Thomas Wayne McKean II (May 31, 1954 – present) commonly known as Kip McKean was named after his ancestor Thomas McKean who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. McKean was the leader of the Boston Movement within the Churches of Christ. The Boston Movement Churches in 1994 officially became known as the International Churches of Christ (ICOC). McKean is now the Missions Evangelist of the Portland International Church of Christ (Portland, Oregon) from which the new Portland Movement has begun.

Kip McKean was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on May 31, 1954. And, like many young men of the 1960s, he was inspired by those who refused to compromise and were willing to sacrifice everything for a worthy cause. This temperament of uncompromising conviction and willingness to sacrifice is also deep in the McKean family's heritage as they are always called higher by the courage of one of their ancestors, Thomas McKean.

Thomas McKean not only signed the Declaration of Independence, but also was the President of the Congress of Confederation, the highest office in the land, when news arrived from General Washington that the British had surrendered.

Kip McKean’s father, serving as an admiral in the U.S. Navy, became a strong influence and an early role model for leadership and excellence. In high school McKean was active in athletics and also obtained the rank of Eagle in the Boy Scouts. As a youth, McKean’s heroes became John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In time, McKean’s greatest hero became Jesus.

McKean married Elena Garcia-Bengochea on December 11, 1976. Elena was born in Havana, Cuba and fled with her family in 1959 to the United States. In 1981 his first child Olivia was born. Then in 1983 and 1984 Sean and Eric were born. Elena presently is the Womens’ Ministry Leader in the Portland International Church of Christ. There has been tremendous criticism towards the McKean’s children. However their strong character is illustrated by the fact that two of their children graduated from Harvard and their youngest, though accepted at Harvard, chose to attend Stanford.

Prior to Kip McKean’s sophomore year of high school, he was not religious. At the end of McKean’s sophomore year in high school, however, he became very involved in a growing, fundamental Methodist church in Maitland, Florida which gave to him a personal faith in Christ and the inspiration of the Bible.

At the end of McKean’s freshman year at the University of Florida, he was invited to a devotional sponsored by the 14th Street Church of Christ, later renamed the Crossroads Church of Christ.

This church in Gainesville had begun a pilot program in campus ministry for the Churches of Christ five years earlier. The Churches of Christ wanted to impact the campuses and initially modeled their efforts after Campus Crusade and called this new program, led by Chuck Lucas, “Campus Advance.” Here McKean was taught to give up everything for Christ and be baptized for the remission of his sins to become a Christian. He made this commitment in the early hours of April 11, 1972.

That summer in 1972 while at home in Chicago, McKean became very sick. Boils covered the upper part of his body. Bandages were wrapped around his body for the next three months. McKean believes that at this time God was testing and humbling him, particularly through the scarring on his face. Of note, the members of the mainline Church of Christ he attended in the Chicago area never came to visit McKean while he was sick. This incident in McKean’s life thoroughly sensitized him to meeting people's needs and to caring for the weak and sick. Later that summer, even though the doctors strongly advised McKean otherwise because of his weak health, he returned to Gainesville so he could once more be part of a strong fellowship of college Christians at the University of Florida.

The Crossroads Church of Christ campus ministry was where McKean’s dream to become a minister began. In his sophomore year in college, McKean believes God reinforced this dream when his younger brother, Randy, was diagnosed with cancer in the spring of 1973. Kip baptized Randy 6 months later. These events inspired McKean to give up his pre-med studies and decide to pursue a speech degree to help train him for the ministry.

During his college years while attending the Crossroads Church of Christ, the vision of dynamic campus ministries throughout America was put on McKean’s heart. He was inspired by the powerful preaching of Chuck Lucas and his associate, Sam Laing and the innovations they taught of "one another Christianity" and evangelistic small group Bible studies, called “Soul Talks”. At this point the seeds of discipling were placed in his life as he saw personally how one man could affect another's daily lifestyle and eternal destiny for God.

In 1975, shortly after graduating from the University of Florida as a Phi Beta Kappa, McKean was asked to be the campus minister for Northeastern Christian College, a mainline Church of Christ school located near Philadelphia. Here he saw how uncommitted many of the so called “Christian” students were: drugs, drunkenness, prejudice and immorality were prevalent. He came to a deep conviction that being religious is not the same as being righteous.

While serving as a campus minister at Northeastern Christian College he attended Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary where he was challenged by one of the deans that the Bible is not the only inspired word of God. Intimidated, yet sure in his faith, McKean strongly responded to the dean's challenge. "I told him that if there are any other "holy writs" besides the Bible, then Christianity is reduced to simply another philosophy like Confucianism, Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism. To me, Christ and his Word were and are the only Way, the only Truth and the only Life." ^[1]

Because of these convictions during all the years of his ministry, McKean has been publically chastised for his narrow view of the Bible.

In 1976 McKean was then hired by the Heritage Chapel Church of Christ in Charleston, Illinois, in order to initiate a campus ministry at Eastern Illinois University. At this time he also attended the Harding Graduate School of Religion, a mainline Church of Christ college, in Memphis, Tennessee for two summers. He drew the following conclusion from the Bible and from the lives and ministries of the seminaries' graduates (Eastern Baptist and Harding): “…though helpful in scholastic pursuits, seminary was not the way to train ministers, but rather, one minister walking with another, like Jesus and the twelve.” ^[2]

Between 1976 and 1979, McKean traveled widely and spoke in numerous churches around the United States, since the campus ministry in Charleston grew from a few members to 300.

At that time a typical mainline Church of Christ congregation had around 160 members and only eight baptisms per year. Six children of church members and two other people were baptized each year in that typical congregation. Half of these eventually dropped out of the church. When the average annual death rate was subtracted, that left a net annual growth rate of less than one percent. ^[3]

Flavil Yeakley, in his book Why Churches Grow, reported that Mac Lynn's first accurate survey revealed only 965,439 actual members in the mainline Churches of Christ as opposed to the 2.5 million that had been claimed. He discovered that instead of an estimated 15,000 congregations, there were actually only 10,165 mainline Churches of Christ, "only 24 with a membership of 1,000 or more, only four with a membership of 2,000 or more, and only one with a membership of more that 3,000." The largest mainline Church of Christ congregation outside of the borders of the United States was and is only 500 in attendance. Yeakley also wrote, "...in 1980 the Church of Christ in the United States did stop increasing and started decreasing in total membership. It is clear that if the 1965-1980 trend were to continue unchanged, the Church of Christ would cease to exist in this nation in just a few years." ^[4]

McKean came to a deep conviction that no matter how dynamic a campus ministry was, unless a whole church is "totally committed" the campus ministry's impact would be limited. From McKean’s experience, many churches with campus ministries split and many young campus ministers quit the ministry. Therefore McKean decided that he would not send the ministers he would train to attend seminaries or to minister to existing churches, but would start new ones -- "new wine [ministers] must be poured into new wineskins [churches]." (Luke 5:38)

During his years at Charleston and Memphis, McKean devoted himself to studying the Old Testament. At this major turning point in his life, McKean came to a deep conviction that, unlike the mainline Church of Christ which claimed only to be a "New Testament Church," a better understanding of God's eternal plan and His Word would create a “Bible Church.”

Along with this, McKean came to differ with the mainline Churches of Christ whose creed is "to speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent." ^[5] This is because such a creed dictated that one must have specific authorization by command, example or necessary inference from the Bible to do anything. McKean believed, however, that churches should be silent where the Bible speaks and speak where the Bible is silent. “…In other words, a Christian should simply obey where the Bible speaks and only speak (have opinions) where the Bible is silent.” ^[6]

This view of the Bible was the fundamental reason many mainline Churches of Christ opposed McKean and his churches.

In 1979, during McKean’s last year in Charleston, the elders of the Lexington Church of Christ in Massachusetts contacted him to be their pulpit and campus minister. At that time this mainline Church of Christ was desperate as they were considering closing their doors because their number had shrunk to about 30. McKean hesitated for five months after being offered this position. He told the people in that congregation that in order for him to come and serve in this position, every member must vow to become "totally committed." In this small and dying church history was made on June 1, 1979 as 30 would be disciples gathered on a Friday night in the living room of members Bob and Pat Gempel. This group called each other in the Lexington Church of Christ to be “totally committed.”

Then in 1980, to help this church grow spiritually and numerically, McKean developed a Bible study series called “First Principles.” The members of the church were called to memorize these studies and then use First Principles to teach others what core standards God has for individuals to become disciples of Christ. The most impacting study in the series is called "Discipleship" where, from McKean’s study of Scripture, he taught that in Acts 11:26: SAVED = CHRISTIAN = DISCIPLE. Simply meaning that you cannot be saved and you cannot be a true Christian without being a disciple. McKean purposely developed the “Discipleship” study to draw a sharp Biblical distinction between the Lexington (later renamed Boston) Church of Christ and all other groups.

The Boston Church of Christ under McKean’s leadership then developed a system of “one-on-one” discipleship partners and discipleship groups. As a result of the call to total commitment to God and the practice of the Biblical concept of discipleship - the Boston Church of Christ multiplied disciples of Jesus.

During the ten years that Kip served the Boston Church of Christ, unprecedented growth occurred. The original Lexington Church of Christ had witnessed only two baptisms in the previous three years before June 1979. By the restoration of the radical concept of a totally committed church by McKean, the Boston Church of Christ had 103 baptisms the first year. The most dynamic mainline Church of Christ for decades had only baptized 200 to 300 each year. Under McKean’s leadership the Boston Church of Christ saw 200 baptisms their second year; 256 their third; 368 in the fourth; 457 in the fifth; 679 in the sixth; 735 in the seventh; 947 in the eighth; 1424 in the ninth; and in the church’s tenth year, 1621 were baptized into Christ. By this time also, the Sunday attendance in Boston was approaching 5000 as the church met in the Boston Garden. Not only is this the single largest congregation in the history of New England, but it also became the largest Church of Christ in the entire world.

Perhaps also unappreciated by the casual observer was the challenge to meet the needs and keep faithful the unprecedented number of new Christians - over 2,000 in the first six years in Boston! In the '60s and '70 s in the denominational world, there had been much discussion and writing on the "body life" of the church and "shepherding" one another. Thus, in the Crossroads movement, one another Christianity was expressed in a buddy system called "prayer partners," where each person chose their own "buddy."

With so many new Christians in the Boston Church of Christ, McKean felt this approach was not direct enough. Building upon the concepts of “shepherding” and “prayer partners”, McKean came up with "discipleship partners." In these relationships, the evangelists, elders and women's counselors, after discussion and prayer, arranged for an older and/or stronger Christian to give direction to each of the younger or weaker ones. The pair was expected to meet weekly and have daily contact.

In 1981-82 the Lord put on McKean’s heart a vision for the world. This passion grew even greater as McKean was influenced by former missionaries and the mission efforts of the Sunset School of Preaching, a mainline Church of Christ school, based in Lubbock, Texas. Given the concept of one church in one city and a true church being composed solely of disciples, McKean’s plan was a simple one. If the Boston Church of Christ could place a small group of disciples (mission team) in each of the key metropolitan centers of the world, they in turn, by the multiplication of leaders and disciples, could send church plantings to each of the capital cities of the surrounding nations. Then these capital city churches could send out church plantings to all the other cities of that nation and the nation would then be evangelized in one generation just like in the first century church.

These key churches planted in major metropolitan centers were called "pillar churches," for a world brotherhood was envisioned to be built on their foundation. Dr. Donald McGavran, the "father of modern church growth" (in the broadest definition of Christianity), saw the Boston Movement as unique in that it had a plan to evangelize the entire world from one rapidly growing church. ^[7]

McKean trained ministers in Boston and sent them to the pillar cities.

In 1982 Chicago, Illinois and London, England were the first plantings of the Boston Movement. By 2000 the Chicago Church’s attendance was 5000 and the London Church’s attendance was 3000.

In 1983 the New York City Church of Christ was planted. Though this city had a population of 18 million in the metropolitan area, only 18 disciples were sent from Boston. McKean believed only one church of disciples, no matter how small, would be sufficient to evangelize the entire metropolitan area. At its zenith in 2000 the New York City Church had 9000 in attendance.

In 1985 Toronto, Canada became the Boston Movement’s second foreign planting.

Johannesburg, South Africa was planted in 1986. This planting was special as blacks and whites did not merely coexist, but for the first time hugged one another in the midst of apartheid and under the threat of extremists. Paris and Stockholm were also planted in 1986 which proved language an inconsequential barrier to foreign plantings.

In 1987 came the plantings of Mexico City, Mexico and Bombay, India.

In 1988 Hong Kong, China was planted.

1989 brought the plantings of Cairo, Egypt; Los Angeles, California; Manila, Philippines and Tokyo, Japan.

In 1991 Moscow, Russia was planted.

These churches in turn planted others, which planted still others. By 2001, at his sabbatical, there were 400 churches in 171 nations, and a combined Sunday morning attendance of about 200,000. 42 churches had more than 1000 in attendance and 15 churches had more than 3000 in attendance. The largest foreign congregation was the Manila, Philippines Church at 6000 in attendance. These numbers were staggering when compared to the mainline Church of Christ’s growth. No modern church growth movement has ever spread as quickly and to so many nations.

From 1983 on through the 80's, many people, especially leaders from the various elements of the mainline Church of Christ, moved to Boston or to one of the Boston Church of Christ’s plantings to be disciples and to train to build churches. These people were in awe of God and the unprecedented growth the Holy Spirit produced in Boston and its daughter churches.

The amazing thing is that many of these people had several philosophical and doctrinal conflicts with each other. However, McKean made every effort to forge a bond of unity between all these leaders from the Scriptures and by working side-by-side for one purpose. McKean has always welcomed people from any background who are truly seeking God and he continues to be open to others joining in the revolution through restoration of the Scriptures today more than ever.

In 1987, the Crossroads Church of Christ cut any ties to the Boston Church of Christ and its affiliated plantings. This made a clear distinction between the Boston Movement and the Crossroads Movement, which was declining. This was also the time in which the mainline Churches of Christ separated from the Boston Movement.

In 1988, because of the rapid expanse of the churches, McKean came to the conviction that he needed to focus on “a few men.” These were men that McKean trained personally for the ministry. These new leaders became known as the “World Sector Leaders.” This was significant because the mainline Church of Christ believes in autonomy (the independence of each congregation) and yet McKean because of his view of Scripture constructed a leadership team where he led a group of men and women each of whom oversaw the evangelization of a given region of the world.

In the summer of 1989, McKean moved himself and his family to Cairo, Egypt after the previous ministry staff was deported by the government for their beliefs. This was a daring move for McKean, his wife, and his three young children.

In 1990 McKean went to strengthen the church in Los Angeles. In January 1, 1990 there were only 154 members. At the beginning of his sabbatical in 2001 the church averaged about 15,000 in attendance.

In 1994 the Boston Movement was renamed the International Church of Christ. (ICOC)

In 2001, the oldest of McKean’s children stopped attending church. This single event caused uncertainty in McKean’s leadership among some of the World Sector Leaders. In the later part of 2001 the World Sector Leaders then forced McKean to go on sabbatical, though some later regretted the decision. During the sabbatical the most influential leaders in the International Church of Christ became the “Kingdom Teachers” and the “Kingdom Elders.” These groups were composed almost entirely of people with their roots in the mainline Church of Christ and, therefore, wanted to return the movement to mainline Church of Christ doctrine. In particular the mainline Church of Christ’s view to “speak where the bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent.” Since the New Testament does not explicitly have World Sector Leaders, the Kingdom Teachers and the Kingdom Elders influenced the rest of the leaders of the ICOC at the Long Beach Unity Meeting, November 2002, to dissolve the structured, central leadership. McKean and all the World Sector Leaders were forced to resign.

This upheaval produced a reactionary “new vision” of autonomous congregations, consensus leadership with no lead evangelists, the elimination of structured outreach (Bible Talks) and the elimination of discipleship partners. McKean’s motivating dream of evangelizing the world in a generation was called “a good idea” yet impossible.

When the Kingdom Elders and the Kingdom Teachers in 2003 tried to reopen the door to the mainline Church of Christ, this produced tremendous confusion in the ICOC congregations. McKean’s experience in the mainline Church of Christ showed him that many members were not totally committed disciples. Trying to merge the two churches was what produced confusion. Now the ICOC had lost its distinctiveness and identity.

Also of note, in February 2003 Henry Kriete releases a letter entitled “Honest to God.” In his letter Henry Kriete, advocated “a time for anger and the overthrowing of temples: I believe the time is now.” ^[8] The rebellion of the Kingdom Teachers and the Kingdom Elders was consequently then passed on to all of the members. Thousands left the ICOC confused and bitter.

By mid 2003 McKean writes to oppose the new direction of the ICOC in Revolution Through Restoration Part III: From Babylon to Zion. ^[9]

In July 2003, at the invitation of the Portland International Church of Christ, McKean moved to Portland, Oregon to lead a hurting and devastated church. Over the next three years the Portland Church experienced unprecedented growth, going from 25 members attending McKean’s first midweek service, to over 500 in attendance on Sunday as of late 2006. The Portland International Church of Christ became the fastest growing congregation of the former ICOC churches in America.

In October 2005, 65 leaders and elders from some of the remaining congregations of the International Church of Christ wrote a letter criticizing McKean. A response letter entitled “A Concern for all the Churches” was written by McKean and the leaders of the Portland International Church of Christ. A second letter was written in response to the reply letter marking McKean as divisive and not to be associated with. Many members and congregations around the world still supported McKean effectively leading to the beginning of the newly named “Portland Movement” which McKean currently leads.

• Church of Christ
• Evangelism
• Fundamentalism
• International Churches of Christ
• List of famous people with Restoration Movement ties
• Restoration Movement

Portland movement:

• Portland International Church of Christ, currently led by Kip McKean and now separate from Reformed & Progressive ICOC congregations.
• UpSideDown21, Portland ICOC website in eight languages

Criticism:

• KipMcKean.com Unofficial information about Kip McKean from an ex ICOC-member.
• International Churches of Christ "Brothers Letter" To Kip McKean October 2005 ICC Divides: Core Separating from Kip McKean Faction
• "Reveal" organization by former members for critical information on Kip McKean and the former Boston movement.

Other:

• A Heartfelt Apology by: Kip McKean 2006