boston c of c note the following article is submitted on behalf of someone frank daniels who has difficulty posting to s r c email replies to daniels math ufl edu i am unable to post to the bitnet groups here is a capsule history of the shepherding discipleship movement in the churches of christ i e crossroads boston i could trace the movement back as far as and indeed some of its roots go back that far but these were really influences on the movement and not the actual movement per se i will start in c in that day there were white churches and colored churches in nearly every area due to segregation modern pentecostalism was developing as a predominantly colored phenomenon here there was great fanaticism emphasis on emotional experiences and belief in a personal guidance and indwelling of the holy spirit many white protestant churches were growing into what became known as conservative fundamentalism by the s the evangelical movement was in full swing and many groups were becoming part of it when the civil rights movement grew stronger in the s and s many white church groups began to be influenced by the black churches and by what was going on there this spread started in the most liberal of groups and spread to the more conservative ones by the late s in even the catholic church was displaying evidence of influence by the other groups still evident today the churches of christ are and were a very conservative protestant group when the influence from outside began to reach the cofc in c it was generally not appreciated conservative groups are very strongly resistant to change and the new movement was very different from the cofc status quo the magazines put out at that time by cofc folks tell the story as it unfolds new ideas came into the cofc there was a big push to reach out to college students young adults and teens some called this the campus evangel ism movement emotions generally not highly regarded in the cofc at large played a more important role in the new movement in some places people began to speak in tongues as their pentecostal predecessors did this was met with extreme criticism from within the churches of christ in some places people were fired from their jobs for speaking in tongues or for advocating the holy spirit movement another name for the new branch the term underground church of christ also came into use because these people had to hide their differences or they might be ostricised there were several congregations however whose leaderships were receptive to the new ideas at least in part the tongues speaking never really caught on one of these was the th street church of christ in gainesville fl campus ministry had already been regarded as important at th street and the new ideas seemed to be very helpful tools for evangelism they also seemed to put vitality into the church which many felt had been lacking in october of the th street congregation hired chuck lucas to be its campus minister by he would move to being the congregation s lead minister in the late s early s the congregation worked with many other groups they held bible discussions at daytona beach during spring break they organized talks in the fraternities on the university of florida campus they also worked with uf sports people in the congregation ordered a larger building to be constructed when it was finished the group moved and changed its name now no longer appropriate it became the crossroads church of christ from then on a name that would become legendary by this time crossroads was basically the only cofc whose programs were fully aligned to the new movement while they didn t start it they continued it and were responsible for where it wound up going by none of the other churches of christ in the area felt that they could cooperate with crossroads due to what they recognized as doctrinal problems at crossroads crossroads had begun to heavily emphasize and later require attendance at all church functions it was seen as a good thing for each member to have at least one close relationship a person with whom you would share all of your problems pray and get help from the concept was called prayer partners which later became discipleship partners and also later became mandatory the leadership was assigning prayer partners to people for a while the book called the master plan of evangelism was a strong influence on chuck lucas he and the group believed that it was every person s duty and life purpose to carry out the great commission crossroads was growing in number and numbers became very important some would say all important a person who was evangelistic was spiritual evangelism meant inviting people to crossroads events if you did this a lot and some of them converted then you were spiritual there were sermons about how if you bought groceries the cashier and bag boy ought to receive invitations to services everyone at your job ought to receive invitations since these people needed jesus you should be aggressive don t take no for an answer if you did not evangelize enough you came to be called lazy or unspiritual by the end of the decade the prayer partner system was integrated into a structure the elders and ministers were on top like a big pyramid then the group leaders bible study leaders and members everyone who came in had someone placed over them it is at this time that the bad press about crossroads began to circulate the problem with rape on the university of florida campus was tremendous but crossroads was considered a bigger and more immediate problem there were many complaints about the congregation and its pushy evangelistic tactics crossroads was considering the other churches of christ to be dead churches which aggravated them it was aggressively recruiting out of the other church groups denominations which aggravated them by this time crossroads had grown numerically to the point where not only did they believe that they would soon need a new building but also they were sending out planting create a new church and reconstructing reorganize an existing church teams to other cities by this time the crossroads movement was underway a group was sent to the member lexington church of christ in boston ma the team was headed up by kip mckean who had been converted out of a fraternity by crossroads in gainesville kip held a still stronger view of church authority which he believed was heavily vested in the evangelist s and not so much in the elders he had been fired in from the congregation that he had been working at when the elders there found numerous things wrong with his theology including the practice of what came to be called one over one christianity called this by critics in the first year half of the people felt that they did not want to be a part of the new congregation they left but others began coming into the new boston church of christ ah but i m ahead of myself at crossroads the heavy handed system had begun to take its toll on the members many have said that they felt that they were working hard but they were not achieving the results that were so important the numbers were dropping from crossroads membership declined steadily the leadership began to tighten the reigns on the congregation who was seen as being largely unproductive and unfruitful the fruit passages in the nt were interpreted as referring to new converts if you were not bearing fruit said john you would be cast into the fire boston still teaches this if you love your neighbor you ll save his soul invite him to church and convert him if you re not doing that you don t love your neighbor and if you don t love you re in danger of backsliding the logical arguments continue in this vein in chuck lucas was fired from his job as minister due to recurring sins in his life these struggles were never revealed to the congregation at large although many people outside the congregation had heard about them for by now there was very little contact on a friendship level between most crossroads members and those outside if you have contact your focus should be on converting them bring them to a bible study chuck s replacement was joe woods who was fully supportive of the boston system as boston grew in number they began to offer training sessions for other ministers joe went to boston to be trained and returned to cross roads ready to emphasize the total commitment to the church that boston and kip mckean were now emphasizing eventually in fall of the elders at crossroads now in number dick whitehead and bill hogle made a decision boston was demanding that all of the other churches in the movement come under the direction of the church in boston the elders refused citing their belief that each church should be autonomous something true in all non boston churches of christ perhaps there was also some degree of offense done here since crossroads was no longer the example to the rest of the movement the group now numbered about while boston was now larger in membership the churches of christ generally teach that baptism is a necessary element of salvation at crossroads they taught what was called lordship baptism you had to understand the commitment involved before you could be baptized you had to count the cost at boston they took this a step further if at some time you became unproductive then your spirituality was suspect people would begin to ask you if you really understood what you were getting into anyone who said no had their baptism deemed invalid they hadn t counted the cost properly they still had to be baptized others called this rebaptism and crossroads didn t approve of this practice when crossroads announced that it would not follow boston many of its members left crossroads and went to movement related ministries which were now called discipling ministries you were either discipling evangelizing or you were dead they also used the nickname movement of god for a while by summer of crossroads was withdrawn from the movement and now stood alone they had few to no allies in the mainstream churches of christ and now none in the movement boston however continued to chart its course in the direction that they had been following they sent reconstruction teams to many cities which usually meant that they split the church there they stopped acknowledging other churches of christ as christians and began to call themselves the remnant the remnant of the jews in the ot are those who are saved by god it was felt that the remnant today represents all the christians sometimes they would simply call their movement the church they usually took the name of the city for their name implying to the other churches of christ that boston did not recognize their existence many campuses have now formally forbidden boston ministries from recruiting there due to the number of complaints in some cases it has been documented that boston ministries have lied to university officials in order to continue to have access to the campus any resistance that they experience is termed perse cution which all true christians are expected to experience are you really a christian if you re not being persecuted the numbers at boston peaked at c in since then they have fought to remain steady i have heard a tape of kip mckean shouting at the leaders for failing to fulfill the great commission their life s purpose as god commanded them their christianity is highly centered on commands and obedience crossroads once was called a cult boston is now recognized by the cult awareness network and other national and international groups as a cult under a formal definition because of the techniques which they employ the term cult is usually differentiated from sect by the practice of those techniques the techniques which they employ are recognized by many as being techniques of destructive pursuasion also used by other shepherding discipleship groups robert jay lifton margaret thaler singer and many others have written about the topic these techniques include guilt motivation emotional manipulation loaded language the aura of sacred science a sort of mystic element seen in everyday events and others i have no particular axe to grind against the movement i have numer ous friends who are still part of the movement i have never had a falling out with anyone in the movement i disagree with many things which they teach i recognize the psychological damage done by being involved in such a system i hold no loyalty to the mainstream churches of christ and do not defend their mistakes either i want to point out though that unlike in many other systems which are in other ways similar the leadership of the boston movement are as much victims of the system as the members we do not have a leader who enjoys manipulating his people the leaders believe what they teach and they feel accountable for the activites and spiritual welfare of the members when members do not evangelize to their expectations for example the leaders feel personally responsible as well the leaders are not out for money or power they want to evangelize the world in their lifetime i have said too much but there is much more to say there are many examples i could give and quotes from other sources including boston bulletins that i could include but this is too long already you may post this if you so desire frank d answer not a fool according to his folly lest thou also be like unto him answer a fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own conceit proverbs believe it or not questions about the boston church of christ are among the most commonly asked in order to avoid having s r c dealing with this on a continuous basis i allow discussion only periodically by now i ve got a k faq file which has both sides by the way this gives enough addition information on history that it seems worth posting and adding to the faq clh
