According to the International Churches of Christ, no one can be a disciple on their own. Everyone must submit to another person in the ongoing process of discipleship. (Judy Weger/Chris Fuqua, Faith and Convictions, audio tape, San Diego) ". . . you must listen to your leaders, they want to help you. It should scare you, sober you, you can still come, but only if you repent. Your attitude will prove whether you have a heart of a disciple."

The member is told that their leaders want the very best for them and that they are being set up for success. The leader should be unquestioningly obeyed even when their advice is wrong. Commands are considered "advice" from the disciplers, yet one is expected to obey them in order to please God. Obeying is considered a "heart issue". If one fails to follow the advice to a tee, they can still be accepted as long as they tried their best. However, if this continues, the member will be shown that they have an independent spirit which is not acceptable to God. They will focus on showing that they have pride and are rebellious if they fail to obey their leaders. Bible verses will be lifted from their context or exaggerated in order to get the point across. If there is any contention with your discipler, then the problem will be taken up by the next highest person in the chain of command. In so doing, the confidentiality of one's sin confessions can be lost. During this process, if the person is still uncompliant, they will be belittled and made to feel guilty that they are not submitting to their leaders. This can be over something in the disciple's life, such as taking a vacation, dating, school work, or the amount of time one puts in for the Kingdom. In short, almost everything in your life becomes subject to requiring approval from your discipler. The reluctant member will either give in or they will have no peace. They will either leave or fall in line - there is no in between. However, should a disciple consider leaving the International Church of Christ, their decision will be made known and they will be labeled as "leaving God". This brings on more guilt than the original disagreement, yet this is the methodology used to get people to submit to the leaders in this movement. Even the leaders must submit to the authority in disciplng. A couple, who were leaders, shared with me what happened when they were late to church a few times. They are asked questions like, "What are you doing?" or "Why are you showing up late?" These are genuine concerns, however, because they had been late, they were asked to go over the last 24 hours of their schedule and break this time into 15 minute blocks or periods. They were told to get advice on their schedule in order to see where they were going wrong in managing their time. This is a standard procedure in this movement, and only one of many examples that demonstrate how far they extend their control through their discipling methods in order to help people be better disciples of the church. Discipling is so integrated as the gas is to the motor of this movement, that even in marriage it must be rigorously practiced. "Without discipling you do open up your marriage to Satan. He will absolutely just go to town and just tear it to shreds." (Dave and Judy Weger, Always and Forever Marriage Retreat, audio tape, San Diego, 1991. Two Plus Two Equals Solutions - Couple Discipling)

Mckean has said "No one can do it on their own. Everybody needs ongoing discipleship. You are a disciple of God until you die you are a disciple of someone else until you die." ("Why do you resist the Spirit ?" Mckean 1987)

Each discipler pours their own personality into their disciple. Zone leaders train their disciplers and, in turn, the disciplers will train their disciples in the same way. One can be trained to be a very hard and strict discipler or very dedicated yet soft-spoken. Overall, the tendency is to produce more strict disciplers with intense zealousness and dedication for the church. This explains why there is so much conformity in this movement, yet there is also room for different degrees of dedication.

It's been said imitation is the best form of flattery so one can say this whole movement's structure of discipleship is flattery in action. Consider these quotes as the fundamentals of their teachings.

(Randy Haragan, Self Control and Perseverance, audio tape, 1991 SW. Conf.) "Here's a very insightful point, if you're not imitating, you're dumb . . if you're a disciple, a learner, a student, and you're not doing that, you're stinkin' it out. If you want to be able to persevere it's going to require that you imitate. If you're gonna have self control, you gotta imitate people with self-control. If you're gonna have more faith, you gotta grab onto people that have more faith than you . . . get in there with some people that are strong, hold onto them, grab their faith, take it, steal it, whatever you have to do, imitate it and you'll be like them . . . " (Talking about singles) "But, some of you are too dog-gone prideful to really imitate. Our church has not gotten so sophisticated, that we've left imitation behind. No, no, no. It is the plan of Jesus . . . my challenge to you sisters, you pick out some of the most spiritual sisters in your zone and you just start imitating them . . . imitate their prayers, imitate their quite time, imitate their evangelism, imitate their joy . . . .their enthusiasm, and you'll become like them."

In this pyramid structure of imitating the person above as every one becomes carbon copies of their leaders, parroting what they are taught. We can trace this to the source who is Kip McKean, the capstone of the pyramid. One's personality can either be lost or at best covered over with their disciple's personality.