Kip McKean Starts The International Christian Churches

Kip McKean recently announced he is formally starting a new movement called The International Christian Churches. This was announced in a Sunday sermon and on the website of the Portland Church of Christ. These churches and house churches, also referred to as “the Portland family of churches” only include about 16 different groups in seven countries with an estimated combined membership of 800. The Portland Church has about 400 of those members which makes the average size of the other groups around 25 each. We are not aware of any of the churches besides Portland that seem to be growing very quickly. Portland has grown from 120 members to about 400 in three years with about half of the increase being due to people placing membership.

Since McKean’s announcement, at least four of the churches who were listed as part of the new movement have stated that they are not a part of it. Jay Hernandez and the Salt Lake City leadership would rather try to be a bridge than to be aligned with the new movement. (Salt Lake Christian Church) As told to Disciples Today, the churches in Chile have decided not to be a part of the new movement because they do not believe it is right to call people out of hurting churches. They are very grateful for the help from Kip and Elena and the Portland Church, but cannot conscientiously agree with this division. We are not certain whether any of the other churches announced are also not fully with the new movement.

Sadly, this announcement comes as no surprise to those who have watched the progression of events in Kip’s life and the Portland leadership. The unity and growth among the International Churches of Christ began to decline in the latter part of the 1990’s. After numerous leaders confronted him for a number of years on his character and leadership sins, Kip McKean was asked to step down from leading the Los Angeles Church of Christ in 2001 and to step down from leading the International Churches of Christ in 2002. At that time, Kip said that he repented of arrogance and self-promotion. However, his actions did not change. At the 2005 Portland Jubilee, he publicly boasted that he could fix any church anywhere. He followed that by printing in the Portland bulletin that he would begin “a progressive “calling-out of the remnant of disciples” from dying, former ICOC Churches. . . . In the fall the Portland leadership will begin to seek out church leaderships in congregations that are struggling to ask if we can help them build a foundation of sold-out disciples. If they are not inclined to receive help, then we will offer help to any group that would prefer to be in a new congregation composed of only sold-out disciples.”

Full Article [Cached]