrection, Jesus
returns to Galilee where He gives the Great Commission, "Go and make
disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I
have commanded you..." (Matthew 28:19-20) Implicit in
this command is a teacher-student discipling relationship. It begins
before baptism and then continues afterwards, as we are to teach each
other to obey the commands. However, if one studies the ministry of Jesus,
we see other types of discipling relationships. Jesus set up
adult-adult relationships by pairing up the apostles as well as
"group discipling" by Jesus, the leader of the group. The
apostles were commanded by word and example to put into practice all of
these types of discipling relationships."
"Today many churches in the ICOC fellowship have either abandoned
discipling relationships or compromised them by teaching there is no such
thing as teacher-student (one-over-one discipling) relationships in the
Scriptures. This is devastating false teaching. (2 Timothy
4:1-4) No wonder so many disciples are confused, lonely, lukewarm
and lacking zeal for souls. One person teaching another is the
essence of the method and ministry of Jesus. Let us not forget
Josiah's humble response to the words of the lost Book of God. His
concern was that God is angry when we fail to obey his Word. Making
disciples is a command of God for every true Christian. Jesus built
God's movement on the now lost plan of multiplying disciples. It was
and still is the only plan of God to evangelize the world." Kip
McKean,
The Mandate of God for World Evangelism Part
3, 2004
2004 - "Discipling became too authoritarian and controlling.
We
drifted from teaching obedience to the Word of God, to immature (and many
mature) disciples calling for obedience to their opinions. Also in
many cases, we failed to change the dynamics in the discipling
relationships as people grew older physically as well as in the faith.
In all discipling relationships, there should be a gradual shift from a
teacher/student, mentoring dynamic to an adult-adult relationship."
Kip McKean,
The Mandate of God for World Evangelism Part
4, 2004
2005 - "Yet we are "Old School" in these areas: 1. We
believe that to be saved one must believe in Jesus, repent, decide to be a
disciple, and be baptized. (Acts 2:38) We still "count the cost"
with each person before baptism. (Luke 14:25-33)"
"We believe God's church universal is composed of all the disciples
in the world. We believe local congregations should be composed of only
disciples. That does not mean that International Church of Christ members
are the only disciples. But we do believe we are the only fellowship with
congregations of only disciples. Presently we are reaching out to several
leaders who share this conviction in order to help reunite
"discipling churches" through relationships between
leaders."
"We believe everyone must be discipled, either in a teacher/student
relationship (parent/child) or adult/adult relationship. Scripture
commands us to be in each other's lives. (1 Corinthians 5:9-12) In our
worldwide fellowship unheard of numbers of marriages are ending in divorce
because there is no discipling. Biblically, discipling is not
"optional." I realize there was harshness and the "binding
of opinions" in discipling in the past that hurt people deeply. Yet
these same "hurts" (sins) occur in marriage as well, yet we
would never consider making marriage optional just because of hurts!
Forgiveness is essential for God to bless any relationship." Kip McKean,
Love in
Any Language, 2005
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Question: Is the ICOC the only ones saved?
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1987 "Who is the candidate for baptism. It is the one who is
a disciple." Kip McKean,
Perfectly United, Boston Women’s
Retreat, 1987
1992 - "Jesus didn’t
say, ‘go and baptize,’ he said, ‘go and make disciples and baptize them."
Kip McKean, The Super Church, Boston Leadership Conference, Aug 92
1994
- "Theoretically, anyone can read and understand from the
Word of God that to become a true Christian he must respond to the cross,
repent of sins, make a decision to be a disciple and be baptized for the
remission of sins. However, because most people are blinded by their
inherited traditions, this person is rare indeed. I have traveled around
the world many times through many nations, and while I have found
individuals who have decided to be disciples, I know of no church, no
fellowship, and no movement that teaches and practices these biblical
requirements of obedience to the truth. Perhaps most revealing is that
even our religious enemies and the media see us as doctrinally unique.
Conversely, most of us in the Boston Movement, now called the
International Churches of Christ, fail to appreciate the characteristics
that make our fellowship unique. This is particularly true when it comes
to understanding our roots." Kip McKean,
RtR
II, 1994
1994 - "Well, are the people in the International Churches of
Christ the only ones saved? We are the only ones who teach what we teach.
"But, if someone in another group, in the Church of Christ or a
Baptist group or whatever, picks up the Bible, and they see the way of
salvation -- which is, you have got to have faith in Jesus, Son of God,
you got to repent of all the sins, you have got to come to conviction that
Jesus died on the cross, you've got to turn Jesus Lord of your life, you
gotta become a disciple of Jesus, and then you gotta be water
immersed, water baptized for the forgiveness of your sins and receive the
gift of the Holy Spirit. If they have done that, then they are a son or
daughter of God. Because we don't take a vote in our churches.
"On the other hand, if they are in some isolated group like that
(pause) The last time I spoke to you, I told you about they want to
be a part of a movement, then they have to be a part of a church that is
moving. If they are the only one that is taught that truth in that little
fellowship, then if they are really good hearted, they are going to join
with people that are true disciples. So, I'm not going to be ordering the
borders of Israel here. That's for the Lord to do. I am going to be hard
line on what it takes to become a true disciple. But I spent all the 80's
trying to bring the remnant from these little churches." Kip
McKean. Indianapolis meeting (17 March 94) audiotape one, side two.
1995 - "When you preach who is really saved: that you
gotta have faith, you gotta repent, you gotta become a true disciple of
Jesus, and then you gotta be water immersed for the forgiveness of sins
received through the Holy Spirit, that excludes all other denominations, .
. . everybody else that's out there." Kip McKean. "Preach the
Word." Johannesburg World Missions Leadership Conference 1995
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2004 - "For the past several months the
leadership of the Portland Church has taught the congregation to have deep
convictions that to be baptized one must be a "sold out" disciple, to
place membership one must be a "sold out" disciple and to be restored
one must be a "sold out" disciple. A "sold out" disciple
walks with God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength. (Matthew 22:37-40) A
"sold out" disciple loves his neighbor as himself. A "sold
out" disciple's mission is to be "a fisher of men." (Mark
1:14-18) A "sold out" disciple is willing to go anywhere, do anything,
and give up everything for Jesus! (Luke 14:33)" Kip McKean, As
Many as Possible, 5/2/04
2005 - "Some have criticized the ICOC
saying we believe that the "ICOC" are the only ones saved, that one
must be baptized by the ICOC to be a Christian. This is emphatically wrong!
(Though I have come to understand that some ministers taught this.) We do
believe that to become a true Christian, one must hear the message, repent of
sins (become a disciple) and then be baptized for the remission of sins. (Acts
2:36-41) This is a narrow path! Recently, some have suggested that the
differences between the ICOC churches and "the mainline" were only
"style of worship" differences. The differences were - a foundation of
only disciples, not autonomy but overseeing evangelists to keep the churches
unified (1 Corinthians 4:17), the role of women leading women, house churches,
discipleship groups, discipling one another through "discipleship
partners," expectation for every disciple to be willing to "go
anywhere, do anything, give up everything for God," evangelists in each
church training young men to plant more churches, calling each disciple to have
a daily personal relationship with God (Quiet Times), and the use of instruments
from time to time in worship were all attempts to restore true "New
Testament Christianity." I believe to this day, this was not a movement of
man, but a movement of God." Kip McKean,
Spiritual Amnesia,
3/13/05
2005 - "We believe disciples should
marry disciples and date only disciples. (1
Corinthians 7:39 and2
Corinthians 6:14-18.) Too many who call themselves disciples are dating
non-Christians, falling into sin and leaving God." Kip Mckean,
Love in Any Language, 2005
2005 - "Yet we are
"Old School" in these areas: 1. We believe that to be saved one
must believe in Jesus, repent, decide to be a disciple, and be baptized.
(Acts 2:38) We still "count the cost" with each person before
baptism. (Luke 14:25-33)"
"We believe God's church universal is composed of all the disciples
in the world. We believe local congregations should be composed of only
disciples. That does not mean that International Church of Christ members
are the only disciples. But we do believe we are the only fellowship with
congregations of only disciples. Presently we are reaching out to several
leaders who share this conviction in order to help reunite
"discipling churches" through relationships between
leaders."
"We believe everyone must be discipled, either in a teacher/student
relationship (parent/child) or adult/adult relationship. Scripture
commands us to be in each other's lives. (1 Corinthians 5:9-12) In our
worldwide fellowship unheard of numbers of marriages are ending in divorce
because there is no discipling. Biblically, discipling is not
"optional." I realize there was harshness and the "binding
of opinions" in discipling in the past that hurt people deeply. Yet
these same "hurts" (sins) occur in marriage as well, yet we
would never consider making marriage optional just because of hurts!
Forgiveness is essential for God to bless any relationship." Kip McKean,
Love in
Any Language, 2005
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DOES
HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF?
