Conference Schmonference

My response to Kip

(To Kip's comparison of himself as the adulterous woman)

Yeah, you're like the adultress alright.You sure have screwed a lot of people!

Some perspective

Remember, this is what they trained people to be like.

Brother's Letter to Kip

The divisions continue. The blind accusing the blind.

Posted by sickid on ICCDF.

Letter http://www.usd21.org/1.0/media/kipfinal2.html

Kip's (Portland Elder's) brief response, with more to come:
http://www.usd21.org/1.0/index.php?langID=1&artID=56

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Date: October 3, 2005

To our dear brother Kip,
Brother, we thank God for our relationships with you as brothers in Christ. Some of us fondly remember over 30 years ago when we all became totally committed followers of Jesus as college students at the University of Florida. Others of us deeply love you for your calling us to be disciples of Jesus and to his mission of world evangelism. All of us are grateful to God for how he used you to help lead the unification of brothers and sisters from all parts of the restoration movement to build a movement that took the gospel around the world in such a short time. Your personal love for the lost and vision for us challenge us to obey the Word of God. Your convictions about discipleship, as well as your zeal and faith, have all been incredibly inspirational to us. We pray that the many ways God has used our love for him -- sacrifices, willingness to go anywhere, do anything and give up everything in numerous places around the globe -- have encouraged you.

We also thank God for the discipline and the grace that he has brought on our movement, showing us to be children he cares for. All of us have shared in the mountaintop experiences that have spread to all continents of souls being baptized into Christ through faith, churches being planted and relationships multiplying. We have also shared in the maturing hand of God showing us our mistakes and failures. We have all been humbled by God and are glad that we were able to confess our sins together and apologize to each other and to the people that we lead. Confession brings healing. Repentance brings a time of refreshing that only God can give (Acts 3:19). .

It has been a joy and a maturing experience to grow up in God's family together. Because of the depth of spiritual family relationships that we share and the way God has connected us as "supporting ligaments" in the body of Christ, we are writing this letter to you today.

God has used you in powerful ways to seek and save the lost and to plant churches around the world. He has given you an unusual mixture of talents that we admire. For those we are forever grateful. Those victories for God that you have led us to should always be to his glory and should never be disrespected or discarded

God has also disciplined you. As you have often said, God works his will through people. Disciples have made Jesus Lord and Savior, and have learned to speak the truth in love to confront sin out of concern for souls and for the body of Christ. After numerous personal conversations, discipleship groups, prayers and pleadings confronting you with the leadership sins in your life over a number of years, you resigned as the Lead Evangelist of the Los Angeles Church of Christ in November 2001. After more pleading and prayers, you resigned as Missions Evangelist and recognized leader for the International Churches of Christ in November 2002. We wept at your confession and were eagerly looking forward to your repentance. We were very hopeful in the Spirit that your repentance would produce "a harvest of righteousness 2nd peace." Yet, at the 2004 International Leadership Conference in Chicago, several brothers had to meet with you once again to ask you to repent of your arrogance and attitude towards other Christians. Recently, because of your unrepentant heart and actions, several churches have publicly rebuked and warned you about your divisiveness. You were also recently removed from the program of the 2005 International Leadership Conference and were removed from the planning group for next year's conference for being divisive. You responded by mocking these rebukes in your sermons and articles and by using your time at the 2005 ILC to recruit people to Portland and to your side. You have already begun to start your churches in other cities, not by evangelism, but by causing factions from existing churches. The Phoenix Valley Church elders have invoked God's Scriptures TO protect their flock from you (Acts 20:25-30). How can this be a repentance of YOUR continued sins of leadership?

You have consistently refused to repent of these sins when confronted. Because we love God first, we love you. We are more than willing to imitate Jesus in you. In the following areas we do not see Jesus and cannot imitate these things. Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Hebrews 13:7 We have often imitated your faith and are grateful. We have also considered the outcome of your way of life and we must confront you with your life.

Brother, we are writing this letter today because over a number of years leading up to and since your resignations, we have spoken privately and in groups with you about our concern that you have shown worldly sorrow and not godly sorrow. Many of us have spoken with you urgently in recent weeks because, instead of true repentance producing a harvest of righteousness and peace, your lack of repentance is producing a harvest of unrighteousness, dissension, confusion and division. You have refused to listen to us individually, so we came in love as groups of brothers in accord with the principle of Matthew 18. You have consistently said that you repented and changed and yet you have continued in the very behavior you claimed you repented of. In fact, you have worn many of us out in our confrontation of your sins. You have rationalized your sins by pointing to your baptisms and church growth. Those are evidences of the grace of God with those new Christians. Paul himself pointed out that people who are preaching the gospel out of envy, rivalry and selfish ambition can still help people become Christians (Philippians 1: 15- 18). The Scriptures are clear as to our responsibility to you and to the people of God. It is very sad to us that though you are a hero in the faith to us in many ways, you have not matured spiritually.

"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector." Matthew 18:15-17
Many of us signing this letter have confronted you personally and in groups with your sin over a number of years. We are now bringing other brothers who have also signed this letter as witnesses of your sins. They are in agreement with this call to repentance.

Following are sins that you have publicly and in print claimed that you repented of -- something we have all so much wanted to believe.

You confessed all of these sins in Revolution Through Restoration Part 3, pages 4-7. (2003). You have confessed them in bulletin articles and in sermons. You were confronted with your lack of repentance in a meeting with several of us at the Chicago International Leadership Conference in September of 2004. Yet you continue to consistently live in these sins. Through the private communication of this letter, we are asking you one more time to have godly sorrow and to show your repentance by your deeds. If you do not listen and do not show godly sorrow, then you give us no choice but to take your continued sins to our family of churches around the world in the hopes that you will listen to them and repent of these sins.

1. Pride, Arrogance and Anger:

"During the sabbatical, God taught me to take full responsibility for my leadership in the kingdom, the decisions of the World Sector Leaders and for the spiritual condition of each person in my family. My sins are clear and grievous. I have been arrogant, almost always thinking I was right. I did not listen. I did not actively seek discipling for me and my family. I was only partially open and deceit came into my life. This led to the sin of anger towards those who disagreed with me. Too often, I viewed these individuals as critical. I did not draw people out. I built an atmosphere in which people were afraid to speak up. There were times when I corrected people that I was mean, cruel and I even humiliated them. I was too controlling. For this l apologize. I am truly sorry."

"Ultimately, my most devastating sin was claiming God's victory as mine. In pride, I boasted in "my" accomplishments. I allowed people to give me glory; I did not refocus them to God."

Brother, we are glad you have acknowledged these sins, but we do not see change in you beyond mere surface changes to satisfy people for the moment. We would also add that you not only allow people to give you the glory, you encourage it and reward them for it as in the most recent Portland Jubilee.

You have said publicly that you repented of your arrogance. At the Portland Church Builder Conference, shortly after you said you had repented of your arrogance and pride, you said, "I can fix any church." When you were recently asked privately if you were willing to be a team player with other brothers in cooperative leadership, your response was, "You don't understand. I am the star."

Your writing, your sermons and your website consistently contain unseemly, immature and unwholesome self-promotion and propaganda. It took multiple conversations from many of us before you ever commended any church but your own. You say publicly that you have repented of lifting yourself up, yet almost every bulletin article is about you and your ministry. Your entire view of our fellowship centers around who is with you and who is against you. This is unrighteous, unspiritual, immature and even irrational.

2. Disrespect, Gossip, Slander and Condemnation Towards Churches and Disciples

In Boston the Gempels and Bairds helped us build "family" in the church. However, gradually, in the LA years, my constant short-term growth goals created pressure on the ministry staff that translated to hurtful pressure on members. When combined with a legalistic mindset, disciples were made to feel they could never measure up, too often wondering if they were fruitful or even saved. This robbed them of their joy as disciples. In seeing the need to build a model church, I wrongly compelled far too many good leaders and other disciples from numerous congregations to move to LA. The problem was exacerbated because I did not communicate my gratitude to these other churches, and then I expected them to duplicate our efforts after taking some of their most effective soul winners. For this I am deeply sorry. (From Revolution Through Restoration 3, page 7)

Many of us have confronted you with the numerous ways you continue to slander and hurt the churches you helped build. You admittedly compelled them to give millions of dollars and hundreds of Bible Talk Leaders to fulfill noble dreams and then turned around and condemned those churches for not growing like your church did with their resources. This alone was incredulous. For the last two years, you have been confronted with your continued disrespectful writings about other churches, many of whom are hurting precisely because of the results of many of the sins you confessed. Yet you continue to judge and condemn disciples and churches because they are not like your church. It is difficult to imagine how a humble and contrite leader could possibly write the condemning and disparaging words that you have written. You have become like the father who continually exasperates his children and then condemns them for not wanting a relationship with him.

Brother, for years we have appealed to you to be more careful about your tongue. Yet you admittedly continue to publish statements about churches based on one-sided conversations and hearsay. You are careless with the truth. You are reckless with words. You use what you hear to promote a point of view you want to believe - that our family of churches cannot succeed without your personal leadership. You continually talk about the reports you hear from people in other churches who are hurting. Yet we never hear about your calling the church in that city to even verify the information or to inquire about the person who was calling. (See #3 below.) Despite being admonished to the contrary on many occasions, you do not seek "both sides of the story" regarding these churches and their lasting relationships (Proverbs 18:17).

It is obvious to most that you praise those who are clearly aligned with you or others whom you are trying to persuade to your position. You have praised small churches that have joined themselves with you and emphasized their few baptisms, but fail to mention the churches that have continued to be planted in the last few years or other churches who are growing and baptizing (examples like the church in Nairobi, Kenya that have had 182 baptisms in the first eight months of 2005). As well as the need for repentance and healing in many of our churches, many good news reports and a deep desire for unity were broadly acknowledged by the 800 attendees to the 2005 ILC. This has been your persistent behavior for as long as we have known you

3. Ungodly Ethics

Recently you were confronted with involving yourself in other churches while disrespecting the existing relationships of those churches. Two examples are the churches in Montreal, Canada and in Santiago, Chile. Your response was, "I would rather ask for forgiveness than permission." We renounce this ethic as ungodly and a deliberate sin. It is the epitome of the thinking that says, "The end justifies the means." If Jesus had thought this way, he would never have been able to be our Savior. We cannot believe the apostles or early church leaders lived or led in such a political, unethical way.

You give deceitful impressions. You are not willing to be discipled by any other peer or group of peers. You continue to give the deceitful impression that you are being discipled and have strong and respected men in your life; you publish names of people you are supposedly accountable to. But we all know that you have not demonstrated a consistent humility toward any brother who has been in your life for a long time and who knows your sins. Again, this deception is another example of ungodly ethics.

4. Hatred, Discord, Jealousy, Selfish Ambition, Dissensions, Factions and Envy (Galatians 5:19-21)

For years, while many aspects of your leadership have been admirable, a well-known part of your leadership has been to pit people against each other competitively and to discredit others who might rival you for people's loyalty. This is sinful.

You have admitted to these sins in the past. You have reaped the fruit of these sins. Yet, when asked what your ideas are for unifying us once again and helping our churches to heal, mature and return to our mission, your answer is to go back and do what you did in the 1980s. You are in fact attempting to do just that. If you continue on this course, you will build some churches. And you will reap the same short-term attractive results and the same long-term painful results. You must repent and learn how to work with other leaders in true adult to adult relationships. You are no longer a young man with lack of experience for an excuse.

In your private conversations, in your public proclamations and on your new website conceived to carry your message, you continue to lift yourself up (Proverbs 27:2) and to cause division. No commendable person in the Bible talks about himself as much as you do. Even as recently as the 2005 International Leadership Conference in Seattle, you spent much of your time trying to draw people to you and turn them against their existing relationships. In your Portland Story article printed on August 21,2005, you said,

However, as of this Jubilee the Portland leadership believes it is time for a progressive "calling-out of the remnant of disciples" from dying, former ICOC Churches. For years, I have preached "one church-one city;" in other words, each city should have only one church of disciples, because if they are faithful to God, He will multiply them to evangelize not only their city but the whole region. (Acts 19:8-10) I still believe in this same principle. Sadly, it has become the practice of some former ICOC churches to break-up into geographic groups or groups of various convictions about commitment to Christ, discipling and church government. If a group asks for help to restore the foundation of sold-out disciples, we will help in any way we can. Biblically, disciples can never rebel against authority, yet as seen with David who "chose" to transfer his allegiance from the ungodly Saul to the uncircumcised Achish (1 Samuel 27: 1-4) one is "free to choose" whom to submit to!

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. To the casual observer, this may look like "two churches in one city." Yet, in time it will be obvious who has God's approval

In actuality, there are many churches around the world that are more mature, and are providing an overall more mature and spiritual example than the Portland Church. There are also churches who are devastated. Many churches are helping these hurting churches, but you consistently fail to recognize this because they have not directly aligned themselves with you or asked you for help.

Brother, we hope and believe that you would be the first to vehemently oppose the arrogance and 'divisiveness in these comments if they were from anyone else but yourself. You have made known to the world your disregard for anyone's ability to help any other church except yourself. Most mature people who have known you the best over the last 20 to 30 years are the ones who have lost confidence in your spiritual life. Instead of accepting the reasons they give for their lack of confidence (your unrepented sins), you instead turn it around on them, blame them and trust your own analysis. (Proverbs 14: 12)

You have never built a large church without pulling people from other churches. In your personal ministries, the fires exposed that much of them was built with wood, hay and straw instead of gold and silver (1 Corinthians 3: 12-15). The firestorm that went through our churches in the last few years has revealed what was built well and what was destroyed. Your calls for unity are only sounded when they lead to loyalty to you. Now you have twisted an obscure Scripture to call for disloyalty and rebellion in churches that are healing and are trying to rebuild. This is immature, immoral and unrighteous.

Biblically, disciples can never rebel against authority, yet as seen with David who "chose" to transfer his allegiance from the ungodly Saul to the uncircumcised Achish. (1 Samuel 27:l-4) One is "free to choose" whom to submit to!
(From The Portland Story,August 21, 2005)

It does not take a prophet to know that many of our churches have been hurting. And yet, many are either on the road to recovery and revival or desire to be. Others have given up on basic biblical teaching, and certainly need to be helped to get back to the Scriptures. But we do not believe that they represent the majority. We are devoted to building up the churches, serving them and calling them to following Jesus. We are committed to the Lordship of Jesus, to helping our churches mature spiritually and to evangelizing the world in cooperation with each other. However, we must also do what we can to protect them from your ungodly and divisive intentions which you have made clear in The Portland Story, in your refusal to retract the article and in your actions since the article.

The Phoenix Valley Church leadership has called the disciples there to recommit their lives to God and to the church by asking them to sign letters of commitment. Yet you and your members have recently initiated the beginning of a new church in Phoenix and have called members of the Phoenix church in an attempt to pull them away into this new church. If you were "making every
effort to keep the unity of the spirit" (Ephesians 4:3), you would not do this. If you were not intending to divide, you would not do this. Your actions and your words demonstrate that your intention is to draw people to yourself. (Acts 20:30) God's Word commands us to be faithful to our duties as evangelists and shepherds of God's flock. And you have often challenged evangelists and elders to obey God's Word and protect the flock. Sadly, even though God has used you in tremendous ways through the years, we refuse to sentimentally let you distort the Word of God. We must be faithful to our charge without favoritism.

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. 2 Timothy 4:1-5

Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 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! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears. Acts 20:28-31

I Charge you, in the sight of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, to keep these instructions without partiality, and to do nothing out of favoritism. 1 Timothy 5:21

The Elders of the Phoenix Church have opposed you with these very Scriptures that you have advocated for years. (See the Phoenix Church website.)

We must protect those who are drawn to your great qualities and are naive as to your unrepented sins. You are confusing and exploiting many who are young, as well as those who are unaware of your past sins. Many disciples have no knowledge of the depth of the impact of your sins because we chose to confront you privately about these things and have chosen not to share these things publicly. Although in most of these conversations you were defensive and prideful, time was given for you to have a change of heart and a godly sorrow (2 Corinthians 7: 11-ff). At other times, you would apologize and promise change, only to blatantly commit the same sins again and again. You have been confronted privately many times by many different people. As a group, we have now reached a conviction that more than enough time has passed for you to repent. If you do not repent and confess your sins immediately, we must tell those who are unaware in order to protect them from your sins. May you heed the words of Jesus himself:

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. 'But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come! . . . See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. Matthew 18:l-7, 10


5. Worldly Sorrow

We understand that you have endured much sorrow. For the times you have endured sorrow for righteousness, we admire you. However, we call you to get rid of your bitterness, resentment and self-pity (Ephesians 4:31). We admonish you to repent of worldly sorrow. As your brothers and friends, we beg you to repent by your making your godly sorrow undeniably clear.

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter. 2 Corinthians 7:10-11

We rejoice that you are zealous for souls. Sadly, we also find you to continue to be zealous for your opinions and your own leadership, and stubbornly set on your selfish ambition. In direct contradiction to this passage, we rather continue to see in you:

Short-lived sincerity, great eagerness to defend yourself, indignation at others instead of at your own sin, alarm at the condition of the church but little concern for your own arrogance, concern for others as long as they suit your plans, and blaming your discipline and your bitterness on other people. At nearly every point you have proved yourself to be unrepentant in these matters.

You have often taught and expected others to show godly sorrow. You teach that whole churches can repent quickly, but how can you demand repentance from other churches when you yourself do not repent for years?

The good-hearted early disciples demonstrated godly sorrow.

When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" Acts 2:36
First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and to the Gentiles also, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds. Acts 26:20

We challenge you to make your life match your teaching and your doctrine. Because we have had so many conversations with you about these things over many, many years, and so that you clearly know there is a way for you to repent, we challenge you to repent in these specific ways:

Print, publicly apologize for and stop:

Your continued pride, arrogance and anger.
Your selfish ambition, seeking to be first and continually drawing attention to yourself in your sermons, your publications and your conversations.
Judging and condemning other churches. As pointed out in the Seattle letter to you, the slander towards the New York City Church was never repented of. Numerous other examples litter your writings and speeches.
Blaming other people for many of the problems you helped author that are making many of our churches weak.
Causing division among faithful Christians by "calling out the remnant" and starting churches where there are existing churches of disciples.
Recruiting people to move to Portland and dividing people from their church families in order to start new congregations in the same city.
Blaming other people for the problems in your own family.
The immoral ethics of sinning deliberately now and asking for forgiveness later.

Take these steps to turn around and guard your heart for the future:
Identify a group of five of your lifelong peers who have confronted you on your sin and whom you are willing to submit to for discipling your life, your heart and your ministry.
Use your website to promote all people, churches and messages that are biblical and that are advancing the gospel in any way.
Build your ministry through planting and watering in your own city. Renounce recruiting and playing politics with the ministry.
Regularly invite into your ministry mature brothers who know you well, will speak the truth in love and who are committed to brotherhood unity, biblical doctrine and to evangelism.
Publish a statement with the approval of the five brothers in your peer discipling group (see # 1) affirming:
Your repentance and godly sorrow
Your commitment to cooperate with other churches who have the same convictions without your claiming a leadership role and without your having to dominate others.
Your commitment to each of the above on this repentance list.
Reconcile with the churches you have offended.

We are praying for you not to give in to Satan's temptation to respond to this rebuke with worldly sorrow. By our experience with you in the past many years, if you are unrepentant, you will do the following:
Be indignant that we would correct you because of all you have done for God and for us. We appeal to you to hear that we would not go to this length if we did not love you. And we appeal to you to not hate correction. He who heeds discipline shows the way to life, but whoever ignores correction leads others astray. Proverbs 10:17
Play the martyr. Please do not demean the cross of Jesus by portraying yourself as being crucified. You are being rebuked as God directs us to. You charged many of us with being evangelists who were willing to preach the Word without favoritism. We have all been rebuked and challenged to repent. We must expect the same mature repentance from you. See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. Hebrews 3:12
Blame this rebuke on us, Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth? Galatians 4:16
Plan a strategic, political, response to our rebuke. We have no interest in politics. We are only interested in upholding God's honor, in your soul and the souls of those affected by your sins. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:29-32.
Use this rebuke to further divide churches and cause divisions, factions and dissensions that result in more followers for you.
Ignore our rebuke and call for us to repent, thus throwing the issues back on us.
Completely ignore our call to repentance.

Our Motivation

We want to clearly state our motivation. You are not our enemy. You are our brother.

(Ephesians 6:12)
We are concerned first for your soul. What we have learned from God , , and the Scriptures leads us to love you enough to call you to repentance for your sake.
We are concerned for your family. We pray for all your children to return to God. We know that your own spiritual life is a great key to that.
We are concerned for those faithful people in our churches who are strong. We are concerned that they know the truth so you will not be a stumbling block to them as you have been to many before.
We are concerned for those who are weak. You said you repented of your lack of concern for them. We beg you to prove it by your deeds.
We are concerned for the churches you will build in the future. If you sow the same seeds, you will reap the same problems (Galatians 6:7-8). If you build with the same hay and straw, another fire will burn it up in the future.
Forgiveness

For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. Matthew 6:14,15

All who are signing this letter have already forgiven you in our hearts. Our only expectation is repentance on your part. We stand ready to continually repent on our part.

Our Convictions:

So that you will clearly understand and so that you will not misrepresent us, we state our belief in the following convictions and are diligently and vigorously working to disciple them into our own churches. We don't want Satan to tempt you or your people to think that a lack of conviction motivates this reproof. We fervently believe in:

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit
Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, our Lord and Savior
The Bible is the Word of God and is the authority for our life.
Jesus called all men to become his disciples, be baptized into his body and to be taught to obey.
Every disciple is to be totally committed to God, His Kingdom and to Jesus as Lord and Savior.
Every disciple is called to participate in the Great Commission of Jesus
Every disciple is called to obey the one another passages of Scripture.
Every disciple is called to maintain the Spirit of unity in the bond of peace.
Every disciple is called to follow the Greatest Commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself.

We commit to do everything in our power that is godly to help unify our churches, to mature them and to reach the world with the gospel.

We would love to do this together with you. Please humble yourself, repent and join us.

Love in Christ always,

Javier Amaya Los Angeles USA
Ed Bahula Toronto Canada
Al Baird Los Angeles USA
Martin Bentley Orlando USA & South America
Tom Brown Los Angeles USA
Ron Brumley Seattle USA
John Brush South Florida USA
John Causey Los Angeles USA
Jeff Chacon San Diego USA
Steve Chin Taipei Taiwan
Duncan Comrie Johannesburg S. Africa
Malcolm Cox London England
Brian Felushko Vancouver Canada
Thierry Fender Geneva Switzerland
Gordon Ferguson Phoenix USA
Mike Fontenot Virginia Beach USA
Andy Fleming Los Angeles USA
Herve Fleurant Denver USA
Blaise Feumba Abidjan Ivory Coast & West Africa
Marty Fuqua Los Angeles USA
Anthony Galang Los Angeles USA
Scott Green Seattle USA
Kevin Holland Los Angeles USA
Bill Hooper Dallas USA
Douglas Jacoby Atlanta USA
Jake Jensen Los Angeles USA
Tom Jones Nashville USA
Jay Kelly Seattle USA
Sam Laing Athens USA
Philip Lam Hong Kong China
Roger Lamb Chicago USA
Cesar Lopez Manila Philippines
John Louis Singapore Singapore & SE Asia
John Lusk St. Louis USA
Michael Luzine Toronto Canada
Kevin Mains Los Angeles USA
Gregg Marutzky Denver USA
Chip Mitchell Boston USA
Steve Mukenya Nairobi Africa
Reese Neyland Los Angeles USA
Daren Overstreet Seattle USA
John Porter Miami USA
Sam Powell New York City USA
Chris Reed Denver USA
Justin Renton Cape Town S. Africa
John Reus South Florida USA & South America
Kevin Robbins Toronto Canada
Mike Rock Los Angeles USA
Steve Saindon Minneapolis USA
Charlie Sawyer Kansas City USA
Wyndham Shaw Boston USA
Tony Singh Chicago USA
Rob Skinner Ashland, Oregon USA
Steve Staten Chicago USA
Jerry Sugarman Los Angeles USA
Peti Szabad Budapest Hungary
Greg Tacher Seattle USA
MikeTaliaferro San Antonio USA
Marty Udall Toronto Canada
Mike Vassallo Melbourne Australia
Bruce Williams Los Angeles USA
Tomm Wilson Chicago USA

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Kip's Response

Urgent Concern
John 8:3-9 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her. Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.
This past week Kip McKean received a letter that was signed by many brothers in our fellowship. Due to its length and scope, as well as the seriousness of the accusations, each Portland House Church Leader, Staff Member and Elder-In-Training will review the document and pray to God for humility and wisdom as we determine how to respond. The letter was prefaced by a request to reply within three days. In order to satisfy that deadline, we will take time to pray for a biblical, godly, and righteous response as opposed to a reactionary or retalitorial one. We are grateful for how God has blessed our ministry and for all the sacrificial ways that Kip and Elena has served our congregation. Our ultimate goal is to honor God and to please Him.

At this point we will post this critical letter on both of our websites for three reasons; First, to inform others, Secondly, because it has already been sent to most recognized and regarded evangelists worldwide, and three due to the fact that we were informed it would be posted on “Disciples Today” by Friday.

As soon as feasible, a more thorough response will be written and posted. Please consider what has been written and pray for us and the McKeans.

In Humility,
Bob Bertalot and Tony Untalan
Elders in Training

And, the Unity Group Invites Proposals

The insanity continues.

Posted by WildJen on ICCDF.

An Invitation to Submit Proposals for Unity and Cooperation
Brotherhood Cooperation Proposal Group

October 2, 2005

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We are grateful to God for all he has done among our family of churches called The International Churches of Christ. He has redeemed us by the blood of Christ, built churches on every continent, disciplined us as his sons and daughters and now is preparing a harvest of righteousness and truth. The opportunities ahead are staggering.

From the firestorm we have experienced together, we have all been refocused on the foundation of our churches which is -- Jesus Christ. We have also been given greater insight into which parts of our ministries were being built with “gold, silver and costly stones” and which were being built with “wood, hay or straw.” As a fellowship of churches we again have the opportunity to do what many Christian groups would long for – to recommit ourselves to the ideal of searching out the Scriptures for biblical principles and working together to humbly and prayerfully become the unified, caring body of Christ that God wants us to be – and to redefine their identity and connection in a prayerful, humble, collaborative and unifying manner.

During the International Leadership Conference in Seattle, it was evident that the Spirit of God was producing a growing desire for greater cooperation and unity among our fellowship of churches as a greater number of leaders were made more aware of the spiritual and financial toll that some of our churches have paid because of a breakdown of either unity, connection, or organization in different parts of our fellowship of churches. Out of a desire to help meet those and other needs, as described in more detail in the above excerpt from the announcement that first appeared on www.DisciplesToday.net, it was thought best to solicit and gather proposals from as many as possible. We have been asked to facilitate this process. Although we all know that there are many others who are equally (or more) qualified, we humbly accept this opportunity to serve the Body of Christ through our family of churches.

Purpose: The Holy Spirit created a unity among us through our repentance and baptism into the body of Christ, the forgiveness of our sins, the gift of the Holy Spirit and our mission as disciples of Christ. The challenge given to us in Scripture is to “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” (Ephesians 4:3) How we make every effort is where the proposals come in. Many of us see a need for greater unity and connections between congregations and leaderships of churches. We are eager to hear from those who have specific proposals.

Submitting Proposals: Our first goal is to make sure that every part of our brotherhood is invited to submit proposals for cooperation.

While we will certainly review proposals submitted by individuals, in order to make this project manageable, we ask that individuals first consider working in groups to allow the Spirit to work through each of you and to present us with your collective wisdom. “Many advisers make victory sure.” (Proverbs 11:14) Many of us are already traveling to, calling, speaking with and listening to various segments of our churches to make sure that the next month will be a fruitful writing and discussion period. We want everyone in our family of churches to have the opportunity to contribute to this process. Please forward this notice to others.

Scope of Proposals: The scope of these proposals is to offer a practical, godly way for our churches to cooperate in a unified manner to glorify God and accomplish his will. The most important issue is that we develop a clearly identified way to cooperate in a global manner to proclaim the gospel of Christ while respecting the local church.

Please feel free to address whatever part of our brotherhood cooperation and identity that you are most concerned with. Some of the areas that others have expressed a desire to address: simple statement of beliefs, mission plantings and funding, reconciliation and conflict resolution, continued training and shepherding of evangelists, elders, missionaries, and planted churches, unified beliefs, advice for hurting or weak churches, developing standards for administration, helping churches without ministers and ministers without churches, joint efforts with our youth, campus, singles, helping the poor, leadership development, etc. You may have a proposal that would address one or many of these areas.

We want to be clear to those who have trouble with writing, especially among to those outside of America – even brief emails and bullet points, no matter how coarse, are welcome. If you are limited by technology or language, please send your proposal on paper to any one of us and we will do our best to bring your thoughts as input into the process. Or send your proposal to: Steve Staten 655 W. Grand Avenue Suite 220 Elmhurst, Illinois 60126

We are not suggesting that the proposal that will be submitted by us to the churches by February 1, 2006 will be intended to solve every major challenge facing our churches. However, it is our prayer that God will help us suggest a proposal that will strengthen us locally and globally and enable us to more effectively accomplish God’s purposes throughout the world. The great diversity among us is a gift from God. When each part of our fellowship of churches works in unison and harmony, God will be glorified as souls are saved, healed and matured. (1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4)

Process: We request that all proposals be sent by November 1, 2005 to: unity@chnts.net. We will prayerfully review all proposals, synthesize the best ideas from them, and by February 1, 2006, submit a recommended proposal for brotherhood consideration to our family of churches.

Maintaining Connection
We ask all willing and able disciples to pray and fast with us on November 1, 2005 for the Spirit’s guidance and wisdom. We ask that you continue to pray that the Spirit will work together through us so that the resulting proposal by February 1, 2006 is fruitful in answering the main questions as to how we will connect and cooperate maintaining the Spirit’s unity in the future. We are committed to using the Bible as our standard and guide. The New Testament reveals churches sharing their correspondence (Colossians 4:16, Revelation 1-3), working together to solve an inter-congregational problem (Acts 15:1-4), financially supporting missionaries and mission work (Philippians 4:14-18), cooperating in helping the poor saints in Judea (2 Corinthians 8:16-21), etc. Although many of our congregations currently enjoy association with other sister congregations through cooperative mission efforts, historical ties and geographic proximity, there unfortunately remain others that feel isolated and unsupported or unsure as to how to proceed into the future. Let us consider how to help all parts of our family.

The recent Seattle conference revealed the sincere, widespread desire for togetherness and cooperation in our fellowship. There was a desire in the fellowship for new visions and improved plans to help our lost world receive the salvation of Jesus Christ. Truly God has blessed our family of churches to now be composed of mature churches, young adult and very young churches. As we let our Heavenly Father lead this family, the overall mood of our fellowship indicates that the vast majority of our churches desire unity, cooperation, coordination while renouncing selfish ambition and competition.

Updates
All proposals should be sent to unity@chnts.net by November 1, 2005. Watch www.DisciplesToday.net for updates from this proposal group. We solicit your prayers.

In Christ’s service,

Andy Fleming
Mike Fontenot
Scott Green
Philip Lam
John Louis
Sam Powell
Steve Staten
Mike Taliaferro
Bruce Williams


2005 Brotherhood Cooperation Proposal Group Announcement Excerpt
(Click here to read the full announcement previously published.)

Background
For many months, numerous brothers from our family of churches around the world have expressed a desire for a greater brotherhood cooperation to meet the needs of the disciples, the lost and the poor.

Following discussions with and recommendations from several church leaders around the world and sensing the opportunity for cooperation at the 2005 International Leadership Conference in Seattle, the elders and regional evangelists of the Los Angeles Church introduced a proposal a few weeks ago that included an appeal for brotherhood unity and revival. In the days that followed, it became obvious that additional time would enable more churches to prayerfully consider this initiative and furnish additional input and even other proposals. Therefore, at the beginning of the International Leadership Conference, the Los Angeles brothers recommended that their proposal be a part of a wider plan to solicit other proposals and asked the many churches who had agreed to the original initiative, or had expressed strong interest in it, to extend patience in favor of this broader plan to solicit additional proposals from all parts of our fellowship for consideration.

Selection
Since we have no worldwide representative group in place, this idea was presented in Seattle to the planning group for the next International Leadership Conference. The idea seemed good to the 33 brothers who were from most geographical areas of the world. After some discussion and much prayer, 9 brothers were selected to serve on a group to gather input for a brotherhood cooperation proposal. These men were selected by the simple qualifications of: servants who were full of the Spirit and wisdom (Acts 6:3); who hold the deep truths of the faith (1 Timothy 3:9); have been tested and proven faithful (1 Timothy 3:10); are advocates of a cooperative effort (Ephesians 4:1-3); have no selfish ambition (James 3:13-16); have gifts needed for this task (1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12); desire to serve in this group; and have global relationships (2 Timothy 3:10)

The 33 worldwide conference planning members spent a night in prayer and then selected the following brothers by secret ballot, commending them to the fellowship to serve as the Cooperation Proposal Group:

Andy Fleming, Missions Evangelist, Middle East and Eurasia
Mike Fontenot, Evangelist and Elder, Hampton Roads, Virginia
Scott Green, Evangelist, Seattle, Washington
Philip Lam, Evangelist, Hong Kong, China
John Louis, Evangelist, Singapore, Southeast Asia
Sam Powell, Evangelist and Elder, New York, New York
Steve Staten, Evangelist and Teacher, Chicago, Illinois
Mike Taliaferro, Evangelist, San Antonio, Texas and Africa
Bruce Williams, Evangelist and Elder, Los Angeles, California

Kip's Official List

Posted by WildJen on ICCDF.

Didn't take 'em long before they started their own list of churches.
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Here is a list of our affiliated churches:
Salt Lake Christian Church
Savannah Church of Christ
Central New York Church of Christ
Greater Baltimore Church of Christ
Église du Christ de Montréal
Eugene International Church of Christ
Santiago Church of Christ, Chile
Quebec City Church of Christ, Quebec Canada

IS IT IN YOU? Life changing! Spirit lifting! Fun! Exciting!

The New York City Church of Christ asks their singles:

IS IT IN YOU?

I'm sure some of those women leading the seminars wish it was...