New Covenant Apostolic Order

The New Covenant Apostolic Order (NCAO) was a Christian organization formed in the 1970s by former Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) leaders seeking to implement a syncretic view of the church incorporating elements of Eastern Orthodox, evangelical, and Shepherding movement teaching and practices.

Background

In 1968, Jon Braun, the National Field Coordinator for Campus Crusade for Christ, Jack Sparks and five other top CCC program administrators—Peter Gillquist, Richard Ballew, Gordon Walker, Ken Berven, and Ray Nethery—left the movement to explore founding New Testament churches. The following year, Jack Sparks started the Christian World Liberation Front (CWLF) in Berkeley, California. Dissatisfied with the results of their work, the seven men began to reestablish contacts in the early 1970s. In the interim, Jon Braun and Richard Ballew had adopted a hierarchical model of church administration based on Shepherding movement teachings.

After a few meetings—during which the group divvied up a list of topics which included church history, worship, and doctrine—the group concluded in a February 1975 gathering that the church should be liturgical and have a visible hierarchical authority structure. Ray Nethery, who had taken the task of studying the Protestant Reformation, was skeptical, however. Thus, the seven and the congregations associated with them were split into two camps, one gravitating toward an Eastern Orthodox view of the church and the other toward a Reformational view. The men then endeavored to form the groups associated with them into congregations. The attempt by Jack Sparks to do this with the CWLF in Berkeley resulted in a split and subsequent dissolution of the group.