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A Response to the Allegations against Mike Bickle from two former Colleagues
December 18, 2023 by Sam Storms 38 Comments

Dear Friends,

We write to you today with sorrowful hearts. As many of you know, we both served on the senior leadership team at Metro Christian Fellowship (MCF) alongside Mike Bickle ”“ Michael from 1987-2000 and Sam from 1993-2000. During those years, we were in (what we felt was) close fellowship with Mike and Diane - meeting as couples multiple times every month. This camaraderie continued until such time as Mike stepped down as lead pastor at MCF to form IHOPKC as an independent ministry.

We were unaware of Mike meeting with or traveling in the company of young women during this time. Mike was able to successfully hide from us this dimension of his life. He never came to us with a request for prayer or with some confession of weakness and an appeal to hold him accountable. If he had, we would have faithfully stepped in to help our friend in whatever way we could.

We were made aware of the allegations of clergy sexual abuse at different times over the past several months. We have now both spoken extensively with one of the primary Jane Does and her husband and believe what she has said about the sexual nature of their interaction. In her own words, it involved everything short of sexual intercourse. There is no reason to doubt the accuracy of her testimony. Our hearts break for what she suffered and for the ongoing grief this horrific injustice has caused her and her family.”¯

Sam and Francis Chan attempted to visit Mike at his home on October 31 where Chris Reed turned them away at the door. He said that Mike had been instructed not to meet or speak with anyone, which Mike later confirmed in a brief email to Sam. We were subsequently informed that Mike was following the counsel of Eric Volz.

As a matter of conscience, we write now to publicly state that we believe Jane Doe.”¯ We deeply regret not being aware of her situation at the time it occurred. We have now been made aware of additional allegations directed at Mike for behavior subsequent to his relationship with Jane Doe. These are grievous and weighty.”¯ However, it is not our intent to address the legitimacy of those charges. That is the responsibility of whatever third party is secured to conduct a thorough investigation of what may or may not have happened in the context of IHOPKC for the past 23 years.

It is our opinion that Mike’s most recent statement, while potentially a step in the right direction, is woefully inadequate. What is most lacking in it is explicitly owning the sin he committed against Jane Doe(s), repenting, and asking for forgiveness. Regrettably, Jane Doe is nowhere mentioned in the written statement he released.”¯

We appeal to Mike, as long-standing friends and colleagues who have loved him and Diane, to search his heart and plead with the Holy Spirit to disclose any other sins committed. We pray that by God’s grace he will find the spiritual courage to confess such sins, wholeheartedly repent, face the consequences, and humbly pursue the restoration and healing of anyone he has wounded. It is our love for Mike that constrains us to write this letter and call him to more open and vulnerable official examination for his confessed duplicity and moral failures as a Christian and a ministry leader.

Our sincere and heartfelt appeal is that the ELT at IHOPKC and the Advocate group will together pursue an acceptable independent, third-party investigation. There is little hope that the truth will come to light, leading to a resolution of this matter, until such time as everyone involved cooperates fully with the investigative body.

Mature and compassionate spiritual leadership requires that we do not hurt those entrusted to our care. Lying when confronted with the truth, creating division in the body of Christ by intentionally preaching about betrayal and false accusation after being informed that allegations were forthcoming, lawyering up, making minimal concessions in lieu of true confession, and indiscriminately managing an image of oneself is the opposite of what a spiritually mature response should be to a crisis of this nature.

Christian leaders steward a holy calling and are held to a higher standard by God for living above reproach. By this, a leader embraces the risk that any undealt with and/or unconfessed sin patterns may be publicly exposed if they are disqualifying in nature and scope. Beyond this, leaders ought to welcome a lifestyle of transparency before family, friends, governing boards, and constituents. We believe Mike has had every opportunity to vulnerably share any temptations or struggles with sin with fellow leaders in order to find God’s mercy and pathway to wholeness. Sadly, we believe he has not remained faithful to this commitment, but rather engaged in deceptive and manipulative actions to exploit the vulnerability of a godly young woman. As such, we are in firm agreement with Mike stepping down from Christian ministry.

The painful ripple effects of this sin have been felt far and wide. We grieve hearing the voices of hurt, angry, confused, and disillusioned current and former members of IHOPKC, and its related ministries. We urge you all to find safe people in your life to pray for you and support you as you process your experience. We pray for the peace and grace of God to be with you and upon you all.

Bearing with you in spirit,

Sam Storms
Michael Sullivant”¯

Please pray for mercy for Mike Bickle. While I agree he is disqualified from public ministry, I believe there is still a place of repentance for him.

Pray also for his family and any of the young women hurt by his actions.

Let this be a warning for the body of Christ,

1. To live above reproach and run from sin, especially lust. Confess it immediately to God and to a trusted fellow christian, if possible.

2. To not put leaders on a pedestal and think they can't fall like this. Pray for your pastor, he needs it!

3. To not harbour any bitterness or unforgiveness towards Mike or any fallen leader. I am all for discernment, but if we're not careful, it can turn to venom and poison us and others.

Mt 4:5 Then the devil taketh him into the holy city; and he set him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and saith unto him, If thou art the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee:

I think the devil is very successful with this temptation. He lead leaders climb the pinnacle their religous construction and then tempts them to cast themselves down from the very same thing.

Sometimes I think the way ministries are run expose their leaders to dangers and temptations that few can bear. I speak in general terms, this is not directed at M.B. but isn't there sort of a pattern that can serve as a receipe for a fall?

Have a top man as star preacher, with multitudes hanging on his lips, a couple of best-sellers to his name which he gracefully hand-signs at events, build a corporate structure with layers of management around him, a PR machine, lots of social media froth, big budgets, a salary on par with top managers in the secular world, and I almost forgot to mention the campus and training modules that you can enroll for a handsome fee, and when things get a bit stuffy at home you jet around and swap stages with your peers.

How are you supposed to stay humble and esteem others better than yourself?

Did Paul or Jesus have any of these?
Is this type of ministry condusive to the kingdom of God?
Why are we so obsessed with heroes?

I must admit, at times I envy these men, but then I don't. I think the temptation for these men must be enormous, beyond what I think I and most of us could handle.

When I look at the lifes of people who I think are godly, they all encounter heartbreaks, slander and accusations, ingratitude, misunderstandings, fellowship break-downs, while they continue to serve faithfully with cheerfulness and gratitude. He who walks lowly does not fall from great heights, he is not crushed, but gets up and walks on.

As for MB, I pray that he and others involved can find forgiveness and healing.

So many leaders have fallen and I know for sure this is not the last one. It is so painful and many followers end up disillusioned and bitter. They need our prayers just as much.

Maybe we need to rediscover simplicity as a virtue.

We do need to pray for those who have been so hurt by and damaged spiritually by Mike Bickle, including Mike Bickle. This most likely was not a single event or a fall like David's adultery as the Sam Storms letter indicates. Yet, like David's case, God was most concerned that David's behavior despised the Lord and despised the Lord's word. This fact has been conspicuously absent in the responses of people to this tragedy..... a deep and sorrowful concern for the despising of the Lord.

This was a decades long abuse of people not just sexually or clergy based, but was also a false and sinful making of "prophetic" claims that were not true. I'm speaking to the claims Mike B. made to the victim(s) that God told him that he and the victims would marry and his sermon on the "dark horse accusers" of the brethern that would arise and how that Satanic attack would try to inhibit his prophesied last days outpouring of the Spirit. Heard that kind of thing somewhere before.

This dark horse prophetic release was immediately preceding the public release of the complaint against Mike Bickle. So what is involved here is sexual abuse, clergy abuse AND prophetic abuse.

One significant spiritual tragedy of this is that it is entirely legitimate to question any or all of Mike Bickle's prophetic words while these decades long abuses of women, position and prophetic utterance was going on. I'm not saying all his statements were false. Yet, it's a legitimate query.

Many will claim this is an isolated scenario. That would be error. This is the 3rd main Kansas City prophet to have this lifestyle of abuse and all had the same MO. Predatory, False prophesy to serve sinful desire and positional or clergy abuse. Cain, Jones and Bickle. Coincidence? This is not an instance of stellar character falling at the end of their ministries.

Second, in the area of Asia I work, this exact same scenario is being played out on a large scale among and affecting dozens of churches where sexual immorality, greed and spiritual pride have been allowed to run under the radar for fifteen years among major church leaders while the spiritually mature had inklings of it but failed to act because they didn't think they had the authority or a right (they were silenced by a church culture that told everyone to mind their own business).

As a result, many were led to imitate this attitude and many young people have became disillusioned or left the church by the hypocrisy and felt like all the sermons and teachings they heard were suspect.

This is happening now in KC and in the lives of those influenced by Mike Bickle. Tragic in many respects but especially tragic to the honor of God and the body of Christ generally.

My question is, what is God saying in this. One may conclude this is the devil at work and indeed it was and is in many different ways. However, it is God that is exposing this in this prophetic world and the mixture of sin and the prophetic is once again an issue. I love God speaking prophetically to His people. What is God saying in all this ? Does anyone have what the Lord is saying. We seriously don't need 10,000 opinions or points of views when He is shouting to and working this judgement out in the church, not just here. Perhaps this is His Word as I believe it is:

"Write to the angel of the church in Thyatira: Thus says the Son of God, the one whose eyes are like a fiery flame and whose feet are like fine bronze: I know your works ”‹”” ”‹your love, faithfulness, service, and endurance. I know that your last works are greater than the first. But I have this against you: You tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and teaches and deceives my servants to commit sexual immorality and to eat meat sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she does not want to repent of her sexual immorality. Look, I will throw her into a sickbed and those who commit adultery with her into great affliction. Unless they repent of her works, I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am the one who examines minds and hearts, and I will give to each of you according to your works. -- Revelation 2:18-23 (CSB)

AND,

After this I saw another angel with great authority coming down from heaven, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor.

He called out in a mighty voice:

It has fallen,

Babylon the Great has fallen!

She has become a home for demons,

a haunt for every unclean spirit,

a haunt for every unclean bird,

and a haunt for every unclean and despicable beast.

For all the nations have drunk

the wine of her sexual immorality,

which brings wrath.

The kings of the earth

have committed sexual immorality with her,

and the merchants of the earth

have grown wealthy from her sensuality and excess.

Then I heard another voice from heaven:

Come out of her, my people,

so that you will not share in her sins

or receive any of her plagues. -- Revelation 18:1-4 (CSB)

If you look at God's judgment against Israel it was always rooted in false shepherds and false prophets leading the people into a complacency and lack of fear of God. False prophetic words about what God's burden was and what God was going to do for His people. At the same time, God warned the people of their spiritual pride, their sexual immorality and their covetousness for money, position and power.

I can tell you for sure this is the root of the evil now harmfully influencing so many churches and faiths in large swaths of Asia. It is, as the Lord leads me, the same in the US, it's just more genteel here.

Post deleted because of the strife it caused.

Thanks Docs for including this letter. This is the one Sam Storms indicated is woefully inadequate in the sense it shows spiritual blindness.

This whole thing, this sad state of affairs is about a lot more than Mike Bickel. This is about the devil trying to destroy a prayer movement that is worldwide.

Mike, What is God simultaneously saying, if anything?

God is saying a whole lot right now, judgment must begin first in the household of God, and those that do not repent of their sins and from their sins, they will be judged, they will be exposed, but also God is a merciful God. God is a God of forgiveness and of restoration and we have to be very careful that we judge righteously and not be a tool of the accuser of the brethren, because the devil goal is to split and divide the church, God‘s goal is to bring the church into unity .of the Spirit. (John 17).

The chastisement of God, is for all of his sons. He rebuked and chastens all those that he loves, and the discipline of God is for our salvation, not for our destruction.

Sorry. Double post.

Mike , The prayer movement can be and should be completely separate from what is going on. The prayer movement should be completely a movement and not fundamentally IHOP as an institution or entity. I’m not advocating disbanding IHOP and I haven’t heard anyone suggesting that. I was more focused on what God might be saying about the Kansas City prophet movement because the roots of that don’t appear to be healthy. I read some articles making that point back when Paul Cain and Bob Jones had their exposure by the Lord. Some very credible Charismatic leaders raised objections to their prophesies back then. Do you think Mike Buckle’s prophesies are credible in light of all this or that they need to be freshly assessed? That is what happened when Cain and Jones were exposed. Again, those questions were raised by solid charismatic leaders at that time as a direct result of the public exposure.

Maybe He’s saying "thou shalt not commit adultery.”

Apparently it’s still hasn’t sunk in after a few thousand years.

I’m not a huge fan of blaming the devil for this. The devil can’t make anyone, much less a believer, do anything.

"but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”

Or, to paraphrase: "The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer."
”­”­

Am I alone in wanting these movements dismantled?

I used to think that, and then my Father does it Himself since men flock to these charades of flesh; and when one falls ten more take it's place.

The ihopkc movement has never been solid, I spent time in KC in the early 2000s and knew then (I've outlined this much more in other posts).

It is a tragedy but there are those of us who saw this coming, and warned of it for years, but no one ever listens.

The response is always we are the false prophets because obviously, followers mean you're message is true.

"The response is always we are the false prophets because obviously, followers mean you're message is true.”

I don’t consider you a false profit, brother I just say that you and a few others are false accusers.

For those that are interested in light of these events, here is an article from Prophesy Today UK that you will find concerning and prophetic for this situation. It was written in 2018.

https://prophecytoday.uk/study/teaching-articles/item/1062-blessing-the-church-xxvi.html

Mike, is this a false accusation and false accuser ? I ask this sincerely. It’s very concerning to me and comes from a prophetic supporter and credible publication. I’m new to all this but it seems to me that we need a thorough airing and cleansing through addressing legitimate questions. God can and will preserve His church and its direction in His will if indeed it is in line with His will. We should have the trust in that that would allow us to discern the false and clear the dross and leaven and trust the Spirit to preserve the gold.

For the record, I’m not a keyboard warrior. As I said in an earlier post, I’m working at the forefront in the midst of this very same scenario affecting dozens of pastors and thousands of believers and the church, His church, can and will handle the shaking and shifting that needs to happen. Sometimes strengthening comes most necessarily through removing the weakness and cancer.

This website is well-known for listing false Prophets. What about the true Prophets? It’s just like right here on Sermon Index, some of you seem to know a lot about false prophets, but there’s a true gift of prophecy. They’re true prophets, and I’m going to quote with one sister had to say in her comments, concerning this particular website that you mentioned Robert

"I think it is about time something good was spoken about the gift of Christian prophecy on this site.There are many good prophets in this land and as the apostle Paul said we prophesy in part. Hence the need for prophecy to be tested. Why not run articles on UK prophets such as Chris Wickland and Veronika West who often appear to prophesy God's heart with accuracy. In the US if you want a prophet giving accurate words of knowledge try Troy Black. The church needs apostles, PROPHETS, pastors, evangelists and teachers as a functioning 5 fold ministry. Perhaps then we would function more fully in Christ's calling."

For many years, I was very skeptical of the prophetic, and many of the men that you mentioned. I doubted it that they had a true prophetic gift, but I’ve changed my opinion of many of them., Men like Pastor Joseph Sweet, who preaches the pure word of God, has had some of these prophets, whom you consider to be false at his church ministering One of them was Bob Jones. My wife has a true prophetic gift, and over the last 50 years, she has been so accurate with her prophecies that there’s no way I can doubt this gift, and it is needed in the Body of Christ. We definitely do need discernment within the church, and there are many false prophets and I don’t have a problem naming them when I see one when it’s mentioned here on this website.

Mike,

Did you get a chance to read the article ? Do you know the author or his credentials ? He's a false accuser based on what ?, assuming you read the article before leading others to dismiss it. I don't know the author, but his commentary seems to be grounded with numerous specific personal experiences with the individuals involved and specific examples. Mike, again, this keeps coming back to an irony. My sense is that Evan has been told by some mature spirit filled believers that he is a prophet or at least often prophesies. I won't speak for myself in this regard. Do you know or have insight from the Lord about Evan that would lead you to call him a false accuser or wrong in his spiritual evaluation of the ministry in KC? Evan clearly feels strongly that the Lord has led him to his conclusions. If you don't have such insights from the Lord as to Evan, and he does actually walk with spiritual revelation on this, then you end up being the false accuser. I'm not saying you are in the least. Just pointing out again the irony of falsely accusing someone of being a false accuser which could be the case as I suggest. At least those who are pointing out the spiritual issues and dangers to the body in these events are operating on known facts at this point as Sam Storms' letter attests to.

I know something is truly prophetic when I hear it. It is exceedingly rare and I would never label any man a prophet for that very reason. Art Katz came closest to being consistently prophetic in my opinion. Maybe David Wilkerson as well but I did not listen to him as much. Men like Tozer and Havner as well.

I have heard many sermons by Bob Gladstone and Mike Brown that were very prophetic- the ones that used to be posted on Fire on the Altar.

A man may give a word that is prophetic today but the next time he speaks it may be good but not prophetic.

Mike (and anyone else),

Just so you are aware, I in no way oppose the prophetic office or gift. I don't see how anyone can if they read the Bible.

With that said, I have, since very early in my life in Christ, been unable to escape being called into a prophetic life myself. I tried very hard to escape it, and God apprehended me over and over again, teaching me new and deeper lessons every time He did. I have died deaths I never even knew were possible in this walk, and in these crosses and deaths, developed a keen discernment that is often something that drives me to a place of deep confusion, until yet another part of me dies, and perfect clarity comes. I've been subject to prophetic men who have guided me, but ultimately it is life one must walk alone.

This is the the difference between a prophetic life and office, and someone simply offering up a sermon or telling a fortune from the pulpit and claiming the office themselves.

I think to much is said about the gift and almost nothing is said about the office - these are not the same thing.

False prophets run to give utterances, they love to stand up and proclaim themselves prophets and their sermons as prophetic; the true tremble at the office itself, and often can't even comprehend why they would ever be called to it. The false prophet steals words from other false prophets; the true dies a death and out of the subsequent resurrection, speaks what they saw. The false prophet is self willed; the true prophet is called from death and a tomb, and bid speak no matter how they feel about it.

There is absolutely nothing glamorous or appealing about the office of prophet, nothing to make a man want it, and everything to make a man run from it. Prophets are formed and made by God, not trained and picked by men. Prophets speak as oracles of God whenever God decides; to put pen to paper or to stand at a pulpit is futile unless God Himself directs and chooses to speak.

Often times the true prophetic accuses, but never to God, always to the nations, people groups or individual to whom the prophet is bid speak. Satan accuses the brethren to God, the prophet accuses people to their faces, unflinching and unafraid of the result it may have on their reputation, because like their Lord, they are of no reputation and not bound to a system, movement or financial crowd - God holds them up, not the world or anyone else.

The fact we limit the prophetic to future telling is why the church at large is so prone to deception and as we again see, so often deceived.

Sadly, I've yet to be wrong - sometimes I wish I was.