The Rise of the Portland movement: Where Are The Churches?

Part 3: Looking for an Alternative: Where Would I Find It?

“Much material”, according to Tom Jones, “has been circulated declaring the mistakes and errors of the discipling churches and further declaring that there are better alternatives for those who want to follow Jesus.” Jones made this statement thirteen years ago in an UpsideDown magazine of the International Churches of Christ (ICOC).

He asked: “Where are the churches where the majority of members even understand that it is their responsibility to make disciples and to teach others what following Jesus is all about? Where are the churches where the average member prepares himself or herself to study the Bible with someone else and then does it? Where are the churches who have brought many others to Christ out of the world and then showed us how to care for them, mature them and keep them faithful? Where is the church that can speak with any experience about such things?”

Jones introspective questions of 1993 is though provoking. More so, it strikes a cord, which modern Christian cannot ignore. Here, Christians as individuals need to examine their relational fellowship with Jesus Christ and “one another”. Here Christians need to know they are first and foremost “the Lord’s disciples” (Acts 9:1) and according to the Apostle “so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others” (Romans 12:5 NIV).

However, can Jones and company ignore the criticism because there seems to be no other alternative for the successes of the disciple approach? Where are the churches who has embraced the disciple approach?

Perhaps the family of churches of the ICOC imitate a lazy example of the Boston era because leadership have no other alternative. Consider Tom Jones statement of 1993 “If some of the critics are ready to show us something better, I for one am ready and willing to pay attention and learn, but at this point I am still waiting and wondering: where are these other churches?” And Steve Johnson statement of last year; “I wanted to do exactly what I did in Boston in 1979 or in New York in 1983 – in regards to teaching people how to teach people to become disciples. I’ve not come up, and I haven’t seen anyone else that has come up with a better mousetrap. And I assure you that when I see one, I’ll adopt it just like I did when I moved to Boston to be trained by Kip back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth.”

The time has come for those I-told-you-so-crowd who contributed to “much material” and rightly pointed out the “mistakes and errors of the discipling churches” to put up “that there are better alternatives for those who want to follow Jesus” or shut up. Likewise, staunch ICOC supporters of the disciple approach dare not slip into their comfort zone imitating the “mistakes and errors” of the Boston pattern “in regards to teaching people how to teach people to become disciples.”

The rise of the disciple approach in the Twentieth Century has produced a cultural phenomenon that enables modern Christians to act like Disciples of Christ. This approach manages to bring the devotee in touch with a type of schedule base upon Jesus daily ministry rather than relying on a traditional weekly spiritual experience.

The benefit of the disciple approach is it can be introduced “with stealth” in any church group. However, a remark in the context of the Church of Christ early adoption of the disciple approach bears a foreboding that needs to be addressed. “What you are experiencing in the Church of Christ is what the charismatic movement vomited up.”

Here members of the ICOC have seldom acquainted them with the ”giants of the past” upholding the disciple approach in the Pentecostal movement. Don E. Vinzant’s article, The Discipling Dilemma warns ”against the abuses of authoritarian discipling” that “appear as early as 1974.” Early role players who have contributed to the disciple approach were Watchman Nee, Juan Carlos Ortiz, the Shepherds of Fort Lauderdale, Florida consisting of Don Basham, Ern Baxter, Bob Mumford, Derek Prince and Charles Simpson. Bob Mumford no longer supports the disciple approach. This year he apologised: “Discipleship was wrong. I repent. I ask forgiveness.” Other prolific authors like Robert Emerson Coleman and various para church organizations such as Campus Crusade; the Navigators have influenced “charismatic” Protestant and Catholic groups alike.

There’s a new doctrine called “the discipleship and submission movement”. You may have never heard of it before. But it is so subtle and doing so much harm that if somebody doesn’t do something to rebuke Satan and stop this movement, it is going to absolutely destroy the great charismatic movement… Not only do they tell you to give your money to the shepherd, but to become involved in cell groups and to “reveal your deepest thoughts.” I’ll tell you one thing. I’m not going to tell anybody my inner thoughts. – Kathryn Kuhlman, speech at Youngtown, Ohio, 1975

It should be apparent why the Shepherding Movement is in such error: it applied to men what rightfully belongs to God. Instead of saying the Lord is the covering, it claims that shepherds are the covering. When the Bible says people can trust God for strength and guidance, the Shepherding Movement says that a man is necessary too. In short, the Shepherding Movement casts doubt on God’s ability to care for the Christian. – Steve Coleman, ‘Christian, Who Is Your Covering? 1981

Vinzant affirm there ‘is a large body of literature full of warnings and criticism of this authoritarianism as it has been tried by others. The fact that [others have tried it] is rather embarrassing to those who thought that someone in the churches of Christ invented this approach. The reality, however, is that churches of Christ are among the last ones to be damaged by the discipling movement.’

In 1967 the Church of Christ started a pilot programme called Campus Advance modelled after Campus Crusade for Christ in order to impact the campuses. Charles ‘Chuck’ Lucas was a campus minister in the 14th Street Church of Christ (later renamed the Crossroads Church of Christ). This new undertaking started in several Church of Christ congregations focusing on shepherding of Christians by other Christians primarily from students basing their techniques on the “one-another passages”.

The Crossroads movement was the product of Chuck Lucas teachings after modifying discipleship principles observed in certain Christian groups such as The Navigators, Campus Crusade for Christ and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Lucas was also influenced by Robert E. Coleman’s book The Master Plan of Evangelism first published in 1963. He thought up “prayer partners”, the pairing of new converts with mature Christians and “soul talks”, small group Bible classes designed to attract newcomers to join-up. Although Chuck was the pioneer of this system after a sabbatical he left the ministry for personal spiritual reasons in 1986. Kip McKean become the “perfector” of this system. Lucas’ idea of discipleship was modified by Kip. Prayer partners became “Discipling partners”. Soul talks became “Bible Talks”. In 1988, the Crossroads Church of Christ and the Church of Christ denomination dissociates themselves from the Boston movement disciple approach. Thus, left McKean to explore new frontiers of doctrine without being hampered by the elementary teachings of the Church of Christ. According to Kip’s perception he made a conscious effort to move away from the Church of Christ dogma by “moving back to the Bible doctrinally” while moving forward around the world. The Boston movement equipped with the disciple approach has become according to McKean “God’s restored true church and movement.”

Adherents to the disciple approach are convinced that this system “is not a system contrived by man, but a way of relating that springs from the word of God.” Gordon Ferguson’s book entitled Discipling (1997) pleads with his readers like McKean that the disciple approach “is the forgotten art, the missing ingredient, in so many efforts to built churches and practice what is commonly known as Christianity.” Ferguson reasons, “Discipling has been rediscovered and reinstituted in modern times by those who have a passion to restore the relational nature of biblical Christianity.”

Here, Ferguson’s “relational nature of biblical Christianity” relates to “personal association” an expression used by Robert E. Coleman author of The Master Plan of Evangelism (1963, 2000). Coleman observed: “There is a lot of talk in the church about evangelism and Christian nurture, but little concern for personal association when it becomes evident that such work involves the sacrifice of personal indulgence.” (P.47 – First Edition 1963 or p.49 – Second Edition, 2003)

Gordon Ferguson’s Discipling reason that “people today cannot gain a complete understanding of Christ simply from reading the New Testament; we now have to see a flesh and blood Jesus in the form of his body, the church of his disciples.” Furthermore, “there can be no “loner” Christians. We play an absolute essential role in each other’s lives.” Kip McKean recently asked during 2006 Portland World Missions Jubilee: “Where are your 12 disciples? Who are your Peter, James and John?”

The preacher-centred model, which allows the pastor to do everything, is replaced with the disciple approach where everyone is empowered to co-work as a unified entity. No wonder such an arrangement in the church will lead to “some incredible results.” The disciple approach have distinct itself from the “lazy example” as stated by Coleman. “If Sunday services and membership training classes are all that a church has to develop young converts into mature disciples, then they are defeating their own purpose by contributing to a false security, and if the new convert follows the same lazy example, it may ultimately do more harm than good.”

Ferguson admits, “independent Westerners have a difficult time with the concept.” He states: ”The Jews in Jesus’ day employed much the same method of training, as did the famous philosophers. Leading rabbis had their little groups who followed them through their daily tasks, straining to pick up every tidbit of wisdom that might drop from their lips. Paul had been tutored in this fashion… John the Baptist had a definite group of disciples… Certainly he [Jesus] came forward like a rabbi, calling men to follow him.”

As much as adherents of the disciple approach want to implement everything Jesus commanded they have over looked a specific command from the Lord concerning the formation of relationships in the Church. Here the adherents of the disciple approach in their pursued to become disciples and make disciples have failed to grasp that the New Testament more specifically the Four Gospel Books only entertains MASTER/STUDENT relations.

Roy Davison, an evangelist of the Church of Christ dealt in 1988 with the disciple approach in an article Errors of Hierarchical Discipleship (Click Sidebar: Roy Davison). Davison states that this movement “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.” The fundamental error of the disciple approach based on this thesis according to Davison’s observations “is that Jesus training his apostles is used as a pattern for making disciples, whereas these are entirely different matters.” Roy points out ICOC members “use an incorrect definition for the word “disciple”. They define a disciple as a Christian who is trained through a subordinate relationship with another Christian. This unscriptural definition results from an incorrect concept how one becomes a disciple of Christ.”

The Great Commission: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising 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” can never be based on the rabbinical master/student concept as observed by the disciple approach. “Certainly [Jesus] came forward like a rabbi, calling men to follow him.” Nevertheless as a Rabbi, Jesus strictly forbids his disciples to imitate this system in the Body of Christ. “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi’, for you have only one master and YOU ARE ALL BROTHERS (Matthew 23:8 NIV).” Rightly so! Because Rabbi Jesus “is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy (Colossians 1:18 NIV).”

Christians wrote the Apostle “have different gifts, according to the grace given us.” “If it is leadership, let him govern diligently” (Romans 12:6-8 NIV). Therefore leadership have a responsibility in the Church not to overstep ground rules already emplaced. “For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 3:11 NIV).

As much as the disciple approach display the ability to rejuvenate the modern Church it also reaps havoc amongst Christians. History has shown that any Christian group embracing the disciple approach have in the long run caused much division in the Body of Christ. The vomit the Church of Christ lapped up in 1967 soured relations within this group that allowed a church split in 1988. Today church leadership whether from the Portland movement or the United Cooperation Group who persists with the disciple approach are not “shepherds of the church of God”. Like “savage wolves” amongst us they “will not spare the flock.” The elders of the church in Ephesus were perhaps perplexed with Paul’s admonishment: “Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard!” (Acts 20:30,31 NIV)

How can any right-minded leader within the context of the ICOC family of churches persist with a “mousetrap” that displays the “mistakes and errors” of the Boston pattern “in regards to teaching people how to teach people to become disciples”? There is no excuse for "embracing discipleship" even if other church groups relies on "lazy examples". How can more than seventy percent of the ICOC pooled with the Unity Proposal Group still justify “embracing discipleship”?

If the Portland movement leadership ask: “Where are your 12 disciples? Who are your Peter, James and John?” then the United Cooperation Group is not far off in asking that of their own churches.

Today we ask: Where are the Churches who entertain the disciple approach? Where is the church that can speak with any experience about such things?