Breaking: International House of Prayer (IHOPKC) Founder Mike Bickle Accused of Sexual Misconduct Spanning Decades
Mike Bickle, the founder of the International House of Prayer based in Kansas City (IHOPKC), has been accused of longstanding sexual abuse and predation by former senior leaders of the organization, citing “serious allegations spanning several decades.”
Bickle, closely associated with the New Apostolic Reformation and the Latter Rain Movement, founded IHOPKC in 1999, where prayer intercessors and musicians have been worshiping and praying 24/7 for nearly 15 years. The group and ministry ethos has a focus on apostles, prophecies, tongue speaking, visions, dreams, signs, and wonders, with the rotating teams frequently whipping up folks into an ecstatic state with repetitive, droning songs that can last for hours. Along with IHOPKC, Bickle founded the International House of Prayer University, which includes full-time ministry, music, and media schools and boasts over 2000 students, staff members, missionaries, and volunteers.
The letter reveals:
“Without going into details to protect the privacy of the victims’ identities, we have found these allegations of clergy sexual abuse by Mike Bickle to be credible and long-standing. The credibility of these allegations is not based on any one experience or any one victim, but on the collective and corroborating testimony of the experiences of several victims.”
The statement was crafted by Dwayne Roberts, Brian Kim and Wes Martin, all former members of the IHOPKC Executive leadership team:
Prior to meeting with the leadership team of IHOP, we attempted to bring the allegations and the testimony of one of the victims directly to Mike Bickle in the spirit of Matthew 18:15-17. However, we were repeatedly rebuffed by Mike Bickle and we were refused any sort of meeting. Instead, Mike used manipulating and intimidating tactics towards the victims to isolate them and discredit them. To avoid further wounding of victims, we met with several members of IHOPKC’s Executive Leadership Team. There, we shared testimonies of these victims of Mike‘s inappropriate words and actions.
They were, as one might expect, completely shocked:
When these allegations were brought to our attention, we were shocked. We could never have imagined that inappropriate conduct with women as something we would ever need to be concerned about. The allegations seemed out of character to the man we thought we knew, but they were so serious we could not ignore them.
Getting a bit more specific, they explain:
We believe that Mike Bickle’s actions were not above reproach and fall short of biblical standards for leaders in the church. To be clear, the allegations made about Mike Bickle’s misconduct were sexual in nature where the marriage covenant was not honored. Furthermore, the allegations made also reveal that Mike Bickle used his position of spiritual authority over the victims to manipulate them.
They conclude:
We do not share this process to fill in salacious details, but to protect the integrity of the victims and their experiences that were shared. We appeal to you to refrain from using names of any victims. These are women who have always been viewed as credible, trustworthy, and courageous. None of these victims had any intention to punish Mike Bickle and they had nothing to gain by sharing their experiences except the pursuit of truth, repentance, mercy, and grace
In a video posted to We Are Nazarene that was surreptitiously recorded, we see IHOPKC Executive Leaders Isaac Bennett, David Sliker and Stuart Graves speaking to the community at Forerunner Church after the news broke and the letter was released. David Sliker explains, “We’re not, as a leadership team, commenting on the nature of the allegations at this time” and that while “careful, deliberate, slow answers can feel like secrecy,” they want to only comment on it, “at the right time with the right information” because “the allegations can run faster than clarity.”
These platitudes prompted Dean Briggs, a former IHOPK Leader who resigned in September, to stand up and shout before walking out:
I do not consider this an acceptable level of transparency. In a room full of faithful witnesses, I am being a faithful witness to my brothers. There is more to be shared and what David just said is well-intended, righteous bulls***.
“And I believe that you need to address this in a different way with a right degree of transparency or this is not going to be a trustworthy process. “
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There is a local [insert geographic location here] house of prayer that has sucked a lot of people into its woo-woo mysticism that teaches people that the essence of Christianity is “experiencing the intimate presence of God”.
On the surface, that sounds OK, anyone who is a Christian wants to be closer to God. The problem is how these parachurch organizations completely ignore God’s word. There is a lot of arrogance, not in a brash sense, but more in a delusional sense. The “leaders” of these house of prayer groups, act like they are on the same level as faithful pastors who have been to seminary and pastored for years. In reality, they have the same skillset as a used car salesman (and I hate to compare used car salesmen to these blindmen leading other blindmen into the ditch) and decided that their spiritual gift was to communicate new words from God.
I have little doubt, that in an IHOP environment where the Word is cast aside in favor of experiences and “new words”, there are people willing (and even eager) to exploit the naïve.