From Gainesville To The Boston Church of Christ
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. Later, the church moved into a larger building with a new name, the Crossroads Church of Christ, and, through an evangelistic program Lucas had established, they won many new converts.
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. McKean moved to became evangelist for 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.
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. In 1990, the McKeans moved to Los Angeles to lead the Los Angeles Church of Christ, where they presided throughout the 1990s.
Many of McKeans friends and closest work colleagues observed a growing and concerning number of unrepentant sins such as pride, arrogance, harsh militaristic leadership. After multiple confrontations a letter was drafted by numerous evangelists around the world calling for his repentance. McKean refused to respond to these challenges and founded another small cluster of churches called the International Christian Churches.
At the beginning of 2001 as a college student in Boston, the oldest of the McKeans’ children began to question her faith. Because Kip had profiled his children as the example for all other Christians, he was heavily criticized. This event, along with the pattern of sins noted above, caused uncertainty in McKeans’ leadership among many other leaders in the church. In September 2001, the McKeans agreed to take a "sabbatical" and moved to Portland, Oregon. The reasoning was that McKean taught emphatically that to “oversee” a church, one had to “manage his own family how can he take care of God’s church.” (1 Timothy 3:4-5; Proverbs 22:6). McKean was challenged to abide by the same standard he had used to remove many from the full-time ministry. The McKeans were hurt by what they felt was a lack of grace and appreciation. McKean began to use the Old Testament as a standard for modern day living which contradicted his earlier claims that the old covenant holds no sway in modern times.
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