Reject the dangerous rhetoric of false prophets (2)

Irrespective of the political divide, both the house of Renovation (The Portland movement) and the house of Innovation (The United Cooperation Group) have reinstated Christ’s plan of mentoring better known as “discipling”. According to Roy Davison this plan is based “on the thesis that Christ’s master/disciple relationship with the twelve apostles is a pattern to be followed in making, training and leading disciples today.” (Click the side bar on Roy Davison)

According to the Church of Christ and Davison “these are entirely different matters.”

Despite his many shortcomings, Kip McKean, and a small band of followers were the first to drag a part of the ICOC back to the Boston disciple approach hence the rise of the Portland movement. Today many of his disgruntled former colleagues have done the same, hence the rise of the United Cooperation Group.

As a consequence the doctrinal foundation in “making disciples” of the Boston movement era remains intact in both factions. Embracing discipleship has become a core truth - “truths we want to defend”.

Here, both groups within the ICOC have failed to come up with a healthier alternative or better mousetrap for it‘s seemingly essential discipleship methodology in order to increase and sustain membership.

By September 2003, the Portland International Church of Christ adopted the former ICOC discipleship teaching plan based on a voluntary teacher-student relationship (one-over-one or adult-to-adult discipleship). According to McKean’s understanding, mandatory discipleship relationships in the fellowship “was and still is the only plan of God to evangelise the world.” McKean has responded strongly to many churches in the ICOC fellowship that have either abandoned or compromised discipleship relationships – “the now lost plan of multiplying disciples.” According to Kip, any suggestion by his colleagues in stating that the Bible does not teach one-over-one discipleship is “devastating false teaching”.

ICOC Christians with their “valuable insight and wisdom” across six continents helped the nine coordinators of the Unity Proposal Group to submit a plan of ratification on March 11th 2006. As a result a good chunk of the ICOC failed to discard the Boston disciple approach. Instead they “reaffirm those truths and emphasis that have particularly shaped our branch of God’s movement, from the campus ministry days until now.” In other words, like Steve Johnson who joined Kip McKean in Portland, Oregon, they also wanted to do exactly what they were taught in Boston in 1979 – in regards to teaching people how to teach people to become disciples.

Thus the legacy of the Shepherd movement remains intact. Authors and para-church groups who were never affiliated with the International Churches of Christ (ICOC) first introduced this type of method in “making disciples.” In particular, The Master Plan of Evangelism (1963, 2003) by Robert Coleman or similar material like Juan Carloz Ortiz book titled Discipling (1975, 1995) forms the backdrop for the ICOC mousetrap.
If we consider these above-mentioned facts, how can anyone consider Greg Marutzky assurance to the Church of Christ’ April 2004 panellists that Kip McKean’s “influence is not there anymore”? And “each congregation is making their own decisions. We want to move forward. Please don’t believe that the comments he makes are as if he is speaking for all of us; that’s not the case. And that’s not going to be the case in the future.”

In order to “move forward” the Second Epistle of John implores the saints to be like children “walking in truth” (KJV) rather than being hasty people “who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ” (NIV).

The United Cooperation’s efforts were never aimed to change the disciple approach so called “one-another passages” or “one another Christianity” but rather focussed on rebuilding and restructuring the overall leadership organization for the entire ICOC. From this point of view, Kip McKean’s character sins that led to his resignation as the Lead Evangelist of the Los Angeles ICOC in 2001 and World Missions Evangelist for the ICOC in 2002 frustrates their plans to reach “complete unity” among the brotherhood. Over 80 prolific ICOC leaders accused McKean for starting a “new movement” or “building a kingdom for himself”. Some stated McKean’s sins compare to Diotrephes “who loves to be first”.

Perhaps McKean paid the ultimate price being a pacesetter.

He could never compromise nor abandon discipling. “Methods” states Kip in RTR 3, 2003, “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.”

What exactly did Mike Taliaferro mean by stating at the 2004 Faithful Conversations Forum: “We have ended the practice of over/under discipling. We don’t believe one Christian should be giving orders to another. We are definitely stressing topics like grace, the cross, God’s love. We are moving away from performance orientation and getting back to basic Bible, as we should.”

Clearly, the changes we see from a discipleship point of view by the frontrunners of the ICOC are not “deep and long lasting”. Their best efforts parallel well with dangerous rhetoric of false prophets.