The New gods of Kip McKean's "International Christian Church"

So I have seen some of the ICC’s recent sermons and then was going through some friends posts on social media and I came upon a conversation between one of my friends and an ICC leader. They were arguing about how to approach a leadership that is in sin (in the ICC’s case, severely corrupt, as my friend argued) and the ICC leader had this to say:

“As a disciple remember that we must be very careful how we speak about any authority in this world whether corrupt or benign. God takes this very seriously. David himself showed a respect toward Saul, even though Saul was corrupt. This was because David understood the sovereignty of God. When we talk bad about God's leaders whether factually accurate or not, we are calling God's judgment and decisions into question. We see examples of the outcome of this in the Scriptures.”

This was in the context of talking about people who criticize the ICC leadership. This kind of thinking is in complete ignorance of other scriptures about issues of corruption as my friend Josh soon pointed out to him; “You used David and Saul as an example but how about more clear examples that line up with prophets addressing church leaders in the old testament. Consider Jeremiah at the city gates or Jesus in the temple. God is absolutely Sovereign and all believers are ambassadors of the truth. Remember Jesus flipped tables and made a whip. Jeremiah preached at the city gates and phineas picked up a spear.”

Not to mention that Revelations 2:2 calls us to test for “false teachers”; "I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and you have found them false."

This leader did not say anything else after that, but it is clear what kind of manipulative rhetoric these ICC leaders are feeding their members; “To criticize us is to criticize God”. Even as they are coercing money from the members and refusing to repent of such abusive behavior; their arrogance is astounding.

First of all they claim that the people in their leadership are “God’s leaders”. Maybe they need a history lesson on just how Kip McKean’s “New Movement” got started in the first place:

Let’s start with the note that Kip himself was mostly to blame for the fall of the “old movement” (I thoroughly prove and give evidence for this in Article 10 of this blog along with all the excuses that Kip tried to make for his actions, also see the “Back to the Matrix” article linked below). Kip also tries to blame the damage on Henry Kriete. After actually reading the HK letter as well as Kriete’s letter to Steve Johnson, it is apparent that Henry Kriete did not cause the damage, the damage was already there. All Henry did was help to remove the blindfolds that the leadership kept trying to put on the congregation and brought the real alarming issues of the church into the light.

 After Kip was forced to step down as the ICOC's worldwide evangelist he was still allowed to lead a church in Portland, but he had become bitter and started to point fingers at the other leaders and blaming them for the damage that he himself had caused. He began to rant about the ICOC’s autonomy and preached a doctrine of “one-man central leadership” even though the leaders had tried to sit down with him and show that this doctrine of his was arrogant and full of holes scripturally and in total ignorance of the actual leadership structure of the first century church (which I prove in Article 5). In 2006, after much divisive propaganda and attempts to undermine ICOC churches, Kip then announces that he is separating from the ICOC while still spewing the same rubbish about the ICOC’s “autonomy”. He also had the audacity to criticize the ICOC’s lack of growth and use this opening to claim that the ICOC “was no longer evangelistic”, despite the fact that the ICOC churches were still trying to heal from the damage caused by Kip’s regime; once again blaming others for the problems that he had caused. In 2007 Kip used the resources of his Portland church as a “springboard” to launch his flagship church in L.A. He took from the Portland church: A Missions contribution of over $120,000, 10 of the 12 full & part time ministry staff, 42 Leaders and members of the Portland church and then 40 more Portland members were pressured to move to L.A. as well. This weakened the Portland church, and when their recruitment stats dropped the members of the Portland church began to receive accusations that they were “lukewarm” and the Portland members were harassed with messages and calls telling them to move to L.A. For the members of the Portland church to sacrifice so much manpower and money, only to be slandered when their performance in evangelistic recruitment began to falter; this was damaging to the Portland church and they began to see how abusive Kip’s system of leadership was. In 2008 The Portland church was unable to take anymore abuse and finally they decided that although they should be open and considerate of input and opinions other churches; the ultimate decision-making rested in the hands of the local leadership of the church, not some “supreme dictator” who had obviously not repented of his abusive behavior. This was a shot across the bow of the “one-man central leadership” doctrine that Kip was peddling. Kip responded by slandering the Portland church; telling the members of that congregation to leave and join his church. If that wasn’t arrogant enough, he even sent one of his leaders over to Portland while announcing that this so-called “new leader” was now going to be leading the “New Movement Church” there in Portland as he continued to use thuggish tactics in an attempt to try to undermine the local Portland leadership. After Kip’s disgusting display of treachery the Portland church had had enough of Kip and decided to break ties with the ICC and joined in fellowship with the ICOC churches. I remember sitting there in 2008 as Kip announced “sadly the Portland church has decided that they no longer want to be a part of a movement of ‘sold out’ disciples”, they have left ‘God’s movement’”. The irony is that during this same sermon Kip had preached about how he used to be “harsh on people” during his leadership in the ICOC, but claimed that he had repented of such behavior (today most ICC leaders try to avoid talking about Kip’s abusive ICOC days altogether or try to change the story and shift the blame elsewhere; they obviously cannot hope that people will buy the story that he has “repented” anymore). Kip has proven himself to be a bold-faced liar.

Kip was able to grow his new church very quickly by preying on struggling “remnant” ICOC churches.

To get an idea why so many ICOC churches began “struggling” let’s rewind back to Kip’s ICOC days; I show in Article 10 that Kip’s system during the time that he was leading the ICOC had allowed corrupt people to rise into the leadership because Kip wanted to appoint leaders who would enforce his policies (in other words, this opened the doors for blind or selfish leaders with shallow or no biblical convictions to be elevated into leadership). The consequences of this lasted for some time even after Kip was taken out of power. After Kip’s one-man supreme leadership was dismantled these leaders went rogue (for example, the ICOC church near my city began to compel their members to give a “special missions contribution” even though they were not sending out any mission teams, and then they pocketed the money for themselves and bought nice houses). A letter from one ICOC church even showed that they had to purge the majority of their leadership and have a temporary “emergency transition team” take over until they could sort the serious issues about the integrity of their staff. If the damage caused by Kip McKean’s abusive leadership could be likened to the damage caused by an earthquake, then the damage caused by these rouge leaders could be seen as “aftershocks” of Kip’s corrupt leadership. Henry Kriete makes mention of these “rogue leaders” in his letter to Steve Johnson when he says that the ICOC still has “unrepentant/unreformed cult leaders kicking around”. Incidentally many leaders that were fired by the ICOC were later hired by Kip into his new organization.

Now fast-forward back to where we were before during the launch of Kip’s “new movement”. Kip saw an opportunity to take advantage of this “aftershock damage” and began to call out to the members of different ICOC congregations who were having problems with their leadership and telling them to abandon their churches and join his new organization. Now why would these people join with Kip who was actually responsible for much of the damage in the first place? I cannot answer for their reasoning; the only thing that I can say that in all the years that I was in the ICC, not a single ex-ICOC person could give me a clear answer on why Kip McKean’s “old movement fell”. They would just say that “everyone was just bitter” and refer to the events leading up to Kip’s resignation as “the great confusion”. It is the nature of weak-minded people to gobble up such deceptively over-simplified explanations when the truth is inconveniently more complex. The only conclusion that I can come up with is that during the leadership’s attempt to point blame elsewhere, at Henry Kriete, at the supposed “bitterness” of the members and the swirling propaganda coming from Kip and other leaders; a lot of people were kept in the dark or were willing to live in ignorance in order to avoid conflict. Either way, years later the damage caused by rogue leaders meant that certain ICOC congregations were ripe for exploitation by Kip.

The rest is history; the increasing corruption of the ICC leadership from 2008 to 2015 is laid out by my articles.

Kip’s new organization was started because he wanted to be the king of his own kingdom; a kingdom that was built on slander and hypocritical divisiveness. It is Kip’s kingdom with leaders who are under his payroll and under his control. These are not “God’s leaders”, you cannot call this “God’s kingdom”. There was nothing “Godly” about the way that Kip’s organization started.

If you take a look at the roots of the ICC’s creation; it is a product of Kip McKean’s bitterness, arrogance and a desire for power driven by an over-inflated ego.

Now people who have been a part of the ICC for years are leaving. The ICC has even began marking people simply for telling the leaders that they are leaving the organization. The ICC drags out abuse over an extended period of time, and therefore they are afraid of people who have been part of their organization and then suddenly say that they are leaving. They are afraid of how much these people know and fear that these people will expose them.

Last month, a shepherding couple, Russ and Lana Preston were marked and disfellowshipped after Russ confronted Tim Kernan about issues in the ICC leadership. Russ had become concerned with the ICC calling the members to unquestioning obedience to their leadership. Tim Kernan has been given leadership of the CAICC (Kip's "flagship" church), but Kip McKean still ultimately controls the ICC as the "lead evangelist". When Russ asked Tim Kernan the question if this absolute obedience included the situation where the leader in question was calling members to do something that was wrong, sinful or unbiblical Tim then unashamedly said that such things did not matter; that their leadership must be obeyed regardless. This alarmed Russ and he tried to plead with Kip but was not only ignored but also quickly marked and disfellowshipped by the ICC leadership. Russ and Lana were long-term members who had led the Chemical Recovery ministry for years.  

As more of the ICC’s corruption is exposed Kip is now attempting the same thing as he tried to do before; calling people to blind obedience in his leadership and claiming that anyone who speaks against him is speaking against God. These are the same ridiculous kind of fear tactics that he implemented when he was part of the ICOC and look at the damage that caused.

Even as they blatantly enforce policies that contradict the Bible they still preach to their members that they need to submit to their leaders (and also these unbiblical policies) and though one would submit to God. They have essentially taken down those of God’s teachings that are inconvenient to them and put Kip’s teachings in the place of God’s teachings. The ICC has a new god now; his name is Kip McKean.

And let’s take a look at what Kip McKean’s god is:

The ICC:

●Twists and perverts scriptures for the sake of money.

●Abuses discipling relationships and uses them to manipulate people for the sake of money.

●Deceiving the congregation and enforcing a policy for raising contribution

●Lies and deceit to raise the special contributions.

●Manipulatively tells their members that after each contribution raise they cannot lower it on account of it being an “oath to God”.

●Members who do not comply with these money-making policies are often subjected to slander and other abusive measures.

It is all too clear what the real god of the ICC leadership is.

Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.  –Philippians 3:19

Relevant Information Sources

Here is the link to an article written by one of the ICOC churches which details the destruction that Kip’s leadership caused and admits how degraded their system was in allowing corrupt leaders to rise into the leadership under Kip’s guidance:

("Back to the Matrix" article)

http://www.newcovpublications.com/icc/matrix.htm

That article also describes his attempt at continuing his sociopathic behavior even after he was forced to resign

Here are links to articles written by the ICOC news network which describe the damage that Kip caused to Portland and their confrontations with Kip concerning his propaganda and slander:

(Article on Portland)

http://www.icochotnews.com/?q=node/632

(Hotnews responds to ICC)

http://www.icochotnews.com/?q=node/96

And of course the other articles that I have written and already proved certain statements I make within this article.

Authors Note:

As we start off this new year, and as the depravity of the ICC becomes more apparent to its own members, it seems that Kip McKean is doing the same thing he did in the past which is to shift blame and excommunicate people who point out their hypocrisy and twisted policies. These people have shown that they have no intention to repent and the only way they will stop is when God himself drags them down kicking and screaming.

Now some have told me to let things go and stop agonizing over the ICC, I thank you for your concern. Indeed I recognize that a kingdom that is not built on God will not last and this organization will ultimately fall apart or be forcibly destroyed by God to end this “spiritual rape” of God’s people, however, on some sleepless nights I still find myself recalling the hypocritical and disturbing things that happened while I was a part of the organization. Also while this organization is still active, they remain a threat to the many innocent campus students out there, who are the ICC's primary prey. I also have friends that have kept me up to date on things going on in the organization and new propaganda the ICC has put out in their recent sermons. The ICC is also an organization that tries to isolate their own members and attempts to limit information about their internal affairs that may leak to outsiders; in fact they lie through their teeth to those outside their organization while posting more propaganda on their websites. So I figure that someone has to keep people updated on what is really happening and keep people from falling for the schemes of these con-men. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” There are many others who are speaking out against this organization, but even if I were the only one; someone has to speak the truth. At least this will be one of a few sources of more up-to-date information out there to counter the ICC’s deceptive propaganda. I don’t intend to agonize over the ICC, however, so unless something significant happens then this is likely to be my only post of 2016. It is best not to dwell in the past and I may end up just posting one article a year only for the sake of keeping people updated.

Update 1/10/2016

Many may have noticed that the “history section” of the article seemed to gloss over a rather significant detail. After Kip was taken out of leadership, how did he manage to become the leader of the Portland Church? After all the abuse and damage that this corrupt man had caused, who in their right mind would hire him again?

To fill in these blanks, I would like to give major props to Chris Lee who provides on his website the documents that describe the events behind Kip McKean’s rise to leadership in the Portland church, and it is very disturbing to read.

Here is the link to the document:

http://www.reveal.org/library/stories/churches/portland/Kip__Portland__SF___Sacramento___Final.pdf

To summarize; Kip McKean was able to attain leadership of the Portland church due thanks to the assistance of leaders in the ICOC San Francisco church who were just as corrupt-minded as himself and who wanted control of the money in the Portland church bank account. To do this they used abusive tactics, lies to the congregation, and methods to publicly humiliate members who opposed them; leading up to appointing Kip as Portland’s new leader in order to reassert control over the Portland Church’s assets.

Now why Kip? It not only had to do with recognizing that Kip’s interests coincided with their own, that is, being lovers of themselves and lovers of money. But also Russ Ewell owed Kip a favor for helping him to cover up certain events that would have landed him with statutory rape charges. When Ewell was leading the Boston Teen Ministry in the early to mid 80’s he had sex with numerous blonde teenagers. Kip helped cover it up so that he wouldn’t be charged as a sex offender. Ewell owed Kip a favor, which was a big reason behind his sudden decision to throw his support in letting him lead Portland.

The rest of the story has already been told; Kip then used the Portland church to start his own “movement”, and the disgusting abuse continues to this day in the form of a new organization. Kip has made himself into the “Kim Jong-un” of his own personal kingdom, and his authority comes first rather than God’s authority. The claim of the ICC upper leadership that their leaders have been “appointed by God” is a treacherous lie from the mouths of those whose hearts have become wicked with the desire for control.