Thomas "Kip" McKean (born May 31, 1954) is a former minister of the International Churches of Christ, and is a current minister of the City of Angels International Christian Church and World Missions Evangelist of the International Christian Churches, also known as the "Portland/Sold-Out Discipling Movement".^[1]

The son of a US Navy Admiral, McKean was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, and is named after his ancestor Thomas McKean, signer of the Declaration of Independence.^[2] McKean married Havana-born Elena Garcia-Bengochea on December 11, 1976. She is presently the Women's’ Ministry Leader in the City of Angels International Christian Church. They have three children, Olivia, Sean and Eric.

McKean was baptized in 1972 while a freshman at the University of Florida in Gainesville. His mentor, Charles H. "Chuck" Lucas, was the evangelist of the 14th Street Church of Christ at the time, part of the mainline Churches of Christ. Later, the church moved into a larger building with a new name, the Crossroads Church of Christ, and, through an aggressive student-based evangelism program Lucas had established, they won many new converts thus increasing the membership.

Lucas' methodology for raising up leaders in the church involved a great deal of hard work in Bible scholarship and discipling promising Christians in the paths prescribed in Scripture.

In 1975, McKean moved from Gainesville to be the campus minister for Northeastern Christian College, located near Philadelphia as part of a campus ministry program called "Campus Advance." Then later in 1975 McKean was hired as a campus minister by the Heritage Chapel Church of Christ in Charleston, Illinois where he rapidly grew a college ministry at Eastern Illinois University, funded by the Houston Memorial Church of Christ in Houston, Texas. In 1977, Houston Memorial sent a letter announcing their decision to withdraw financial support for McKean. McKean then moved to became head of the Lexington (Massachusetts) Church of Christ in 1979 and carried on Lucas' brand of church ministry that focused on evangelism and campus ministry. The church grew rapidly and later changed its name to the Boston Church of Christ.

After separating from the Crossroads Church of Christ, the Boston church expanded its influence among other Churches of Christ, becoming known in time as "the Boston Movement" and, eventually, the International Churches of Christ, with McKean and his wife Elena considered the highest authority within the hierarchy of the movement.^{[citation needed]} Shortly thereafter, they separated from the mainline Churches of Christ.^{[citation needed]} In 1990, the McKeans moved to Los Angeles to lead the Los Angeles Church of Christ, where they presided over the rapid growth of the ICOC throughout the 1990s.^[3]

Many of McKeans friends and closest work colleagues observed a number of unrepentant relationship sins in his life, after multiple confrontations a letter was drafted by numerous evangelists around the world calling for his repentance. ^[4] McKean refused to respond to these challenges and went off and founded a revival movement for the ICOC called the International Christian Churches.^[5]

At the beginning of 2001 as a college student in Boston, the oldest of the McKeans’ children began to question her faith. Unjustly and heavily criticized – because of the high profile of her parents – and feeling unloved by many in the congregation, she stopped attending church. This event, along with the pattern of sins noted above, caused uncertainty in McKeans’ leadership among many of the World Sector Leaders, as well as among the Kingdom Elders and Kingdom Teachers. In September 2001, the World Sector Leaders pushed the McKeans into a sabbatical – though later, some deeply regretted this decision. The reasoning was that to “oversee” a church, one had to “manage his own family [well or] how can he take care of God’s church.” (1 Timothy 3:4-5) Also cited was Proverbs 22:6, “Train a child in the way he should go, and… he will not turn from it.”(Note that the teachers and elders removed "and when he is old", showing that as a young person they may not follow the Lord). The McKeans, and those loyal to them, were hurt by what they felt was a lack of grace and appreciation by almost all of the World Sector Leaders, Kingdom Elders and Kingdom Teachers. To legitimize themselves, they cited places in Scripture where some of God’s and Israel’s greatest leaders had unfaithful children – Aaron, Samuel, and even the Old Testament’s Messiah, David – yet they continued to victoriously lead “all Israel.” This use of the Old Testament as a standard contradicted McKean's claim that the old covenant holds no sway in modern times (Now in the International Christian Church, he preaches that disciples must follow ALL the commandments both from the Old Testament and the New Testament, unless a New Testament teaching supersedes an Old Testament teaching).^[6]

Since 2005, the congregations under Kip McKean's leadership are the International Christian Churches.^[7] This group under Kip McKean's influence has also been called the "Portland/Sold-Out Discipling Movement".^{[citation needed]} In 2007, McKean moved to Los Angeles to lead a congregation of his new movement known as the City of Angels International Christian Church.^[8] Although the International Churches of Christ and the International Christian Church share almost identical doctrines, the divisive issues are zealousness (neither side thinks that the others are truly living out the scriptures) and the treatment of the McKeans in the early 2000s. Both churches continue to operate, worship, and evangelize in an incredibly similar way, but their differences continue to separate them.

Controversy surrounding McKean started in 1977, when funding from the Houston Memorial Church of Christ was withdrawn from the Heritage Chapel Church of Christ. This funding was used to support McKean as a campus minister at Eastern Illinois University. Many college and university campuses banned McKean's groups throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In 2003, a letter written by a former minister of the ICOC caused followers to once again question McKean's methods.

In August 2008, the Portland church broke away from McKean's "New Movement" and "extended the hand of fellowship" to the ICOC.^[9] McKean's doctrine and practices continue to be the subject of controversy.

• International Christian Churches
• Churches of Christ
• International Churches of Christ
• Restoration Movement

• KipMcKean.org, Official Website of Kip McKean

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