few significant, between thedoctrines and practices of the early Crossroads movement and today's International Churchof Christ, the similarities far outweigh the differences. Small group evangelistic BibleStudies (called "soul talks" in the early Crossroads movement), disciplers (called "prayerpartners"), quiet times, radical Christianity (called "total commitment"), and the imperativeto evangelize the world (or at least, this generation) all came from Crossroads.During the twelve years before the planting of the Boston Church of Christ, the CrossroadsChurch of Christ and Churches of Christ with Crossroads-patterned Campus Ministrieswere among the fastest growing churches in the world.Not surprisingly, there were a series of problems associated with that extremely rapidgrowth. The young, "totally committed" disciples often looked down on what they viewedas the lukewarm, or even spiritually dead, older members of their churches, and it showed.Spiritual pride and arrogance have been Achilles heels of the discipling movement fromthe beginning.The doctrinal concerns of the older members and leaders about the discipling movementalso struck the discipling movement's leaders and members as largely irrelevant, and wereignored. In the extremely doctrine-conscious, conservative mainline Church of Christ, thiscaused a lot of tension.In 1977, the Memorial Drive Church of Christ in Houston, Texas fired a couple of youngCrossroads ministers they had been supporting at a small church in Illinois. Theseministers were Roger Lamb, the son of one of the elders at Memorial Drive, and KipMcKean. In the letter announcing their decision to withdraw financial support for thesetwo young evangelists, the elders accused Lamb and McKean of teaching false and"deceitful" doctrine and promoting controlling practices.This letter, which was widely publicized in the Churches of Christ, confirmed the growinguneasiness felt by many in this denomination about Crossroads. ...
