“Whoever wants to become great among you, must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be the slave of all. For the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:43-45

The weekend of January 23-25, 2009 was historic – the first official gathering of the Central Leadership of the SoldOut Discipling Movement! Though more couples will be added in the future, these Spirit-filled men and women of faith are greatly beloved for their tireless service for the Lord. Included in this decision-making group for the new movement are: Chris and Theresa Broom of Chicago, DJ and Kacie Comisford of New York City, Andrew and Patrique Smellie of Washington DC, Matt and Helen Sullivan of Santiago, Chile, as well as Nick and Denise Bordieri and Tony and Therese Untalan – our shepherds in LA – and Elena and me. One disciple reminiscing about the “glory days” of the thousands being baptized in the Boston Movement (International Churches of Christ) asked, “Are these the new World Sector Leaders?” I responded, “In time, they and others will receive this charge.”

God moves through men and women, who are surrendered to His will. The Spirit brings these people together producing a movement. In each great movement in the Bible, there was always “God’s man” and the chosen few around him that formed “the leadership” through which God led that movement. Moses was aided by Aaron, Miriam and the 12 tribal leaders, most notably –Joshua. (Exodus 12:4; 13:3-15) This 40 year long movement delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, sustained them in the desert, and brought them to the borders of the Promised Land! The next movement was guided by Joshua, the 12 tribal leaders and the elders. (Judges 2:7) God said to Joshua, “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you.” This movement of God conquered the Promised Land. Once again, God’s movement was led by God’s man and a trusted few.

During the tumultuous era that followed, where “every man did as he saw fit,” revival movements were initiated by “the Lord raising up judges, who saved [the Israelites].” (Judges 17:6; 2:16) Best remembered of these judges are: Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson and God’s man – who united all the tribes – Samuel. After the dark centuries of the judges, came the ill-fated reign of King Saul. His departure from God necessitated “the Lord raising up” the young hero, David. David, from his anointing by Samuel in his teens, was known as “a man after God’s own heart.” (1 Samuel 13:14) This new movement began in the cave of Adullam. At this remote setting, a few brave souls, who were “in distress, in debt or discontented” because of Saul’s ungodly leadership, dared to join – the now disgraced hero and outlaw – David. (1 Samuel 22:2) In time, this fast growing movement divided God’s people into “Israel” and “Judah.” (2 Samuel 3:1) Years later, God unites His faithful under David’s leadership. This joyful reunion was marked by David bringing the ark into Jerusalem, making this city the new center of worship and government for the Israelites.

After the golden age of David and Solomon, ungodly leadership and idol worship adopted from surrounding nations angered the Lord and again divided Israel from Judah. God sent His people “Israel” into exile in Assyria. A century later He exiled “Judah” to Babylon. It was in Babylon that God moved the hearts of the remnant, those Jews who dreamed to return to Israel “to rebuild the house of the Lord in Jerusalem.” (Ezra 1:5) The leaders of this “restoration movement” were Zerubbabel and Jeshua, aided by Ezra. They returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt the temple. However, as their zeal waned, God moved in Nehemiah’s heart to reinvigorate the movement to restore Jerusalem’s glory by rebuilding her walls. (Nehemiah 2:11)

The New Testament records the greatest of God’s movements, which the early disciples called “The Way.” (Acts 9:2; 24:22) This movement was initially led by Jesus, who selected the Twelve to perpetuate His movement. (Luke 6:12-16) Let it be clear, the genesis of the Christian movement did not arise from Peter’s, James’ or even Paul’s leadership as recorded in the book of Acts, but in Jesus’ leadership as documented in the four gospels. This movement fulfilled Jesus’ dream and prophecy, “This gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:14) “The end” of which Jesus spoke was the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Paul, writing in the early 60’s AD, confirms that this dream became reality, “This gospel has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven.” (Colossians 1:23)

Though there have been several Christian movements in the past 2000 years, not one of them can claim they evangelized the world in their generation. Even so, God’s movement in our day should never surrender this most noble of visions. A leader of a modern Christian movement must go beyond imitating Peter, James or Paul. He must imitate Jesus’ life, heart and leadership, especially His selection of a few. These few will lead God’s people into all the nations through Jesus’ plan of the multiplication of disciples. Today, many in “Christendom” are against a central leadership and a central leader. They correctly view the Catholic Church as corrupt and apostatized from the truth. They then conclude that all aspects of the Catholic Church are so, which is where they depart from the truth! They overreact and say, “We have no need for a human leader, a pope!” They go on to say, “The Bible teaches against a hierarchy of leadership.” In truth, it does and it does not. Ironically, most preachers who parrot these words are at “the top of the hierarchy” in their local, autonomous congregations. They simply want to lead “their own kingdom” and not submit to God through another man’s leadership. Even in God’s smallest group, marriage, there is a leader – the man. This is not to say that he is brighter than the woman! Yet, God places him over the woman to produce unity. (Ephesians 5:22-23) How much more does a family with parents and children need leadership to produce unity and to sustain the bonds of love? God ordained the husband and father to decide whether to go to dinner at McDonalds, Burger King or Subway! If God ordained a leader for unity in a physical family, then it is only reasonable that He would ordain a leader for the greater challenge of preserving unity in His spiritual family.

A central leader frightens some, because “there is no one over him.” When leading God’s people, the leader should be open to the influence of the others, especially fellow leaders. Yet in the end, this man is held accountable by God. If God is with him, God blesses the movement. If he departs from God, God will take him out of leadership by killing him, or he disqualifies himself by falling away. (1 Chronicles 10:13-14; Matthew 27:4-5) A central leader for God’s people is not “a matter of opinion,” but absolutely necessary to produce a worldwide fellowship, where each disciple is “like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.” (Philippians 2:2) Paul unites the Gentile churches through his leadership and calls them to his “way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what [he] teaches everywhere in every church.” (1 Corinthians 4:17) This is why in the SoldOut Movement a disciple will experience the preaching of the “same Jesus” producing the “same spirit” of fellowship among all of our congregations anywhere in the world! (2 Corinthians 11:4)

As for any leader “lording it over” his family or his church, this is sin. (Mark 10:42) He should lead like Jesus by becoming a “low”-ly servant. (Mark 10:43-45) Thus the Bible does not really teach in a “hierarchy,” but like many of Christ’s teachings, turns it “upsidedown” and calls the leadership to become a “low-archy.” This is the model for the Central Leadership for the SoldOut Movement.

At the Central Leadership Meeting, held primarily at the Bordieri’s home, were sessions devoted to prayer, a sermon calling for personal righteousness, discipleship groups of men and women where each of us humbled ourselves before God through confession, discussions and decisions on the discipling of the churches and the remnant groups, and finally the allocation of willing disciples and monies to perpetuate the movement through mission teams. Decisions were made to focus on the five “pillar churches” – LA, DC, NYC, Chicago and Santiago. The term “pillar church” denotes that on these churches the entire world movement will be built. From the evangelist of each of these pillar churches, discipling will be given to the churches in “his field.” Quite different from denominations or the Mainline Church of Christ, we believe that an evangelist’s charge is not only the church he leads, but the region, “the field,” that is influenced by that city. Paul writes to the disciples in the city of Corinth, “[We] will confine our boasting to the field God has assigned to us, a field that reaches to you… Our hope is that, as your faith continues to grow, our area of activity… will expand, so that we can preach the gospel in the regions beyond you. For we do not want to boast about work already done in another man’s territory.” (2 Corinthians 10:14-16) This spreading of the influence of a pillar church into a whole “territory” is chronicled in Acts 19:8-10. Here Paul plants the church in Ephesus and in two years “all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the Word of the Lord.” Presumably, it was during this time that the other six “churches in the province of Asia” were planted – Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. (Revelation 2-3) Therefore, when the time is right, the world will be divided into “sectors” – for the most part by continent and language groups. Similar to the way we evangelize a city by dividing it into regions – North, South, East, and West – in time all the nations of the world will be placed into one of ten “sectors.” Then, 10 World Sector Leader couples will be given the charge to evangelize “their field,” their sector of the world. This is our plan to evangelize the nations in this generation!

Special thanks goes to Michael Kirchner, the Administrator for our movement, who with his wife Sharon joined the Central Leadership gathering on Saturday evening. Michael presented a stirring lesson on Exodus 18 which called each leader to select “capable men” for leadership, especially administration. Echoing the words of Jethro to Moses, Michael challenged us “If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain and all the people will [be] satisfied.” (Exodus 18:23) His message called the Central Leadership to see ourselves not as many churches, but one movement having the heart to sacrifice any willing disciple or amount of money to collectively plant new churches. Though The Five Year Plan presented at the 2008 Jubilee is extremely aggressive, Michael, after projecting our movement’s growth in disciples and contribution, believes we can plant London, Miami, and San Diego in 2010, as well as Johannesburg and Mexico City in 2011!

Sunday was Bring Your Neighbor Day in Los Angeles. Chris preached in the East Region, Andrew in the West, Matt in Orange County and DJ preached for the AMS and North Regions. (Victor Sr. preached for the Latin Region.) God blessed us with almost 400 in attendance! Sunday night, the House Church Leaders gathered at the Velascos’ home. Here we celebrated the day – especially the two baptisms and Lance Underhill’s 50th birthday! DJ preached about world evangelism and the need for every leader to be “laser-focused” on Jesus’ mission to baptize disciples. He challenged every leader to make his people feel “special” about being in that ministry. After all, “God appoints the times and the places we live!” Truly, each church, each remnant group, and each disciple is special to God. Let us pray to be faithful to Jesus’ dream through the visions, plans and directions of our human leaders to evangelize the nations in this generation. And to God be all the glory!

Kip McKean

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