The International Church of Christ didn't come from nowhere, although it sometimes looks that way to unsuspecting people when a new ICC church is planted in their city or The ICC itself largely ignores its roots -- current members rarely hearanything about the group's history prior to the early 1990s, and earlier periods are almostnever discussed publicly by the leaders.This can strike an observer as odd, because the story is worth telling, and hearing. TheInternational Church of Christ has grown from a single congregation with a few hundredmembers in 1967 to a worldwide organization with over 300 local churches spread acrosssix continents and a membership of around 85,000 as of earlier this year. This is a recordmost churches would be glad to point to.Unfortunately, the story doesn't stop there. In its growth, the ICC has also left behind a lotof people and churches on the way -- during a series of during a series of reconstructions,exposure and disgrace of its founder for sexual improprieties, rejection by the churchwhich founded it, and (according to former members) sheer burnout from impossibly highexpectations and abusive treatment at the hands of the leaders. Two years ago at aconference in Johannesburg, South Africa, one current ICC leader estimated that therewere two former members for each current member, which (if correct) would mean thatthere are around 200,000 former members. Since the ICC at present does not consideranyone who left it prior to around 1987 to be a former member, the actual number isprobably much higher.The International Church of Christ came out of a mainstream American Protestantdenomination called the Church of Christ. The Churches of Christ have come to be calledthe "mainline" Churches of Christ in the last ten or fifteen years to distinguish them fromthe International Churches of Christ -- before that, both groups were just called Churchesof Christ.The ICC was also influenced by the "Discipling" movem...
