The Greatest Lie I Ever Told Myself

“If Mike Bickle had a moral failure, it wouldn’t really affect me.”

That right there was the single greatest lie I ever told myself.

The official news of the allegations brought against Mike broke in late October 2023, although members of the Executive Leadership Team (ELT) knew beforehand. But I live in the same house as Dwayne and Jennifer Roberts (members of the Advocate Group), so I may or may not have figured it out before October 27th, 2023.

This mess dropped into my parent’s lap at the end of July / early August. And like I said we live in the same house, so I started noticing a few things.

My parents were going to more meetings than normal. Lots of hushed conversations. I knew something was wrong, something big. And my gut told me it had something to do with the International House of Prayer (IHOPKC).

I knew my parent’s reaction and sudden dedication to whatever had fallen into their laps would not be over some minor dispute or problem.

One night I was FaceTiming my dad while he was traveling and he talked about how some very disappointing news had come to his attention. Gonna be honest, it takes a lot for my dad to call something disappointing. I knew something was very wrong.

I sat on the couch and watched a movie with my mom, but I was not really watching the movie. I was racking my brain about what was going on, but at the same time appreciated not knowing.

As a pastor’s kid, I’ve always heard lots of things. When I was younger I was always very eager to figure out what all the hubbub was about. I wanted to know the backroom conversations. But the older I got, the less I wanted to know. Because once you hear it, you can’t unhear it. Once you hear about the sin issues, lies, mistreatment, and abuse, you can’t easily expel it from your mind.

So I have become more content with not knowing. But that night, the not knowing started to gnaw at me. And I knew it was big, real big. Enough to greatly affect both my parents.

It came down to one central thought in my mind. “I think Mike has had a moral failure. And if he did, it wouldn’t really affect me.”

What a cute, naive thought. Deep down I knew that was a lie, but the thought was so overwhelming that my subconscious was trying to help ease the load.

When the movie was over, the pit in my stomach had grown. I had to know, otherwise my mind would go wild.

I couldn’t even say it out loud, it seemed too preposterous. “Did the Big Cheese over at IHOP do something stupid sexually?” I asked my mom.

“Maybe”, she said.

Although it wasn’t a maybe, it was an absolutely. She was trying to make the news more digestible for me at that moment.

And it wasn’t “just moral failure” as we all know. It was multiple cases of clergy sexual abuse. Among a lot of other disgusting things, including prophetic manipulation.

That night as soon as my mom said “maybe” I knew it to be true. I knew the lie I told myself was indeed a lie. Mike Bickle had an affair and it would most definitely affect me.

I moved back to Kansas City in 2021. I didn’t join staff or do IHOPU (pretty sure my full-ride scholarship I get for being a kid of an ELT member has been revoked anyway). I got a “normal person” job. Joined my parent’s church. But I did go to the prayer room pretty often.

But I grew up at IHOP. In the “inner circle” if you will. I took Mike’s teaching and messages as gospel. So yeah, it affected me.

Mike’s actions, and the subsequent actions of many leaders both inside and outside of IHOP, have caused me to have a deep mistrust of many leaders right now. The people who were my role models, my heroes have turned out to be deeply involved in sexual immorality, or at the very least, covering it up.

Ugh.

Since last August I have been in a deep place of reflection and what I like to call “sifting”. I don’t want to call it deconstruction, because it’s now an overused term. I don’t want to just call it detangling, because it doesn’t feel genuine to my experience. Sifting is the word I am using.

I am not questioning the divinity of Jesus. I am not questioning the role of the Holy Spirit in my life.

I am, however, very wary of applying any of Mike’s messages right now. I do think at many points in his life, he preached the pure and unadulterated gospel. But we can probably all agree that he also preached straight-up crap a time or two. I have to discern which was which in my own life.

I learned a lot of positive things growing up at IHOP. I developed a life of prayer and a love for the Word. All good things. So when I say sifting, I mean that I want the Holy Spirit to help me get rid of what isn’t the gospel, while holding onto those things that are. I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water, though it seems tempting at times.

I am sifting through the example that Mike set for everyone which was the golden standard of Christianity. Or so we all thought.

“If you don’t pray 6 hours a day, are you even a true, radical believer?”

“You’re a half-hearted Christian if you work in the marketplace.”

“There is an elite group of Christians, you probably aren’t one of them.”

Of course, these things weren’t said out loud, but they were implied a lot. Mike created a culture of elitism and arrogance that wreaked havoc. And I can assure you, I have been guilty of that elitism and arrogance many times in my life.

The fruit of IHOP is extremely questionable at this point. Are there still people who love Jesus there? Absolutely. Are there thousands of people with deep wounds because of Mike and IHOP’s leadership and culture? Absolutely.

So this is why I’m sifting. I want the gospel, pure and simple. I don’t care about being “one of the ten thousand end times messengers”. I don’t care about “keeping the fire on the altar burning”. Jesus doesn’t need me, or you for that matter, to make His promises come forth.

I want Jesus. I want to embody his true character that is modeled in the scripture. And that’s pretty much it.

I have felt myself get extremely angry while reading certain passages of scripture in recent months. I felt angry because I hear his voice. I can hear Mike talking about the book of Revelation or Sermon the Mount in my head, or whatever passage.

I am angry because he manipulated portions of scripture to make people subservient to him and to keep their heads in the sand in the name of “humility”. He taught about humility often. Which is a trait modeled by Jesus, what Mike taught (and modeled) was very much false humility.

His teaching made people constantly question the motives of their hearts, turn off their discernment, and keep silent because they didn’t want to cause any trouble or appear to be self-serving.

The very character of Jesus has been so manipulated and misused, that it makes me sick.

When, at any moment, did Jesus turn a blind eye to abuse? Or let an evil religious leader get away with putting a heavy yoke on His people?

So yeah, I’m sifting.

I need to read the scriptures with fresh eyes and look for who Jesus really is. I don’t want someone else’s voice in my head telling me who Jesus is. I want Jesus to tell me who He is.

The revelations about who Mike really is have affected me. It’s rocked me to my core. The man I admired my entire life turned out to be a monster.

But I am not without hope.