Mike Bickle, the founder of International House of Prayer Kansas City, has agreed to step down from ministry after he was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women.
According to The Christian Post, the church’s leadership team broke the news on Facebook on Sunday during the 11 a.m. service of the ministry’s “local church expression,” Forerunner Church, led by pastors Isaac and Morgan Bennett.
“We are heartbroken to share that we have recently become aware of serious allegations, including sexual immorality directed against Mike Bickle, the founder of IHOPKC. Our leadership team takes these allegations very seriously, and we are laboring for truth, light, redemption, and righteousness. We are engaging with outside parties to assess and arbitrate these allegations,” the church’s leadership team said.
“Our priority is to love and serve our IHOPKC community during this moment. This news is unsettling for our spiritual family and our entire leadership team. Please pray for all involved, including the ones who have come forward, those who have experienced trauma, and for the Bickle family,” it continued.
“We ask for patience as we work through this complex and very difficult situation. Secondly, we ask that our spiritual family refrain from using prophetic spiritual language that can be interpreted as dismissive of the pain of the traumatized.”
IHOP leaders also shared that Bickel will not preach or teach going forward, interact with the public on social media, or participate in the church’s 24-hour prayer room on Red Bridge Road in south Kansas City “while we work with others to assess this situation.”
“As difficult as this is for many, we are trusting in Jesus' wise and good leadership to help and strengthen us as we anchor our hope in Him,” the church leaders continued.
In a joint statement published on Saturday, Dwayne Roberts, a founding member of the IHOPKC, Brian Kim, a former IHOPKC executive leadership team member, and Wes Martin, a former pastor of Forerunner Church, explained that they were the first to approach ministry leaders concerning the allegations which span “several decades.”
“A few days ago, we made the leadership team of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City … aware of serious allegations spanning several decades concerning its founder, Mike Bickle. 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 statement reads.
“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.”
Prior to meeting with church leaders, however, they attempted to address the matter privately with Bickle “in the spirit of Matthew 18:15-17,” but they were rejected.
“When these allegations were brought to our attention, we were shocked. We could never have imagined inappropriate conduct with women as something we would ever need to be concerned about,” the former IHOPKC ministry workers explained. “The allegations seemed out of character to the man we thought we knew, but they were so serious we could not ignore them.”
They also claimed that Bickle abused his position as a leader to manipulate them.
“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, and 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.”
Photo Courtesy: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/utah778
Video Courtesy: International House of Prayer via YouTube
Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.