Former IHOPKC leaders release explosive videos with new details of sex abuse allegations

A group of former International House of Prayer-Kansas City leaders has released a series of explosive videos that include members discussing the sexual abuse allegations against founder Mike Bickle and how they say current leadership is mishandling the issue.

The action came Wednesday in response to recent accusations by several women who said they had been falsely identified by the group as sex abuse victims of Bickle, a well-known figure in the charismatic prayer movement.

“We are running out of hope that IHOPKC is honestly committed to searching for the truth and doing the right thing,” said a statement posted on X (formerly Twitter) by Dwayne Roberts, a founding member of IHOPKC. “It never needed to be this way.”

Links to the videos, which within hours had thousands of views, were included with the statement. One video runs more than an hour and features former IHOPKC leaders Jono Hall, Allen Hood, Wes Martin and Roberts talking about the allegations and how they became involved in the issue.

Hood, who was IHOPKC’s longtime associate director, said he was driving to the airport at the end of June to go to Israel to preach at a conference when he received a phone call from Jane Doe, whom he described as “a dear sister of mine that I’d known for over 20 years.”

“I just remember when she first told me, I felt like everything in my body was seizing up,” he said haltingly. “All I could do was just wail. All I could do was just weep. Probably for two months, I begged God it wouldn’t be true. Begging God.

“Because what she shared there, as a 19-year-old being prophesied to, what a hero had prophesied to her and how that led into the indiscretions, was so shocking to me. As a spiritual son, you’re not ready to hear that.”

The video release incensed IHOPKC leaders. Spokesman Eric Volz posted a scathing response on X at 9:50 p.m. Wednesday from recently appointed Executive Director Kurt Fuller, who called some of the former leaders liars and said he was done trying to work with them.

“Over the last several weeks I have done everything in my power to negotiate with the advocate group to convince them to tell me what they know,” said Fuller, a retired major general. “...They have claimed for months, both verbally and in writing, that they have credible evidence from eyewitnesses. I needed that information, and I knew that they had already refused to provide it to our independent investigator. So I hoped that they would at least give it to me.

“They have refused, repeatedly. Instead, they have decided to post videos that contain some of the information that I was diligently and honestly seeking. Instead of helping me, they have prevented me from finding out information that they’re now willing to share with the whole world.”

The existence of the videos, Fuller said, “confirms to me that four members of the advocate group have looked me in the eye and lied to me.”

“This behavior completely undermines the trust and integrity that are fundamental to any honest discussion,” he said. “I cannot and will not work with or concede to the demands of people who do not tell the truth…”

Fuller said he had provided the videos to the IHOPKC’s investigator, who he said would “determine the relevance of the advocate group’s most recent publications.”

“I have never said that these allegations are not true,” he said. “I have never questioned whether the alleged victims are telling the truth. As I have constantly said from the very beginning of this, I want nothing more than to uncover the truth.”

However, he said, “I no longer need the unsolicited outside advice of people who have no authority here.

“I’ll await the independent results of our investigator and then compare those with what the new leadership here and I have found on our own and then use those findings to hold people accountable for their behavior and to correct all organizational shortcomings as necessary,” he said. “We will not tolerate misconduct of any kind and we stand against any form of abuse.”

Some deny they were victims

The videos, recorded Dec. 20, were released after singer/songwriter Misty Edwards, one of IHOPKC’s prominent worship leaders, and another woman who used to work with Bickle posted a statement on X last week saying at least five “Jane Does” had been falsely identified by former leaders as victims of Bickle. Some of those former leaders, who have come to be called the “advocate group,” reported sex abuse allegations involving Bickle to IHOPKC leadership in late October.

The women’s statement accused the advocate group of “harassing, bullying, and shaming us in public and private.” It said they had been secretly recorded, had family members contacted, phone numbers given out and “been bullied and pressured to ‘admit’ to being victims.”

The women said they had “engaged” with three investigative legal teams that IHOPKC had brought in, causing them “to endure recurring humiliation, distress, trauma, and pain as we have had to have repeated conversations about humiliating topics concerning the insinuations and suggestions that others have projected onto our lives and workplace dynamics.”

Now, the women said, some in the advocate group are insisting on a fourth investigation, “putting us through even further anguish and injustice, while they themselves have as of yet refused to be formally investigated even once by a legal team in context to their character, narratives, or the processes by which they have promoted various accusations against many of us.”

The women referred to themselves as victims.

“We appreciate the concern for others who express victimhood, but frankly, there is another group of victimized women here — the women, and former women, of this house who have been forced to engage in this horror show against our will for the sake of someone else’s agenda against Mike Bickle and IHOPKC.”

The issue played out on social media throughout the past weekend, and on Monday morning IHOPKC was trending on X. Some IHOPKC supporters slammed the advocate group and said its members should be investigated. Many former IHOPKC staff and leaders defended the advocate group and praised members for bringing forth the allegations against Bickle.

The global prayer movement, with headquarters in south Kansas City, has been in upheaval since the allegations against Bickle surfaced in late October. The allegations were presented to IHOPKC leaders on Oct. 24 by the former leaders who described the incidents as “clergy sexual abuse” and said they found the allegations “to be credible and long-standing.”

But on Nov. 15, IHOPKC leaders released a report of their initial findings involving the case, discounting some of the allegations.

Bickle, 68, issued his first public statement on the allegations on Dec. 12, admitting that he had “sinned” and “my moral failures were real.” But he was vague on details. In a lengthy note on X, Bickle said his “inappropriate behavior” occurred more than 20 years ago, but he did not admit to engaging in any sexual misconduct.

IHOPKC ‘permanently’ separates from Bickle

On Dec. 22, IHOPKC announced that it was “immediately, formally and permanently” separating from Bickle, saying it had confirmed “a level of inappropriate behavior” on his part.

In that same announcement, IHOPKC revealed that Stuart Greaves had resigned as executive director. And on Jan. 3, IHOPKC announced that longtime leader David Sliker was leaving his position as president of IHOP University and stepping down from the ministry’s leadership team.

Wednesday’s statement by the advocate group said allegations against Bickle had been circulating for several years. A “series of conversations about evidence and eyewitnesses of multiple cases of serious concern of misconduct by Mike Bickle with women” had taken place among former leaders, current and recently departed staff and members of IHOPKC’s executive leadership team “spanning a period from 2019 to September 2023,” it said.

Those concerns eventually led to an Oct. 9 meeting with Bickle and the husband of the primary Jane Doe “to bring him the sins Mike committed against his wife,” the statement said. Later that day, there was a subsequent meeting with Jane Doe’s husband along with Roberts, Greaves and leadership team member Marci Sorge “to prepare for step two of a Matthew 18 process” — a conflict resolution procedure laid out in the Gospel of Matthew.

When no action was taken and Bickle refused to meet again “for step two of a Matthew 18 process,” the statement said, Roberts and former leaders Martin and Brian Kim met with IHOPKC leaders on Oct. 24 “to emphasize the credibility of the allegations.”

“This meeting was cordial and sober, and it was felt by those present that there was good faith between everyone and that action related to a biblical process would be forthcoming,” the advocates’ response said. “The breakdown in relationships since that point is heartbreaking; however, the actions have consistently shown that IHOPKC does not wish to follow a biblical process for dealing with sin but rather wishes to mitigate liability legally.”

According to their statement, the advocate group consists of 15 “concerned former leaders who were standing with those bringing forth allegations involving Mike Bickle.”

The group denied that it had “bullied and abused” the women who deny they are victims of Bickle. It said the Oct. 24 meeting with IHOPKC’s executive leadership team was principally about Bickle’s alleged misconduct with the primary Jane Doe.

“However, corroborating stories from other Jane Does/John Does who have come forward were presented as well,” it said, adding that “no list of named victims was presented in that meeting…”

Roberts did, however, talk privately the next day to then-executive director Greaves about other allegations, the statement said.

“A number of women self-identified on social media on October 31, 2023, that they were not victims of Mike Bickle; it is assumed these are the ‘Jane Does’ of the recent statement,” it said. “If this is the case, in these situations, more than two to three witnesses have come forward to speak with members of the Advocate Group with evidence of wrongdoing between Mike and each woman.”

While Roberts spoke to Greaves about some of those situations on Oct. 25 — and Greaves indicated he was already familiar with some of the stories — they were not the focus of the allegations, the advocates’ statement said. Roberts was speaking to Greaves “as a pastor coming to a fellow spiritual leader about concerns,” it said.

Conversation ‘weaponized and mischaracterized’

Afterward, Roberts regretted the conversation “due to the way that it was subsequently weaponized and mischaracterized by IHOPKC’s public statements,” the statement said.

During that conversation, it said, Roberts “also handed over a working document that had been used on the previous day to help tell the story succinctly. This document had not been read or approved by all the Advocate Group. Dwayne regretted handing this over in good faith…”

Since then, the advocate group said, there has been no contact with any of the other women except Edwards. Roberts’ wife, Jennifer, met with Edwards on Oct. 24 and discussed the alleged abuse the primary Jane Doe had suffered, the statement said, and then Edwards met with a few other advocate group members at her request to present her side.

“These conversations were ones of humble listening and would in no way be characterized as “bullying” or trying to force anything onto Misty,” the response said. “...We are deeply sorry that these women were seemingly forced to be interviewed three times, but the Advocate Group cannot be held responsible for a process unilaterally determined by IHOPKC and in which we have no involvement.”

The advocate group also responded to criticism by IHOPKC leaders that the alleged victims are refusing to cooperate with what IHOPKC calls an independent investigation into the issue.

The two sides have been at odds about a third-party investigation since the allegations were made public. IHOPKC originally hired the Stinson LLP law firm to investigate but quickly reversed that decision after critics questioned whether it could be truly independent. Then it hired Audrey Manito, an attorney with close ties to IHOPKC, to conduct interviews with alleged victims.

When that action was heavily criticized, IHOPKC hired the Lathrop GPM law firm to conduct the outside investigation.

But so far, the alleged victims have declined to talk to key investigator Rosalee McNamara, saying her firm can’t be impartial because it also has represented defendants in sex abuse cases.

In their statement Wednesday, the advocates said they had recommended several other third-party investigators to IHOPKC but none so far had been accepted.

At a Jan. 16 meeting with IHOPKC leaders, the advocates’ statement said, they proposed having two co-equal investigators — McNamara and one selected by attorney Boz Tchividjian, who is representing the main Jane Doe and acting as a consultant to the advocate group. Tchividjian informed IHOPKC of their choice two days later, it said.

“It is one week later and IHOPKC has yet to respond to our choice,” the statement said. “IHOPKC publicly claims that they want to find a way forward with a third-party investigation that is acceptable to all of us. As of last Tuesday, we thought we had all agreed on that acceptable way forward. Their failure to respond to our selection and to work with us in moving forward with the next steps of putting together that agreed upon investigation is profoundly disappointing.”