The House of Prayer is Burning - Freedom in IHOPKC's Fire

How IHOPKC's Mishandling of Clergy Abuse and Sexual Assault Allegations is Liberating Survivors

For the past 25 years, Mike Bickle has led a movement of relentless prayer, propelled by live music and spontaneous songs, emanating from a modest strip mall in south Kansas City.

The International House of Prayer has influenced millions globally by offering a role at the forefront of what Bickle claimed was God's unfolding plan.

However, the recent emergence of long-silenced voices has shattered IHOPKC’s veneer of piety with accounts of a top-down culture rife with sexual and psychological abuse.

In late October, two separate investigations converged.

The first involved former members of Bickle's close circle, who claimed to have gathered proof of Bickle's sexual exploitation of young women under the pretense of divine authority spanning decades.

At the same time, an investigative podcast delved into IHOPKC’s overall culture, revealing incidents of alleged sexual assault, systematic coverups, and psychological manipulation.

When these two separate inquiries became public, they triggered a seismic shift, signaling a reckoning for some, heralding liberation for others.

Bickle agreed to step down from public ministry when the allegations became public.

Then in mid-December, IHOPKC, formally and permanently severed all ties with its founder. Two other top leaders also resigned from their positions.

IHOPKC on Wednesday disclosed the conclusions of its own internal investigation from Lathrop GPM, the law firm it hired to probe the allegations leveled only against Bickle, not the organization.

The report, spanning seven pages and crafted by a law firm that openly touts its successful defense of religious organizations in cases of clergy sexual abuse, omits a vital component commonly found in legal analyses: explicit definitions.

The absence of clear definitions for key terms in the document, such as “clergy misconduct,” “sexual misconduct,” and “abuse of power,” renders the report’s investigative framework vague.

The report confidently assesses witness credibility yet mysteriously fails to disclose the criteria for credibility, leaving a discerning reader to question the validity of its conclusions.

Bickle declined an interview for this story, but issued a brief statement.

“Briefly, I will say I never participated in covering up a rape or giving someone drugs and I never told any woman that ‘God told me Diane would die and then told me that I would marry them.’ I am strongly against prophetic manipulation. I am not a sexual predator and never have been. Yes, there are many false things being said about me. Yes, I am radically against all sexual sin. By the grace of God, for many years I have sought to love and obey Jesus with all my heart and I will continue in that all my days with God’s help. And I grieve over any and all of my past sins and will continue in my long-term commitment to repent within hours of yielding to a sin.” — full Mike Bickle quote from Jan. 30 email.

"I am not a sexual predator and never have been,” Bickle wrote in an email on Tuesday. “Yes, there are many false things being said about me. Yes, I am radically against all sexual sin. By the grace of God, for many years I have sought to love and obey Jesus with all my heart, and I will continue in that all my days with God’s help. And I grieve over any and all of my past sins and will continue in my long-term commitment to repent within hours of yielding to a sin."

Bickle’s statements diverge from the growing number of testimonies of individuals who now allege extensive suffering under his leadership.

Some have toiled for years in obscurity to bring awareness to the issues at IHOPKC. Others have only recently spoken up, but their combined strength has turned into a force for self-empowerment, helping them shed self-blame, validate their own memories, and reclaim their voices.

“I know my story,” said Gracia (who asked to be identified by her first name), recalling her 2014 rape by an IHOPKC staff member and the subsequent discouragement from leaders to report the incident. “I know what happened. I remember the way the light felt in certain rooms.”

The most prominent survivor, known only as Jane Doe, has provided a comprehensive account centering on Bickle, initially released in The Roys Report, a Christian investigative news platform. Last spring, as Doe listened to accounts of Bill Cosby drugging and assaulting his victims, she experienced a sudden resurgence of long-buried memories of her own encounters with Bickle.

As Doe continues to sort through events, she feels a great burden lifting, enabling her to emerge from the shadows.

“Waking up feels really good,” she said.

BETRAYAL OF SACRED, FIDUCIARY TRUST

IHOPKC’s leaders have vacillated between reluctant admissions of past missteps and open animosity toward the group of former IHOPKC leaders who made the allegations against Bickle public. Those former leaders are now referred to as the Advocate Group.

Tensions between IHOPKC’s current leaders and the Advocate Group escalated last week to a point that seems to have foreclosed the possibility for a mutual agreement in uncovering the whole truth about both Bickle and IHOPKC.

IHOPKC has declined to respond to questions regarding how the Lathrop law firm defined the key terms that shaped the boundaries of its investigation.

However, these questions have intensified important discussion about the ethical complexities involving consent in adult clergy sexual abuse cases.

“Due to the imbalance of power, including spiritual authority, experience, and knowledge on the part of the leader, there can be no mutual consent to a romantic or sexual relationship,” according to Clergy Sexual Misconduct and Information and Resources, an online guide with information and resources related to clergy sexual misconduct.

The guide further states: “It is instead an abuse of power and a betrayal of a sacred, fiduciary trust.”

Fourteen states have enacted laws that criminalize clergy sexual misconduct with adult congregants.

Missouri is not among them.

MILITARIZATION OF A PRAYER MOVEMENT

Last week, the Advocate Group released a series of raw, videos of unscripted conversations about their personal epiphanies, revealing a difficult journey of acceptance: Mike Bickle, the man they revered as their spiritual father, had been living a life shrouded in duplicity.

“For two months, I begged God it wouldn’t be true,” said Allen Hood, a 20-year veteran of IHOPKC, who departed IHOPKC in 2019, on YouTube. “We are all sons of the movement. We are all in shock.”

Another video contained a bombshell that Bickle had attempted to cover up an affair between his son Luke and a woman with whom Bickle had also been involved.

Luke Bickle did not immediately return a voicemail seeking comment for this story.

In response to the videos, Ret. Maj. General Kurt Fuller, the interim executive director of IHOPKC, lashed out in a five-minute film of his own, accusing members of the Advocate Group of dishonesty for not first disclosing information to him before making it available to the entire world.

“I cannot understand why they would not have provided these videos to me to support their claims,” Fuller said. “I am the one person who has both the authority and responsibility to properly adjudicate this case and hold people accountable. They haven’t even given me a chance to do that.”

Fuller added that a new course of action had now become clear. He planned to disregard advice from external parties and wait for Lathrop’s findings, which he would himself review and use to hold individuals accountable.

Fuller’s remarks inspired a host of derisive military-themed memes on social media.

Fuller’s video titled “Enough!” appears to have been removed from IHOPKC’s YouTube channel without any public explanation.

UNSUITABLE SOIL

In evaluating these events, I can’t pretend as if I’m a detached observer, nor deny my mixed motives. My attempts to shed light on a potentially tragic deception are interlaced with a struggle to untangle the roots of my own spiritual heritage.

I was around 11 years old when I first learned about the so-called Kansas City Prophets, the forerunners of IHOPKC, and their leader, Mike Bickle.

Bickle is a short, stout man with a slightly rough voice that cuts through a room's atmosphere, creating a space that vibrates its unique cadence.

Bickle's teachings, while planted in the core tenets of Evangelicalism, such as biblical authority, personal faith in Jesus Christ, and evangelism, veer off on their own distinct route. His ministry weaves a tapestry rich in end-times predictions, fervent calls for the conversion of Jewish people to Christianity, and an advocacy for a life of moral purity with minimal materialism.

IHOPKC revolves around Bickle’s charisma, and edges toward a more individualized interpretation of spiritual destiny aimed at ushering in Jesus Christ's return.

In the late 1980s, my father, Jack Deere, a former Greek and Hebrew professor, had been a staunch cessationist, convinced that miracles ceased with the death of Jesus' apostles. This position was upended after a transformative conversation with John White, a British author, psychiatrist, and missionary. My father embraced the Charismatic movement, with its emphasis on the Holy Spirit's active role in Christians' lives, and became a well-known apologist for spiritual gifts, such as speaking in tongues, prophecy, healing, and miracles.

A scholar once proficient in 14 ancient languages, my father brought intellectual depth to a movement often criticized for its emotional basis. My father’s encounter with the Kansas City Prophets led to a deep bond with Bickle. Despite criticisms about the prophets’ accuracy, theological teachings, and their potential for abuse, my father was struck by Bickle’s extensive knowledge of the Bible and became a key promoter of Bickle's ministry. (The two have not spoken since the scandal emerged.)

I recall the Kansas City Prophets gathering in our living room as a child in Fort Worth, Texas, discussing the end times. During a conversation, a prophet with deep-set eyes and a thick beard responded to my curiosity about life in the last days by asking if I had an affinity for horses, hinting that they would soon be our primary mode of transportation.

That conversation left a lasting impression on my young mind, causing me to conclude that Jesus’ return was so imminent that I would need to marry by the age of 15 if I were to enjoy what I then viewed as wedlock’s most valuable benefit.

My recent discussions with those who grew up in IHOPKC revealed that they too adopted accelerated life timelines. Some devalued college and delayed the pursuit of careers under the assumption that Christ’s return would preempt their necessity.

According to a 2022 Pew Research Center poll, sixty-three percent of American Evangelical Christians believe that we are living in the end times.

An entire field of psychology has emerged to study these beliefs and their impact on children. They’ve been linked to an increased risk of making premature life choices with long-term consequences, feelings of isolation, and hindering the development of critical thinking.

In retrospect, the soil that once appeared fertile for faith now seems unsuitable for planting.

A FATAL FLAW IN THE ARCHITECTURE?

Growing up, I admired Bickle’s commitment to a “fasted lifestyle,” avoiding material indulgences. He drove old cars and lived in a duplex. Occasionally, I felt slightly uneasy about his underlying ambitions. It was as if Bickle's desire to change Christianity was inextricably linked to him being the architect of that change.

I've had spiritual experiences that defy logical explanation, preventing me from dismissing those lured by Bickle’s vision and IHOPKC as naive.

But Bickle's intense focus on the last days seemed too disconnected from this world to help people effectively follow Christ while living within it.

Bickle established IHOPKC in the late 1990s, symbolized a torch on an altar. During that same time, Bickle may have lit another fire that could result in IHOPKC’s implosion.

A woman, now referred to as Jane Doe, or the “main Jane Doe,” moved to Kansas City to intern for Bickle in 1996.

The Roys Report in November published a meticulously detailed account of Doe’s relationship with Bickle. It described how Bickle used a prophecy about his wife's death to manipulate Doe. The report included diary entries, descriptions of clandestine meetings, secret apartments that Bickle paid for and a trip to Paris, along with the strong suggestion that Doe may have been drugged during that journey.

Bickle denied drugging anyone in his statement last week.

Regarding the specific allegation that he prophesied his wife's death as a pretext to enter into sexual relationships, Bickle's denial was notably precise: "I never told any woman that 'God told me Diane would die and then told me that I would marry them.'"

Members of the Advocate Group have said that Bickle’s prediction regarding his wife’s death has been corroborated by the independent accounts of several women — a key that helped unlock their credibility.

Doe’s physical relationship with Bickle intensified after Paris, but did not culminate in intercourse, according to her story.

Doe partially credits the waning of her relationship with Bickle to her father’s purchase of a house in 1998, which led to roommates and an end to her isolation.

Contrary to Bickle's alleged prophecy, his wife continued to live. Doe met someone else. She recalled walking near a library, praying, asking God if it was ok to date him. She felt a resounding affirmation. That man became her husband.

For the next 20 years, Doe contained those memories with Bickle in a simmering pot, covered by a heavy lid, the pressure building.

“I thought I was his darkest secret,” Doe said.

THE POWER DYNAMIC

The gravitational pull of a charismatic leader acts like a star, warping light and dimming otherwise clear minds.

“The atmosphere, the buzz in the whole community, was almost like Mike Bickle was a God,” said Jennifer Roberts during one of the Advocate Group’s discussions posted on YouTube.

Roberts was enrolled in an early version of Bickle’s ministry school before the establishment of IHOP University, coinciding with Doe’s interactions with Bickle.

“He always had that cluster of young women who adored him,” Roberts said.

Roberts initially questioned this adulation, but she admitted that she eventually became captivated by Bickle’s charm and craved his approval, despite noticing troubling behaviors.

“I think there was a level of believing that he almost didn’t have the ability to be sexually inappropriate, because so many of his inappropriate behaviors were done in broad daylight,” Roberts said. “I saw him play footsies with girls under the table, and I thought, ‘That is really, really stupid. But Mike, he doesn’t get it.’”

In recent months, Roberts has concluded that Bickle’s overt actions were likely intended to hide his private misconduct.

“That is terrifying now, to think of all the things that I observed and didn’t say anything,” said Roberts, who along with her husband Dwayne helped found IHOPKC and later planted an affiliated church in Brazil.

Experts often compare sexual relationships between religious leaders and their followers to those between psychologists and patients.

“Sexual contact or sexualized behavior within the ministerial relationship is a violation of professional ethics,” according to the FaithTrust Institute, a national, multi-faith, multicultural training and education organization focused on sexual and domestic violence.

IHOPKC’S HISTORY OF CRISIS AND SCANDAL

As Bickle developed IHOPKC into a global spiritual center, the organization faced accusations that it prioritized its image over the welfare of individuals, especially in the aftermath of a young woman’s mysterious death in 2012.

Bethany Deaton, 27, a nurse, was found dead in a car near a lake, with a suicide note. She was married to Tyler Deaton, who led a small religious group associated with IHOPKC. That group was known for its intense spiritual practices, marked by allegations of sexual manipulation and control.

Bethany Deaton's death took on a bizarre twist when Micah Moore, a member of Tyler Deaton’s group, confessed to her murder, saying he had acted on Tyler Deaton's orders to prevent Bethany from revealing sexual assaults within the group. However, Moore later retracted his confession. His lawyers claimed that IHOPKC leaders had coerced it from him, and in the fall of 2014, charges against Moore were dropped weeks prior to his trial.

IHOPKC leaders tried to distance the organization from that crisis, which garnered national attention. They claimed Tyler Deaton's group operated independently of their organization. No one else was ever charged in the case. The cause of Bethany’s death is still subject to intense debate.

Amid this turmoil, a woman, named Gracia, then 18 years old, arrived at IHOPKC.

PRISON OF LIES

Clergy sexual abuse relies on a prison constructed out of shame and the insidious lie that exposing the abuse will hurt God by turning people away from his church.

This theme materializes time and again in Gracia and Jane Doe’s accounts.

Gracia joined IHOPKC in 2013 for the Fire in the Night internship. This program, detailed on IHOP's website, requires participants to engage in prayer and worship from midnight to 6 a.m.

During her tenure, Gracia said she began a relationship with an IHOPKC staff member that lasted just over a month before Gracia ended it. However, the man continued to pursue her relentlessly, despite her objections. Her pleas for intervention went unheeded by IHOPKC’s leadership, Gracia said.

The situation escalated when the man unexpectedly showed up at Gracia's home with groceries. Gracia said she felt obligated to let him in, and the encounter turned into rape.

FAITH WEAPONIZED

Gracia reported the incident to IHOPKC's leaders, prompting several intense interrogations, including a distressing confrontation with her assailant, Gracia said. The aggressive nature of the questioning caused Gracia to question her own memory of the events. She said it was more traumatizing than the assault itself.

Stuart Greaves, then the Director of the Fire in the Night Internship, who oversaw the process warned Gracia that speaking out could potentially harm IHOPKC to the same extent Bethany Deaton’s death had.

“He told me I would be the cause of defunding the prayer movement,” Gracia recalled. “He said I would stop the spread of the Gospel.”

Greaves, who recently served as IHOPKC’s executive director until stepping down in December, declined to comment for this story.

Gracia said the trauma of the interrogations stayed with her and bled over into other areas of her life, causing her to question herself and her memories about other events.

“The worst thing he did was to cause me to gaslight myself,” Gracia said of Greaves.

Gracia remained with IHOPKC for a few more years before parting ways with the organization.

In early 2018, Gracia met with Allen Hood, now an outspoken member of the Advocate Group. She expected that he would dismiss her claims as others had. But his response caught her off guard.

“I believe you,” she recalled Hood telling her.

Hood then broke down and wept.

Later that year, the Kansas City Star contacted Gracia after hearing about her story, she said. Gracia agreed to talk to the reporter.

Emails that IHOPKC provided The Roys Report indicated that the organization's leaders were particularly concerned about a potential article.

Gracia said Mike Bickle contacted her through an IHOPKC representative to dissuade her from proceeding with the story. Gracia was told that going public would diminish the call of God on her life and that she would be viewed in the same light as Monica Lewinsky.

“I felt like he really cared about me and was concerned about me,” Gracia said.

Gracia said she lost contact with the reporter. The newspaper story was never published.

Bickle, in his statement, denied participating in a rape coverup.

THE INVISIBLE HAND

The IHOPKC saga has unfolded much like streams that meander aimlessly only to suddenly merge into a powerful river, suggesting the presence of unseen orchestration.

Gracia founded a mostly online support group called “Recovering from IHOPKC(RFI).” In 2021, Gracia also reached out to Tara Jean Stevens, the host, and creator of “Heaven Bent,” a podcast that “explores the fascinating, mysterious, and sometimes dangerous world of evangelical Christianity, focusing on different Pentecostal and charismatic movements, one season at a time.”

Eventually, Gracia, along with other former IHOPKC members, successfully convinced Stevens to dedicate a season to IHOPKC.

Around the time when Gracia began reaching out to “Heaven Bent,” John Chisholm, then a member of IHOPKC's Executive Leadership Team inquired about an IHOPKC department head’s declining job performance. He learned that marital problems were undermining the man’s work.

However, those marital issues presented a unique challenge: They involved an alleged affair between Bickle’s son, Luke, and the department head’s wife. Chisholm revealed during an Advocate Group YouTube video. He described how Bickle and Stuart Greaves stonewalled their questions.

“You have created a culture that has embraced a do-not-talk-approach as it relates to difficult conversations and church discipline,” Chisholm wrote to Bickle and copied IHOPKC’s entire executive leadership team last fall. “The do-not-talk rule is what people see most in dysfunctional families.”

Dean Briggs, another fellow member of IHOPKC’s Executive Leadership Team, also said “culture of silence” permeated IHOPKC.

The lack of transparency led to Chisholm and Briggs resignations in September.

Soon after they left IHOPKC Briggs and Chisholm learned that Bickle himself had a years-long inappropriate relationship with the same woman with whom his son was having an affair, they said.

“That man in double fashion was destroyed by Mike’s influence on his wife and [Mike’s] son’s affair with his wife,” Briggs said.

A PIVOTAL QUESTION

As discussions regarding Bickle and his son unraveled, Jane Doe found that the simmering pot in which she had tried to compartmentalize her relationship with Bickle had reached a boiling point. Her secrets demanded release.

She recalled listening to a podcast this past Spring about Bill Cosby that featured accounts about Cosby drugging and sexually assaulted his victims. Memories flooded her, she said. She was so overcome that she fell to the floor, the words “It wasn’t your fault,” kept repeating in her mind.

Doe first confided in her husband. Then, four days later, met with a friend, who, out of nowhere, asked: “Did Mike ever try anything sexually with you?”

During that conversation, she learned of another potential Jane Doe. The revelation that she may not been have Bickle’s only dark secret prompted her to reach out to Hood, a close friend who had spent 20 years at IHOPKC.

“The abuse had to end,” Doe said.

TRUTH AND THREATS: JANE DOE’S JOURNEY

Doe’s disclosures led to several other pivotal discussions, culminating in an Oct. 9 confrontation between Bickle and Doe’s husband, who, along with Doe, runs a ministry partially funded by Bickle.

Later that evening, Bickle sent an email to Doe's husband first published in The Roys Report. It suggested that the public disclosure of Doe's account would result in the loss of funding for their ministry.

The message suggested that withdrawing financial support was intended as a means of coercion.

In his response to Doe’s allegations, Bickle stopped short of a direct denial. Instead, he dismissively referred to Doe's account as “blah, blah, blah” in the email, while making frantic appeals to dissuade her from going public.

Bickle’s apparent aim was to instill fear that revealing the truth would sabotage God’s work and inadvertently aid Satan's cause.

Bickle wrote: “Satan’s raging accusation is uncontrollable because he can inflame distortion and anger in people’s minds, even the well-intentioned.”

THE BLACK HORSE

Bickle consistently declined meetings with members of the Advocate Group and other Christian leaders.

In his last sermon at the IHOPKC-affiliated Forerunner Church on Oct. 20, Bickle appeared to be setting the stage for the imminent disclosure of these allegations. He talked about demonic false allegations, likening them to a Black Horse, a reference drawn from the Old Testament Book of Zechariah.

However, the biblical narrative in Zechariah describes a vision of four chariots, each drawn by horses of different colors—red, black, white, and dappled. They all represent powerful spirits of heaven.

Notably, the black horse, like the white, traverses the earth to execute a divine purpose.

VALIDATION

When IHOPKC leaders announced that Bickle was stepping down from his ministry role the weekend of Oct. 28., Gracia, along with other sexual assault victims at IHOPKC, felt a profound sense of validation. They realized that what happened to them was not an isolated incident. The abuse, it appeared, reached the highest level of IHOPKC.

An episode of the “Heaven Bent” podcast, featuring Gracia’s story, was scheduled to be released just a few days later.

Gracia, overwhelmed by the synchronicity of events, flew to Kansas City to confront Stuart Greaves, then IHOPKC’s Executive Director, about his mishandling of her rape allegation.

Gracia arrived just as Forerunner Church’s service concluded. Leaders invited anyone who believed they had been mistreated to come talk with them. A friend, who accompanied Gracia, activated a recording device that captured the ensuing confrontation.

“You did me wrong,” Gracia said. “I trusted you to handle it well.”

Greaves said he had placed Gracia’s assailant on administrative leave and had encouraged her to report to the authorities, which she hadn’t done.

Gracia told Greaves she didn’t remember it that way but didn’t want to argue.

“I’ve carried this for 10 years, and I don’t want to carry it anymore,” Gracia said. “I forgive you… I do not want bad things for you. I want you to do better. I know of many, many other women who had almost identical experiences to mine, and the thing we all have in common is that you were the one handling them.”

‘THERE HAS TO BE A GOD’

Gracia left the confrontation with Greaves feeling bewildered by his claim that he had advised her to go to authorities, a detail that contradicted her memory.

In the months that followed, Gracia repeatedly shared her account, gaining a sense of empowerment with each retelling.

"I’m so much more capable than I thought I was," she said.

However, she harbored a slight grievance: it seemed her story only gained significance after a prominent woman, the main Jane Doe, accused Bickle of abuse.

Yet, Gracia couldn't ignore the fortuitous timing of the emergence of accusations against both the organization and its founder, each lending credence to the other.

Gracia’s support group, Recovering from IHOPKC, saw its membership increase by a third to approximately 320 people since the public revelation of the allegations against Bickle, Gracia said. She estimates that 80 percent of the group turned atheist or agnostic after their experiences at IHOPKC.

As for her own belief about God, Gracia remains uncertain. But the uncanny timing of how events unfolded has helped rekindle her faith.

She said: "It kind of makes me think there has to be a God out there who really does care."