Who Are the ICC and RCW?

The short answer: The International Christian Church (ICC) and the Restored Church Worldwide (RCW) are two churches from the same movement. Both trace back to one man, Kip McKean, and to the system of teaching and discipling he has built over more than forty years. The ICC was founded by McKean in 2006. The RCW broke away from the ICC in October 2024. Despite the split, the two churches still hold the same core teachings, and McKean now teaches in the RCW.

One thing to clear up first: the Restored Church Worldwide is not the Restored Church of God. They are unrelated, and we explain the difference below.

The RCW is not the Restored Church of God

If you searched for "Restored Church" and ended up confused, you're not alone. The names are similar, but the two groups have nothing to do with each other.

• The Restored Church of God (RCG) was founded in 1999 by David C. Pack and is based in Wadsworth, Ohio. It came out of the Worldwide Church of God tradition, keeps Old Testament holy days and has its own distinct history and doctrine.
• The Restored Church Worldwide (RCW) was formed in 2024 by leaders who left the International Christian Church. Its roots are in Kip McKean's movement, not the Worldwide Church of God.

There is no shared history, leadership or affiliation between them. Everything on this site about the "RCW" refers to the Restored Church Worldwide.

Where it started: the Boston Movement

In 1979, Kip McKean took over a small church outside Boston and renamed it the Boston Church of Christ. It grew fast, planted churches around the world, and became known as the "Boston Movement." By the early 1990s it was called the International Churches of Christ (ICOC), with McKean at the top of a worldwide chain of leaders.

The system he built had a few defining features: one central leader over all the churches, a discipling structure where every member is accountable to someone above them, high and closely tracked goals for recruiting and baptisms, and a firm belief that this movement was God's one true church for its generation. Leaders spoke of it as God's modern-day movement.

2002 to 2003: the resignation and the Kriete letter

In November 2002, McKean resigned as the ICOC's world leader. In his resignation letter he admitted he had focused more on numeric goals than on pleasing God.

Three months later, in February 2003, London evangelist Henry Kriete published a 39-page open letter called "Honest to God." Kriete wasn't an outside critic. He was a long-serving leader, and he wrote as one. His letter apologized to members and argued that the movement's problems were not a few bad leaders but built into the system itself. He wrote that McKean had never addressed the "sins of our system." Within weeks, dozens of leaders in Los Angeles issued an apology of their own.

The letter shook the ICOC to its core. Over the next two years its churches dismantled the central leadership structure and became a looser family of independent congregations. Many members left. Many who stayed began re-examining what they'd been taught.

The letter is long, and it is worth reading in full. More than twenty years later, much of it reads as if it were written about the ICC and the RCW today.

2006: McKean starts the ICC

McKean moved to Portland, Oregon, to lead a small ICOC congregation. In 2005, ICOC leaders publicly rebuked him and asked him to repent of pride and arrogance. Instead, he set out to rebuild.

He told the story this way: the ICOC had drifted, and he had simply stayed faithful to the original teaching. He called on the "remnant," those still loyal to the original vision, to join him. In 2006 he was disfellowshipped from the ICOC, and that October he formally announced the International Christian Church. The following year he planted the City of Angels International Christian Church in Los Angeles, which became its headquarters.

It's worth pausing on the word "drifted." Much of what McKean called drift was the ICOC moving away from the very practices Kriete had named: central control, pressure, and rules that went beyond Scripture. Calling reform "drift" allowed McKean to present the old system as the faithful one, and to gather people who were unsettled by the upheaval. The ICC was built on the same foundation as before, with McKean once again at the top.

2024: the founder falls

For nearly two decades, McKean led the ICC as its World Missions Evangelist. Then, in 2024, it came apart.

• Spring 2024. The ICC first retired McKean, citing "spiritual faltering."
• November 22, 2024. Months later, the ICC went further. Its World Sector Leaders disfellowshipped him for "unrepentant sins."
• January 10, 2025. In a video of his "restoration" recorded at an RCW gathering, McKean confessed to sexual impurity, pornography and drunkenness, sins he described as spanning years, and said ICC leaders had confronted him on April 18, 2024.

That confession matters. For years, members were taught to imitate this man and to trust that God was leading the movement through him. By his own account, he was living in serious sin during many of those years while holding the movement's highest position. In plain terms, he was living what can only be called a "double life": preaching radical commitment from the pulpit while hiding the very sins he called others to repent of.

(For the sources, see The ICC's founder now teaches in the RCW.)

October 2024: the RCW breaks away

On October 18, 2024, a group of ICC leaders published "An Open Letter to the ICC Leadership" and announced they were forming the Restored Church Worldwide. Jason Dimitry, a longtime ICC leader, became the RCW's central leader.

The RCW's leaders worked hard to explain the split in spiritual terms. They called it "godly division" and said the ICC had reached a point of "no remedy." We look at the passages behind that claim in detail in Was the Split "Godly Division"?

What's most telling is what the letter said the RCW was keeping. It wasn't leaving the ICC's teaching. It said its leaders wanted to "hold on to the original convictions and culture upon which the ICC was founded." Asked whether they still believed in one central leader over all the churches, the letter answered, "Absolutely."

In November 2024, the ICC disfellowshipped the RCW's leaders. One week later, it disfellowshipped McKean.

History had repeated itself. The ICC began as a group that broke away from the ICOC, claiming the others had drifted. Eighteen years later, the RCW broke away from the ICC, making the same claim.

The founder in the RCW's pulpit

In January 2025, two months after the ICC disfellowshipped him, the RCW announced Kip McKean's restoration. He has since preached and taught at RCW services.

Forgiveness is real, and no one is beyond it. If McKean has repented, that is good news, and we don't question anyone's place in God's grace. But forgiveness and fitness to lead are two different questions, and Scripture answers the second one directly.

"Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money." (1 Timothy 3:2-3)

"For an overseer, as God's steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined." (Titus 1:7-8)

Set McKean's own confession beside those verses. Not a drunkard. Self-controlled. Not arrogant. In his restoration video he named drunkenness and sexual impurity, and he said his "root sin was arrogance." These weren't failures from his past before he led. By his own account, they went on for years while he held the highest position in the movement, the man every church and every leader looked to as the example. Those qualifications describe a pattern of life over time, not a single moment of confession, and they are the very qualifications he failed while leading.

That leaves a hard but honest conclusion. A man who confesses to years of hidden sin while in central leadership should not be given the pulpit again, at the very least not for a long time. That is all the more true because his confession isn't the only thing on the record. Former members have filed lawsuits and given accounts to reporters alleging abuse, financial pressure and conduct far from the character of Christ under his leadership. Those are allegations, not findings, but they are serious and they keep coming. (See On the Record for the sources.) A church that takes 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 seriously would let those questions be answered before handing him a microphone.

That raises a harder question, and it isn't about McKean. It's about the leaders who handed him the pulpit.

The RCW built its case against the ICC on leadership integrity. Its open letter faulted the ICC for failing to properly investigate allegations against a senior leader, and for letting central leadership, rather than the Bible, have the final word. Those were serious charges, and they were the reason the RCW gave for calling the ICC corrupt.

Then, two months after the ICC disfellowshipped McKean, the RCW restored him, and in time it gave him a pulpit. By April 2026 he was teaching at an RCW midweek service, and it hasn't stopped. In October 2026 he preached a charge at an RCW church in Los Angeles titled "10 Commandments of Reverence." RCW leaders may say they gave him time first. But time is not the test Scripture gives. A man who confesses to years of drunkenness, sexual impurity and arrogance while leading the whole movement doesn't need a waiting period. He needs to step away from spiritual influence, and above all from the pulpit. If the Bible is truly the RCW's standard, 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 should have settled the matter. If protecting a leader from scrutiny was corruption in the ICC, it is no less so in the RCW. Holding the other side to a standard while setting it aside for your own is the very double standard the RCW said it was leaving.

Jesus gave a simple test: "every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit... Thus you will recognize them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:17, 20). The RCW grew from the same root as the ICC, and many who have left it describe the same fruit: control, pressure and fear of speaking up. Neither the name nor the marketing is new. "Restoration" has been McKean's banner since his "Revolution through Restoration" writings in the ICOC, and the RCW points to its growth as proof that God is with it, just as the ICC did. But baptisms are easy to announce. The honest question is how many people stay, and what they are being built on.

Paul warned every leader to take care how he builds. "For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ," he wrote, and each builder's work "will be revealed by fire" (1 Corinthians 3:11, 13). Christ is the only cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20). A church built on him doesn't need to protect its founder or prove itself with numbers. A church built on one man's system will keep repeating that man's patterns, whatever name is on the door. And three churches and forty years later, the man at the center of it all is still Kip McKean.

RCW members are often told that McKean holds no leadership position. But whoever is given the pulpit is leading. Teaching shapes what a church believes, and what a church believes shapes its culture. James puts it plainly: "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness" (James 3:1).

The RCW said it left the ICC over leadership. It then gave the pulpit to the man whose leadership built the system in the first place.

What the ICC and the RCW still share

The ICC and the RCW now disagree about leaders. They don't disagree about doctrine. Both still teach:

• that the church needs one central leader over all its congregations (Does the Church Need a Central Leader?)
• that leaders may set binding rules where the Bible is silent (When the Bible Is Silent)
• that a disciple's "fruit" is measured largely in people recruited and baptized (Fruit Is Not a Number)
• that their movement is the Kingdom of God on earth (What If the Kingdom Is Not the Church?)
• that the world must be evangelized within one generation (The Mission Is Urgent. The Deadline Is Man-Made.)

Many members sincerely believe these teachings come straight from the Bible. When you read the passages in context, much of the system turns out to be man-made practice that has been called "sound doctrine."

The ICC has said in recent years that it is changing. That deserves a fair hearing, and there's a simple way to test it. Ask whether the ICC still holds the teachings above. If it does, the foundation hasn't changed, however different the tone or the leaders may be.

The same goes for the RCW. Some describe it as more zealous than the ICC. In practice, that zeal looks like more pressure, more "urgency," and a man-made definition of being "sold out" that leaves members little room for boundaries. Both churches measure success the same way, by baptisms and growth. And both lose people at the same rate. Former members of the ICC and the RCW say more than half of those baptized eventually leave. The concern isn't new or only voiced from outside: as far back as 2008, an ICC evangelist was warning his own movement to look at its "fall away rate." Same teaching, same metrics, same results. For a fuller look, read A New Name on the Same Foundation.

"Don't look online"

There's one more pattern that runs through all three generations of this movement.

For years in the ICOC and the ICC, many former members say, the websites, forums and videos made by people who had left were described to members as "spiritual pornography" or as persecution. Researchers noticed the persecution framing as early as 1996, when the Christian Research Institute observed that members treated any criticism of the church as persecution, and treated the persecution as proof they were God's true church. Searching the internet about the church came to be seen as a sign that someone was doing poorly spiritually, or "struggling." The message was clear: good disciples don't look.

Former RCW members describe the same thing. A growing number have shared accounts of control, pressure and exploitation on Reddit, on YouTube and elsewhere, and they sound remarkably like the accounts of those who left the ICC. Many current members never read them, because they've been taught that looking is itself a spiritual problem.

Scripture says the opposite. The Bereans "received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so" (Acts 17:11), and Luke calls them noble for it, even though the teacher they were checking was the apostle Paul. Paul tells the church to "test everything; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21). And Proverbs gives a warning that fits any group that only lets one side be heard: "The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him" (Proverbs 18:17).

Truth doesn't need protecting from questions. If what you've been taught is true, it will hold up when you examine it.

A timeline

• 1979. Kip McKean begins leading the Boston Church of Christ, the start of the "Boston Movement."
• Early 1990s. The movement becomes known as the International Churches of Christ (ICOC).
• November 2002. McKean resigns as the ICOC's world leader.
• February 2003. Henry Kriete's open letter, "Honest to God," calls the movement's problems systemic.
• 2005. ICOC leaders publicly rebuke McKean, who is now leading a church in Portland.
• October 2006. McKean formally announces the International Christian Church (ICC).
• 2007. The City of Angels International Christian Church in Los Angeles becomes the ICC's center.
• Spring 2024. The ICC retires McKean, citing "spiritual faltering."
• October 18, 2024. The Restored Church Worldwide (RCW) breaks away from the ICC, led by Jason Dimitry.
• November 2024. The ICC disfellowships the RCW's leaders, then McKean a week later.
• January 10, 2025. The RCW restores McKean. In the restoration video, he confesses to years of sin.
• 2026. McKean is teaching at RCW services, including a men's midweek lesson in Los Angeles in October.

Common questions

Is the Restored Church Worldwide the same as the Restored Church of God? No. The Restored Church of God was founded by David C. Pack in 1999 and comes from the Worldwide Church of God tradition. The Restored Church Worldwide split from the International Christian Church in 2024. They have no connection.

Is the ICC the same as the ICOC? No. Kip McKean founded both, but the ICC is a separate church he started in 2006 after leaving the ICOC. The ICC kept the central-leader system the ICOC had dismantled.

Who leads the RCW? Jason Dimitry, a longtime ICC leader, is the RCW's central leader.

Does Kip McKean lead the RCW? He doesn't hold the RCW's central leadership role, but since his restoration in January 2025 he has preached and taught at RCW services.

Are the ICC and RCW teachings different? Not in substance. In its founding letter, the RCW said it intended to keep the "original convictions and culture" of the ICC, including the central-leader model.