International House of Prayer Kansas City (IHOPKC) founder Mike Bickle covered up his son’s affair with the wife of an IHOPKC department head, according to videos released today by former top IHOPKC leaders.
“This is manipulation, coercion, threats, intimidation—that is, a shepherd with a huge platform is willing . . . to lie and coerce. That is what we’re speaking to,” said former IHOPKC Executive Leadership Team (ELT) member Wes Martin in a video. “(I)t’s exposing a liar. It’s exposing someone who was willing to intimidate and threaten in order to . . . keep his position or to keep the secrets hidden.”
In October, some of the 15 former IHOPKC executive leaders, known as the “advocate group”(AG), released a statement accusing Bickle of clergy sexual abuse with multiple women over decades. Today, the AG released another statement, as well as three explosive videos.
The statement addressed allegations brought by the five alleged “Jane Does” that the AG had falsely named them as victims of Bickle’s clergy sexual abuse and then harassed them. In the statement, the AG denied the allegations, saying the group didn’t harass the women or name them in documents given to the ELT.
The videos addressed an allegation by IHOPKC worship leader and former Executive Leadership Team (ELT) member, Misty Edwards, that the AG had conspired to “take down” Bickle before learning of any alleged victims.
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According to the videos, the AG members were heartbroken when they learned of Bickle’s misconduct and sought to address matters internally. However, the responses from Bickle and other IHOPKC leaders made the AG members even more concerned and eventually compelled them to blow the whistle.
“This is about exposing wickedness that is within the church. Period,” said AG member Wes Martin. “It has nothing to do with conspiracy. . . . I want to see that exposed because when that’s not exposed, it creates rot in the church.”
Former IHOPKC leaders say Bickle covered up son’s adultery
In one video, AG members Dean Briggs and John Chisholm describe how they learned that Luke Bickle, Mike Bickle’s son, was engaged in an adulterous affair with the wife of an IHOPKC department head. Yet, when they brought the matter to former IHOPKC Executive Director Stuart Greaves and Bickle, the two seemingly conspired to cover up the years-long affair.
The Roys Report (TRR) reached out to Greaves, Mike Bickle, and Luke Bickle for comment, but did not receive any response.
We also reached out to the husband of the woman involved in the alleged affair, whose name was shared confidentially with TRR. He did not respond to our request for comment.
TRR had reached out months ago through Facebook to the woman allegedly involved with Luke Bickle. She did not respond. We reached out again recently through social media and email but have not received a response.
In the video, Briggs also alleged that Mike Bickle engaged in “very questionable interactions” for six years with the wife before Luke had the affair with the same woman.
“So that man, in double fashion, was destroyed by Mike’s influence on his wife and his son’s affair with his wife,” Briggs said. “That’s a problem.”
Testimony by the woman’s husband was included in a 50-page document that the AG used to present their allegations to Greaves and other members of IHOPKC’s ELT, Briggs said.
“(The woman’s husband) is a victim as much as the other Jane Does are victims, relative to what’s happening,” Chisholm said.
Chisholm said the husband had told Chisholm about his wife’s affair with Luke and asked for his help arranging a meeting between them and Mike Bickle. But Chisholm said Bickle refused the three-person meeting and instead met with Chisholm one-on-one.
“I didn’t get anywhere,” Chisholm said. “I just sort of stopped it at the end of the half hour because I wasn’t getting anywhere in terms of him understanding what’s really happening and my hope about how he would get involved.”
Then, about six months ago, Chisholm said he learned that the affair between Luke Bickle and man’s wife was still happening. So, Chisholm met with Greaves.
“His challenge back to me was, ‘You know you have no idea what Mike is doing as it relates to this. You have no idea what I’m doing,’” Chisholm said. “And my pushback was, ‘That’s my point. Nobody knows.’”
On the video, Chisholm read a letter he wrote to Bickle and copied to the ELT, describing a “no talk” culture at IHOP, where only Bickle and Greaves knew of problems, but don’t tell the ELT.
“You have created a culture that has embraced a ‘do not talk’ approach to difficult conversations and church discipline,” Chisholm said he wrote in the letter. “That ‘do not talk’ rule is what people see most in dysfunctional families. I believe our ELT is a dysfunctional family not able to talk about the problems around us because it would be gossip for them to be discussed.”
During this time, Briggs said he also became aware that the department head was having problems in his marriage. But Briggs said he initially had no idea it was because of an alleged affair between Luke Bickle and the department head’s wife.
One day, Mike Bickle asked Briggs if he knew anything going on with the husband, Briggs said. Briggs acknowledged that he was helping the man work through some marriage issues.
“Mike said to me, ‘You know what? He and I have a special relationship. Why don’t you just let me work with him? You don’t need to worry about it,’” Briggs said.
At the time, Briggs said he thought this was a great idea.
“The man I admire, the man who has more wisdom, more integrity—great if you’re going to be that invested and involved. Please keep the process going—help,” Briggs said. “And I took my hands off of it.”
Soon after, the husband shared with Briggs that it was Luke Bickle who was having the affair with his wife. Briggs said he tried to talk to both Mike Bickle and Greaves about the situation but got the runaround from both.
“I was told, ‘There’s two sides to this story. There’s actually four sides. There’s multiple guilty parties. Everyone has issues. There isn’t actually sufficient evidence.’ Then, ‘They were confronted. The affair had stopped. And nothing else was going on. People were changing. It’s complicated. There’s stuff you don’t know,’” Briggs said. “Both Mike and Stuart told me the same story. . . . The principle I was told was, ‘You don’t adjudicate a private sin in a public setting.’”
No one told the rest of the ELT, Chisholm and Briggs said. And the experience prompted both men to resign.
Briggs said he read a four-page resignation letter to Greaves and Bickle, warning them that their handling of the situation would “come back to bite IHOP.”
“I made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that pastorally and procedurally, this is a disaster,” Briggs said. “There is a scandal here that looks like a cover-up. And this has not been handled well and will come back to bite IHOP. And I implored them to do something about this and handle it differently.”
Briggs said he wrote a shorter version of that same letter and told Greaves he was going to email it to the ELT. But Briggs said Greaves asked if he could instead print the letter and share it with the ELT himself.
“He said, ‘There’s a risk that that could be sent out in a way that won’t be helpful,’” Briggs said. “To this day, I don’t think that ever happened.”
John Chisholm and Dean Briggs explain their departure from IHOPKC
Threat to Jane Doe
In another video, AG members Allen Hood and Dwayne Roberts explain how Bickle preached a sermon last October with “threats” against one of his victims, just days after her husband confronted Bickle.
The woman, called “Jane Doe” in our exclusive report last November, told TRR that Bickle used prophecy to sexually abuse her, beginning in 1996, when she was just 19.
In October, Bickle preached that a personal attack was coming, but that God would release his wrath against those who betrayed him. According to Hood, Bickle preached that the Lord would “release tokens of heavenly storm glory against this assault.” Hood added that Bickle also cited King David, who prayed that his betraying friend would go to hell.
“He builds this whole story about making sure he’s defended about this lie,” Hood said.
Hood said he confronted Bickle in a letter about the threats he appeared to be making.
“So, when I wrote him, I said, ‘Are you really praying for tokens of heavenly storm glory to go down and kill Jane Doe?’” Hood said. “Are you really praying for heavenly token of storm glory to kill honest, sincere brethren who are coming to you with a legitimate accusation? This is unthinkable.’”
Board disbanded
Around 2020, Bickle used a similar prophecy about an impending attack to convince IHOPKC’s board to disband and then set up a “firewall” between Bickle and IHOPKC, the advocate group said.
Bickle said he was going to experience an attack from a “woke” culture for his views on gender, sexuality, and Israel, Chisholm said. So, the board agreed to remove Bickle from any official role, so if someone sued him, the prayer ministry could continue. The board also agreed to disband and withdraw IHOPKC from the Evangelical Council on Financial Accountability.
“Why would you allow that?” Chisholm said. “I look back now and the issue is, ‘His brand is so strong, we don’t need the accountability.’ So, I go along with that.”
But Bickle was still at “every ELT meeting,” and at most worship leaders’ meetings. Chisholm said.
Briggs noted that at the same time the accountability structure for Bickle was ending, Luke’s affair “was heating up.”
Given all the allegations against Bickle, the AG is calling for a third-party investigation of Bickle and IHOPKC. The AG has refused to work with the law firm IHOPKC hired to conduct an investigation because it does not believe the firm is truly independent.
“We ought to be grieved over this,” Hood said. “The fear of the Lord should take hold of us for this . . . that we don’t have enough integrity to do the right thing and overcome basic self-preservation. . . . The only recourse for sin of powerful leaders in charismatic independent churches is the public press.”
Allen Hood, Wes Martin, and Dwayne Roberts on the Mike Bickle Allegations
Elizabeth Herder and Jennifer Roberts on the Mike Bickle Allegations
Correction: a paragraph was edited to accurately reflect participants’ knowleedge of certain events.
Rebecca Hopkins is a journalist based in Colorado.
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19 Responses
Anyone care to estimate how much longer these pancake people will be in business?
It is a business, isn’t it?
I reckon by January 2024, they’ll be gone.
Mr. Ady: Do you think individual churches will disassociate themselves from the IHOPthing or will something else happen? It takes a while for collective annoyance to build up a head of steam strong enough to drive out leaders.
Then you don’t understand how hard people are working to save the IHOPKC brand.
I assume you meant January 2025 and not 5 days from now?
Elizabeth Herder and Jennifer Roberts were well-spoken, compassionate and credible advocates for the Jane Does they’ve become connected with. Chisholm and Briggs describe an IHOPKC leadership both manipulative and disingenuous as they try to control the narrative about the behavior of Bickle the Demigod and Greaves the enabler in Chief. Excellent videos and worth watching. Thanks for your hard work Julie!
Bingo! Well said and accurately analyzed.
Excellent article, put together quickly but still high-quality, hitting all the major points in the latest developments.
For the Bickles, the apple does not fall far from the tree.
The so-called leadership (mostly white men) who helped create and sustain these monsters conveniently fails to accept responsibility for not supervising them. They, too, were seduced by the false prophet movement. Their false prophets are blindly honored as demigods with an inside track to God. The victims were seduced sexually and spiritually, but I don’t see them renouncing the false prophet movement or admitting they were duped, not just by the man but by the movement.
The “mostly white men” comment was completely un-neccesary and adds nothing to your post.
Well, actually it does add something. The Fratboy entitlement mentality fuels this abuse.
Has nothing to do with ethnicity.
Aside from the general lack of transparency in IHOP’s part, I think some of their complaints are due to the semantic question of what constitutes a victim. IHOP spokespeople have said that several of the reported Jane Does deny that they are victims, because in their minds, the contact they had with MB was “consensual.” On the other hand, from the point of view of the AG (and most sexual abuse experts) there is no such thing as consent when there is a power imbalance on the part of the leader. All this leads to the quandary of what to do about folks who, under the “no such thing as consent,” are indeed victims even though they don’t see themselves that way. It is never a good idea to publicly name someone who for whatever reason does not wish for that to happen. But on the other hand, the fact that there was sexual contact between these persons and MB should be factored into the overall response. No matter what else is said, pastors getting involved with members of their church are crossing boundaries that should not be crossed.
There was no way that consent could be given to Mike Bickle to sexually interact with these women, from both a secular AND spiritual framework. Secularly, he is in a position of authority and he used that position to coerce women into sexual behavior with him. That’s manipulation 101 for predators. Spiritually, he’s married, so he was committing serial adultery for decades, even before he founded IHOPKC, he was doing so against clear biblical directions not to, and he was doing so while proclaiming himself to be a prophet. He actively used that “prophet” title to groom his victims. His actions, over decades, were not only grievious sins, they were an abuse of authority, they were unrepentant, they were repetetive, they were a violation of biblical mandates not to do such things, they rendered him unqualified to hold a positon of leadership, and he invoked impercatory prayer on his victims in an attempt to make them go away. There were not many more things in this situation he could have done wrong, spiritually. He pretty much filled up his card. But people are still defending him, in violation of scripture and Eric Volz has completely abandoned even the semblance of care for the victims and has gone full-on pointing fingers at the AG committee, and the victims themselves by extension. I find that ironic, considering how much mileage Volz continually tries to get out of his own “victim” status.
Christ’s name takes another hit. I think we might be approaching Catholic Church territory with these scandals, and the common denominator is simply bad religion and a misunderstanding of how the local assembly of believers should operate. It’s drip drip drip, each month a new big name comes up short and Christ’s name takes another hit. When are believers going to stop going to these “churches” and stop giving to these “churches”? When is the Body of Christ actually going to grow up into the head which is Christ? deceived.church
“Briggs also alleged that Mike Bickle engaged in “very questionable interactions” for six years with the wife before Luke had the affair with the same woman.
“So that man, in double fashion, was destroyed by Mike’s influence on his wife and his son’s affair with his wife,” Briggs said. ”
This is creepy where Amos 2:7 comes to mind “..Both father and son sleep with the same woman, corrupting my holy name.”
That Scripture came to mind…there’s a prophecy for the prophet….wow
When John Chisholm turned in his letter of resignation, why did he accede to Stuart Greaves request to let him print and distribute it? Was that not an odd request? Did it not occur to him that Stuart Greaves would never circulate the letter? And when he knew for certain that the letter had never been circulated, why did he not go to his computer and hit print and send it to the entire leadership team, past and present? Why were their eyes not before God instead of before Mike Bickle and Stuart Greaves? There’s no question that God requires exposure. What was God supposed to be getting out of a prayer movement that operated in sexual immorality, outrageous arrogance and secrecy? Did they really believe that they were furthering the cause of Jesus Christ by merely walking away? How is it that the Bickles were able to generate Mafia like fear? This has nothing to do with Mike’s brilliant exposition of the gospel. He was never brilliant. This is plain old intimidation. How did he do it? The whole structure must be exposed and taken down.