Brad speaks to two survivors of IHOP-KC about the abuse they endured there, the dynamics of the community, and healing with others.
This week allegations emerged about Mike Bickle, founder of IHOP-KC, a central hub in charismatic Christianity located in Kansas City. Bob Smietana at RNS describes Bickle this way:
"Bickle is one of the most influential charismatic Christians in the United States and a leading figure in the so-called New Apostolic Reformation, which seeks to make prophecy and the leadership of apostles a major part of modern evangelical practice.
A former pastor in the Vineyard church movement, Bickle led his Kansas City-based congregation to break away from that denomination in the 1990s after conflicts with other leaders."
Jo and Gracia tell their stories and give insight about IHOP-KC then and now.
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My name is Brad Onishi, faculty at the University of San Francisco.
Today we have a special episode.
We are talking to two survivors of IHOP-KC.
People who spent some of their formative years there, served in ministry, went to school, trained to be worship leaders, and were on staff.
Now, some of you know a lot about IHOPKC, some of you don't know much at all, but you may have heard that this week Mike Bickle, the longtime leader of IHOP, the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, was removed from his post because of allegations of sexual misconduct spanning several decades.
There are multiple women who have come forward and mentioned not only sexual misconduct, but the ways that Mike Bickle has used his power and authority to be coercive in these situations.
I wanted just to provide some context for IHOP.
I know that some of you know what IHOP is and some of you may not.
Let me just provide a little bit of background.
I want to thank my colleague Matt Taylor, who's a friend of the show who provided me with some of this info, but this comes from a long A long history of IHOP being in the ether and being a kind of major player in Midwestern charismatic Christianity.
Mike Bickle arrived in Kansas City in 1982, and there he began to associate with some folks who were part of the Latter Rain Movement.
And if you don't know about the Latter Rain Movement, I'm not going to spend a long time on that today.
But Latter Rain folks were part of a charismatic movement that believed that Jesus was returning soon.
That the types of five-fold ministries that you read about in Ephesians 4, where there's a list of roles that people play in the church—apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers, and pastors—the latter reign, folks, really followed this idea.
You might be familiar with this from the New Apostolic Reformation or other Pentecostal or charismatic settings that exist in the United States and beyond.
But they believe, the latter reign folks, like people in the New Apostolic Reformation today, they believe that the work of apostles and prophets had kind of morphed, and God was starting anew with new apostles, new prophets, to lead the last days of the world, in essence.
So, Bickle becomes associated with these folks.
And becomes a leader in a community there.
And he eventually decides that he wants to merge their church with the Vineyard Movement.
And the Vineyard Association of Churches started right near me in Anaheim, California.
I mean, I'm talking Vineyard Anaheim was 10 or 15 minutes from my house.
I had many friends who went there, and that was started by John Wimber.
Matt and I talked all about this in the New Apostolic Reformation series we did, Charismatic Revival Theory.
If you want a lengthy background to the charismatic movement in the United States, to the vineyard movement, to many more tentacles of all of this independent charismatic world, check out that series.
So Bickle wanted to kind of join in with Wimber.
It all kind of went bad after a minute.
Here's what Matt wrote this week.
But then some of the prophecies they gave Wimber did not come to pass and he grew disenchanted with their shtick.
Bickle and the church, by then titled Metro Christian Fellowship, left the Vineyard Association in 1996.
In 1999, Bickle founded IHOPKC.
And IHOP is kind of famous.
This is how many of you might know it, because it's a place where people pray 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
And I'm talking every day, 365 days a year.
There are people praying at 3 a.m.
and 6 a.m.
It could be Christmas.
It could be New Year's.
It does not matter.
These folks are praying, and this is kind of what IHOP is known for.
Over the last 25 years, IHOP has become a major hub of independent Christianity, especially in the Midwest.
They have various ministries, they have various training programs, they have a school of music, they have all kinds of ways that they welcome especially young and enthusiastic Christians who want to be part of something special.
Who want not the status quo Christianity that maybe they grew up with, but something that's bigger than themselves, something that's transcendent, something that's exciting, and IHOP is that.
You'll hear about that in my interview with these two folks from IHOP and the way they talk about their involvement in it and what drew them to be part of IHOP, okay?
Now, A couple things before we get to the interview.
This is not the first time that there have been misconduct allegations in the leadership of IHOPKC.
One of the people alongside Bickle, Bob Jones, not that Bob Jones, a different Bob Jones, admitted to sexual misconduct with two women.
And then Paul Kane, who was another figure who was part of the leadership for a long time, admitted to quote, long term homosexual activity, which is viewed as sinful in these contexts.
Now, one of the things, though, that you're going to hear in the interviews with these two folks is that there had always been concerns about IHOP leadership in various ways.
These two guys and their Misconduct or other things happening behind the scenes.
There was also the death of a woman named Deaton, which really haunts the IHOP community and happened about a decade ago.
And so there's always been a sense of concern among people at IHOP about misconduct, fraud, lies, etc.
But what you're going to hear in this set of interviews is that Mike Bickle was the one that everyone said, you know, there might be issues at this place.
Everything may not be as it seems.
There may be people who are not as genuine as we would hope.
But Mike is the real deal.
Mike's the guy that he stands for what he says and he does what he stands for.
And so that's why, among many other reasons, these allegations are so dismantling for anyone involved in the community.
I know that for many of us on the outside, this can seem like old hat.
Hey, here we go.
Another powerful evangelical leader accused of sexual assault.
Who's surprised anymore?
And I hear that.
And I had some of that same reaction.
I also think that these interviews really recenter us on the victims and the people who have been affected by this.
And they really remind us why people get involved in these kind of communities in the first place.
It's because they really want to be part of something that's big and transcendent and meaningful.
They're young people who believe and who care.
And I think the two folks who share their stories, one of them sharing about her own sexual abuse at IHOP, another talking about exploitation and other kinds of misconduct at IHOP, both of them really kind of give us a deeply human element and bring us back to the fact that this is about people who are hurt.
It's not about making fun or piling on, even though that's easy to do.
They remind us that these communities hurt when these things happen.
And so I encourage you to listen.
I learned a lot and was moved quite deeply by what they shared.
And anyway, thanks for, thanks for being here.
Here's my interview with Joe and Gratia.
All right, welcome.
As I said, I am joined now by two survivors of IHOPKC, people who were there for various reasons, various means of training, of preparation for ministry, of a life that would be ostensibly spent in service of God, and unfortunately found something else, a set of experiences and a leadership structure and other things that were Just not what they expected.
So I'm going to let them introduce themselves and let them kind of lead our conversation today.
So I have two folks with us and the first one is?
I'm Jo.
I was a part of IHOP for roughly six years.
I was a student for a long time.
I'm also a member of the community.
I was involved in many ways.
My name is Gratia.
I was at IHOP from 2013 until 2018.
I came as an intern.
I did the International House of Prayer University and then I eventually joined different worship teams and became a member of staff where I worked in the media department for a few years.
So let me just begin by asking why you chose IHOP.
I think sometimes there's folks who have never been part of these kinds of colleges, institutions, churches, that just don't understand why any of us would choose to go there.
I went to a Christian college.
I devoted my life to ministry when I was 18.
So I get asked all the time, like, how would you ever do that?
Joe, I'll start with you.
How did you end up at IHOP and what did you hope would happen by going there?
Well, I also went to a Christian college.
I also had done ministry for many years.
Children's ministry, church ministry, lots of things.
It was kind of part of the rhythm of life in that to go to conferences regularly.
So, I went to a one-thing conference with a group of friends my second or third year in college.
And so then when I graduated, I was sort of in this in-between phase.
Am I going to go to grad school?
Am I going to take a year off?
What am I going to do?
And I had been to the One Thing Conference.
I was really impressed.
And I knew they had a school and that they offered classes.
And I was just kind of looking for a gap year before grad school.
And they were offering a music school and music classes.
And I didn't really get to do a lot of that in college.
And I was just impressed with the place overall when I came to the One Thing Conference.
So I thought, I'm going to Move down here and take some classes and check it out.
So you were looking for a gap year and you ended up staying how many years and what did you do?
What were the roles you served in or you trained under?
Yeah, it was going to be a gap year, and it turned into enrolling in the music school immediately, completing the four-year music school program that they had at the time.
I came in 08.
I graduated in 2012, and I actually began working full-time after that, but I was wanting to be involved part-time.
I discovered pretty quickly that wasn't possible.
So in trying to be part-time and also work is kind of how I ended up phasing out.
But I did sing on a worship team briefly.
I also just volunteered and was around wherever I could.
I would sing at Hope City, which is another prayer room that they operate and run.
So I sort of floated around, if you will, for two years after and eventually kind of made my way out.
So it was a place that you planned to stay a year, you ended up staying many more than that, and it really drew you in to its ethos and its community.
We'll come back to that.
Gratia, how about you?
Well, I listened to their music and their sermons for years before coming.
I grew up around the IHOP culture.
I had many friends and different groups in the church I grew up with that would go down every year for conferences.
Eventually I went down for a conference and I got really sucked into the message that there was this elite group of Christians that prayed night and day and it was really alluring to think that I could do something that important, that I could summon the second coming of Christ.
And coming from a background where I didn't feel like I had much importance, much significance, I didn't really felt like people saw me at all.
It was really appealing to be a part of something bigger than myself, and so I came down for an internship called Fire in the Night, where you stay up the entire night and do the midnight to 6 a.m.
shift in the prayer room, and then do service hours in the day, you go to classes, etc.
And I had planned to go home after the internship, but I got so pulled in by, you know, the anacalling and elevated sense of self-importance, I guess, really.
Like, they really tell you, like, you are doing something that very few people on this earth are called to do.
And I just got sucked into that.
And so I stayed.
I did the university and Then I went on staff, and like many other people, you plan to come for an internship, you plan to come for a gap year, you plan to come for just a conference, and you end up there for years because they really do a good job of giving you that verbal affirmation that makes you feel like you are a part of something bigger than yourself.
Both of you have described an experience where you thought, hey, I'm going to go here.
I'm young.
I'm looking for something temporary, an internship, a gap year.
And I ended up staying four, five, six, seven years because it drew me in.
I think once again, there's folks who may not have ever been part of a situation like this at a church, at an institution, at a college, wherever.
And they don't understand.
From the outside looking in, they're like, why would you ever want to be part of something like that?
So would you all help us understand, like, when you get there, you're age 22, you're age 18.
Grace, you talked about this a little bit, but what does it look like on the ground that makes you want to do that?
Because from the outside looking in, people are like, so you're telling me these folks pray 24 hours a day?
You're telling me your internship is staying up 12 to 6 to pray?
How can that be fun?
Why would that be enthralling?
So like, Joe, you were going to do a gap year.
You ended up staying so long.
What is it that like just got you to a place where you're like, I'm going to dedicate my life to this prayer room, this ministry?
Yeah, I can answer that.
For me, it was, you're immersed right away.
And they have something that's called CORE.
So when you join the university, and I would learn later if you took any internship, they have a series of classes that they teach you.
And I remember calling family.
So you're in class like any other Bible school and then you go to the prayer room and it's music and worship and then you go to your job or do whatever else you have to do.
I remember calling a family member and saying, because I was saying it was sort of part of the rhythm of life of like being in youth group as you go to these conferences or whatever.
You go to the conference and you get a spiritual high, right?
I remember saying it's like having that spiritual high all day every day.
And that is what it was like, maybe my first three months.
It's just very good preaching, very emotional preaching.
They have a lot of messages in those first three months or during that core period.
Like Gratia mentioned, the Anna Calling.
Like, this is a calling.
This character in the Bible named Anna who prayed night and day, right?
And so you're attracted on the front end because you show up with that question, are they really praying 24 hours a day, seven days a week?
And then you show up and they are.
And it's fascinating, at least it was for me as a 22-year-old.
I still remember walking in the prayer room for the first time and just the scope of the place, the manpower that's required to keep it going, the dedication, you feel that in the room.
You're like, these people have been here for years.
And like, even without going to their classes or whatever, just being in the prayer room, you're like, I'm a part of that.
Like, no one has left that stage in 23 years.
It's, it's remarkable.
So that's very alluring.
And then you're going to, for me, I took classes for the first three months, you're going to classes every morning.
And, you know, think of, I don't know, the Easter Sunday message or your favorite message at a conference that that made you cry.
And you remember that.
And maybe you got a message like that once a year when you were growing up.
It was every day for months.
I'm crying in class.
I'm crying in the prayer room.
I'm having all of these experiences.
And I forgot about grad school real quick.
That's a good way to put it.
As I wasn't thinking about grad school after two or three months, I was thinking, I want to be around these people.
And I want to be in this place.
Because yeah, there was just, there's so much to say.
But as a total outsider, and as someone who wasn't raised in charismatic circles, it was a deep end of the pool dump.
In two ways.
So, but it was that, yeah, best way to say is like, why would you want that?
Who wants to pray 24 hours a day?
It's like, okay, remember the conference where maybe you got to see someone quasi-famous like Michael W. Smith or Chris Tomlin?
It was like that all the time.
And there's like someone like Gratia, like had seen some of these people at conferences every year and you show up and then there they are sitting next to you in the prayer room.
So there's, you kind of have that star struck too.
And when I arrived, a lot of the musicians had just released albums.
So like I said, I wanted to go to this music school.
I already had a degree in psychology, but I was like, I'm still, I'm wanting to do music.
Let me just see what these people are doing.
And you show up and it's like, all of these people are releasing albums.
And in 2008, it was more difficult to release an album, you know, so very known for the music and, and yeah, it's just lots of starstruckness, I guess, going on and during those initial months.
Grisha, how about you?
Was that some of your experience, or what would you add to that?
I was particularly starstruck.
I kind of always just saw them as people, and I definitely look up to them, and I admired them a lot, and it meant a lot getting validation from these people that I had seen from afar for so many years, so I don't want to downplay that.
But for me, it was more...
You're always on the cusp of something.
They're always about to have the next Great Awakening.
It's gonna come in a couple of months.
This is the fast that's gonna bring the revival.
It's always, you're right on the edge of something.
And if you leave, you're gonna miss out.
So there was definitely some FOMO there.
And then the other part of that too, is it's like, they had prophecy rooms open every day.
They had healing chairs.
You could get healed from diseases.
There's always something like, really fantastic going on.
There's always a new conference.
They always need more help with it.
And it's like, It's such a fast-paced community that has such a high level of self-importance and such a pedestal that it's really hard to, like, leave because, well, then you're going to miss the awakening.
Well, then you're going to miss the revival.
And at a certain point, all of that kind of starts to die down for you.
And you're like, okay, I've heard that before.
Okay, this is the sixth great fast we've done this year and nothing's happened.
And at that point, it becomes, well, I've been here for three years now.
I don't have any money.
I live in their housing, which I have to leave if I don't work for them.
And I can't afford to live somewhere else because I'm making pennies here.
So I just kind of have to stay till I make my big break, till a ministry wants me, till a lot of us in the media department, we're waiting for like our big break in like film or photography or something.
And we keep on thinking, We're gonna get that.
We're gonna get out of here, and then all this will be worth it.
Because if you turn away now, it's not worth anything.
Why did I skip college?
Why did I skip grad school?
Why did I not build a career?
What's it worth then?
And so I still have friends that have been there for 10, 15, 20 years now, and they kind of have been out of it for like 10 years emotionally.
They're not mentally there, but they're saying, I can't walk away from this.
My life means nothing if I turn away from all of this right now, if I don't have it turn into something, if I don't see it through to that awakening.
And so they really get stuck there.
And then there's a practical side of it of, where are you going to go?
You didn't make life plans because you're told Jesus isn't going to come back any day.
You didn't build savings.
You don't have your 401k.
You just, you have to start all over from nothing without your community, without your housing, without a plan, and without your sense of identity, because it really consumes you.
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So you just described something that I think is digging us deeper into the layers of what it means to be part of this community.
So both of you described arriving there and planning on an internship or a gap year, and then it turned into four, five, six, seven years.
And yet, mechanically, in terms of just making a human adult life, The institution encompasses you.
You don't have money outside in order to sustain yourself.
It's not like if you walk out of the door, you get to go rent an apartment, buy a car, pay your insurance, and buy groceries.
You don't have another sort of career waiting for you.
You're waiting for a big break in a particular industry, a Christian music industry, a media industry.
And so, in one sense, you walk in, you're completely overwhelmed by the place and its importance.
On the other hand, the longer you stay, the more you're dependent on the place personally.
Does that sound fair?
I mean, Joe, does that sound kind of how you felt as you contemplated your time there and what it would mean if you actually said, hey, I think I'm going to leave and I'm not going to be here anymore?
My situation's a little unique because what most people do is they'll do a three-month internship, join staff, and then kind of was gracious track.
I did four years of school.
My exit was a little different, but listening to her and just remembering, you're hearing the constant messaging.
You're so engrossed in this culture of Anna Calling and so many different things, and Jesus is going to come back in five years, and you very quickly lose that, what you might have at 25, which is, what's my life plan?
What's my life planning?
I guess for me, at the time, my plan was to work part-time and be in this ministry part-time.
And that still made sense for me as someone who had come out of a Christian college, had been doing ministry her whole life since a teen.
It was just like, this is a ministry I'm going to be at.
So I wasn't in a position of, I'm totally dependent on the community because I did have a part-time job and I did work and had friends outside, but that was very rare.
And it was, I could sort of see how like I have, it was frowned upon.
I'll put it that way.
It was frowned upon that I Was trying to have this be my church involvement situation versus this is my entire life.
Well, both of you obviously left, and I know that that process was excruciating, and I know that that process was in some ways, in varying ways, related to the things that we're learning about this week.
Allegations regarding Mike Bickle, of course, but I think also perhaps an environment that leaders, former leaders at IHOP, have hinted at that there are Other allegations that there are other things happening behind the scenes.
So, without speculating about any of that, I'd rather just say to both of you, what were your experiences?
What were the experiences you had there of abuse, of toxicity, of any other harm that was done to you?
And I'll start with you, Gratia.
Simply put, what's your story when it comes to harm and IHOPKC?
Just a warning, listeners, that there is an account of sexual abuse coming in the next segment.
Just want to give you warning so you can prepare yourself or perhaps skip ahead.
Well, there are a lot of different examples of this.
I would say the one that tends to have the most shock value is that I experienced sexual assault from another staff member when I was an intern.
It was pretty grossly mishandled by leadership in my opinion.
And I walked a really long road of trying to heal after that, trying to understand why these people that I trusted and I cared about would not take me seriously, would not believe me, would discourage police involvement, and would essentially, in my opinion, try to cover up what happened.
I would say that that is not by any means the extent of the harm that I went through there.
There was a lot of harm when I joined their Living Waters program, which is their Inner Healing Program led by Mike's sister Tracy.
It is a six-month intensive that is targeted for those with bad relationships with their parents or drug histories or a big draw is for people that, as they called it, were struggling with same-sex attraction.
It was very much a pray-the-gay-away community where you meet in small groups, there's big talks, there's prophecy, you have accountability, it's a lot of confessing your secret sins.
In that, I thought I was experiencing a lot of healing in the teaching, specifically from The sexual assault that happened at IHOP.
And after I finished the program, the leader asked me if I would join their leadership team for it.
And of course I said, yes, you know, I experienced healing through it.
So why wouldn't I join that?
And that is actually when I first started to see the cracks in the wall of IHOP.
Because it was, I think, the very first day of the new group of people coming in.
We're having our briefing meeting beforehand and I was concerned when they were doing, when they were going to do the altar call, if I wasn't going to have a prophetic word for someone.
Because people would come up and they would be on their knees and they'd be crying and our job was to go around and prophesy.
And I was concerned, well what if I don't have a prophetic word?
What if Jesus doesn't tell me anything?
And I brought that concern up and I got laughed at.
And she said, well, we don't actually want you to prophesy.
We just want you to say like one of these phrases.
And they had a whole list of trigger phrases, depending on the topic of like, we're talking about the father wound, and it's like, you didn't deserve that.
And he never loved you the way you're supposed to be loved.
And it isn't your fault.
And all these phrases that are going to strike tears that be Generally applicable to everyone.
It's kind of like the horoscope of prophecy.
Very vague in general.
And that's what they wanted us to say.
They didn't want us to actually prophesy.
And I was like, wow.
That's all fake.
If this is fake, what else is fake?
And then my healing that I thought I experienced, I realized was just this mass-produced word that was being given to everyone else laying there.
And I thought, when I was on my knees crying, that Jesus saw me and had this word for me.
Specifically me.
And it turns out, it was just manipulation.
And at that point, I was like, well, you know what?
I don't know what else is fake here.
And my eyes were starting to get open to that.
And so when I was in the media department, I started to have a lot of grievances towards IHOP, towards how I was treated in that department, towards thinking of my experience in Living Waters, towards feeling like IHOPU was an inadequate university, was a waste of money, was I'm very dishonest about what you're going to experience for your education and what you're going to get for that money.
And it kind of all just came together.
And I had a lot of coworkers feeling like we were underpaid, to we were working way more hours than we were supposed to, to we were doing the job of two people at once.
There was supposed to be a cam up, there was supposed to be a director working together.
There's two different jobs next to each other, two different control panels you're running.
And my entire time in the department, I was having to do both jobs every shift.
So I'm not only working double the shifts, I'm doing literally two people's jobs at once and being criticized left and right for not doing a good enough job.
And so I go to the leadership of this department and I tell them about what's going on, that a lot of people are upset about these things.
Can we work something out?
And they have me write up a document compiling people's complaints.
And they seemed concerned.
They seemed like they wanted to listen.
I present them with a document, which they had promised would be anonymous, and they were furious.
And they went to every person and said, did you say this?
Did you say that?
Which one of these is your complaint?
And of course, people panicked and they trusted me.
They trusted me that it was safe with me for them to complain.
And so they backpedaled quickly and said, nope, we didn't say any of it.
We didn't say anything.
I mean, I would have too.
I understand why they did that.
So leadership came back to me and they said, clearly you made this up.
Clearly you are lying.
None of this happened.
You are trying to spin a web of lies.
You are trying to start something toxic in this department.
And long story short in that, they ended up firing me.
They let me go.
This community that I had given my life to, I had lived in poverty over.
I literally lived on a porch for a while.
I paid to live on a porch so I could be close to the prayer room.
And now they just were throwing me out over not feeling like I was being treated fairly.
There's so much there to your story and just so many different ways that the place hurt and betrayed you.
I'm wondering if, you know, if we go back to what happened with the assault and the way the institution handled it, you know, in many of the cases, a pastor or a prominent Christian leader or someone within a community like this have something like this happen and have someone, you know, basically come forward and say what happened.
The concern is more for No, Foley, you got a nail on the head there.
They told me directly, like, if you go to the police on this, we're going to lose funding.
We're going to get bad press.
We've already had bad press.
consideration rather than what about you, the victim?
What about you and your well-being?
I'm just wondering, is that how you felt?
No, Fully, you got a nail on the head there.
They told me directly, like, if you go to the police on this, we're going to lose funding.
We're going to get bad press.
We've already had bad press.
This is on the heels of when Bethany Deaton died.
So there was, during my internship, a Rolling Stones article that came out about IHOP, and they lost so much funding over that.
They lost so much support.
And so they're telling me, do you want to do that to us?
First off, no one's going to believe you.
The police aren't going to take you seriously.
Why would you expose yourself to positive press?
And also, What's it going to do?
You're going to risk the prayer movement?
You're going to risk everything we're fighting for?
So why would I, why would I report them and expose myself, lose my community?
It was just, it was an all lose situation.
There was nothing for me to gain by reporting it.
So I thought then, and I really felt a lot of weight and pressure to protect the prayer movement and protect these people for being an 18, 19 year old girl that just wanted to feel like she was a part of a community.
Joe, turning to you, you were a little older when you arrived at IHOP.
You had, as you described, a somewhat distinctive situation compared to some of your classmates and fellow IHOP folks.
What was your experience in terms of toxicity or abuse or anything else?
I've here recently been unpacking just how isolating my experience was.
So many stories like Gracious that I've heard have shown me like every department and kind of avenue was a little bit different.
And since I was a student and I was never on staff, I had a student experience.
And so I boil all of mine down to deception, exploitation, and spiritual abuse.
What drew me in was this music school that was described as world-class, and boy, their advertising was good.
They had video reels, and they're the worship leaders, right?
And it's like, move here, we're going to teach you to do this.
And then by the end of the first year, I was in a trailer surrounded by about 300 kids realizing I'm the third year they've ever offered this program.
And realizing now, what am I going to do?
I've moved here, right?
And I've made so many friends, and this community is so wonderful.
It's like, well, now I don't want to leave.
Well, no one did that on purpose.
They were starting it out.
It was a miscommunication.
And they're still teaching me things.
So I'm going to stay.
I'm going to keep paying.
Years go by, and that was kind of the exploitation part of it, too, because it was like, I'm paying maybe $4,000 some dollars just for that first year.
That did include housing.
And just looking back now, going, I was a little... There was some false advertising in that process, but then being sucked into the community and just always giving the benefit of the doubt.
These people are so wonderful.
This ministry is so amazing.
They're just getting it off the ground.
What I thought was signing up for was a world-class music school turned into, no, we're building this thing, but still pay us for it.
And, you know, four years go by.
You don't get the education.
A lot of your friends are on staff.
You're seeing the unhealth of the community.
But I was 24, 25 and didn't know what a healthy community looked like, honestly.
So the exploitation piece is there, too, because I'm paying For four years of school, of a school that's not accredited, that hasn't even really been built yet, that was advertised beautifully but you show up and it's in a trailer and then looking back on it going, you know, so much of it was attractive and sucked us in and kept us in because of the spiritually abusive aspect of it.
You want to be in a community.
You want to be with people who are like-minded, and people who love Jesus, and people who are passionate about their faith.
And, oh my gosh, they're fasting all the time?
Like, I've never met a person who fasted in my life.
Like, well, I've been taught my whole life Jesus is coming back.
Why wouldn't we prepare for that?
Like, this is evangelical theology, you know?
I did go to an actual credited Christian college, so it's like, It didn't really, the scales don't fall off until, like Grace was saying, one day you wake up and you realize you're renting a porch, and you're working in a trailer, and you don't have an education, and you're not ever gonna make a living wage here.
And it's very, very hard.
And then you realize you stayed and you loved it.
You stayed for the parts that you loved.
But so much spiritual abuse was baked in with the wanting to be a part of something bigger than yourself.
Just enough evangelical theology that you already believe and people who are loving and so it's fair.
Why would you leave a church that you love?
Wondering, as the process of leaving and waking up, the scales falling off happens, what's going through your head?
Both of you have described both being overwhelmed by the wonder of the place and having the dread of leaving because you felt as if your options were severely limited.
So Gratia, you described being fired after abuse, after supposed healing, after elevation to leadership, after being completely betrayed by people that didn't actually want accountability, but wanted to pinpoint those that would actually Be honest about some of the issues that they were having at the institution and the school and in the programs and so on.
What went through your head as you realized that your time at IHOP was over and you were facing the uphill battle of starting all over again?
Well, I think it's difficult because you forget how to relate to people when you're there.
We refer to it as the IHOP bubble.
You go to work there.
You go to school there.
You aren't allowed to be on government services or food stamps.
So you have to literally use their IHOP only food shelf in order to get groceries.
Your entire life is so consumed by this place.
You use their language.
You're talking about things that the rest of the world doesn't talk about of like praying things like Song of Solomon's of kiss me with the kisses of your mouth.
Oh God, nobody says that in the real world.
And you have all this language and you don't know how to relate to people outside of it.
In media.
You're not like watching movies or playing video games, really.
Unless you're a bad eye hopper.
And so you don't know how to talk to people.
You don't know how to talk about current events or sports or anything like that.
And so you leave.
You don't know how to relate to people around you.
You don't have a plan for the future since, you know, Jesus was going to come back.
And you realize that your entire identity was based upon, like I said before, being this super Christian.
And you really had to start at ground zero.
And It's almost like you have to crumble the entire foundation of who you were before in order to rebuild who you are after.
Because the two cannot coexist.
Because everything you form in your life after was wrong before.
They didn't say you couldn't have hobbies, but you really couldn't even have hobbies because there was such a push to how much more can you give?
How much more can you love?
How much longer could you be in the prayer room?
Yeah, you're only required to spend 24 hours in the prayer room a week, but that's doing the bare minimum.
If you want to do the bare minimum, why are you here?
Because we're radical Christians.
We're doing as much as we can do.
You would get criticized and looked at funny if you only were doing your bare minimum.
And so after so long of being pushed to like, how much more can you do?
You suddenly find yourself with free time and a desire to maybe cook or knit or drink alcohol, which you weren't allowed to do.
And so you have to make peace with these things that felt wrong for so many years not being wrong.
I remember this great excitement I had after I left that I was going to watch the Harry Potter movies for the first time because it was so evil.
And I watched them and I was disappointed.
I was like, that's it?
That is the witchcraft that was supposedly so evil in this?
What a disappointment!
The knitting and the cooking, what a, those details.
I remember when I, just really quick, when I left my institution, somebody offered me a cigarette and I thought, yes, let's smoke a cigarette, like all those bad kids.
And I totally put the wrong end of the cigarette in my mouth and tried to smoke it.
And anyway, I just, your knitting and cooking example just brought all of that home for me.
Jolynn, how about you?
What was it like when you left?
What were some of the feelings, some of the internal, external kind of dynamics for you?
My exit was so slow because I wasn't fired.
So the only thing I really held them to was, you know, I heard about it at a conference and I went to a breakout session and it was Mike talking about the school.
And most of our kids work part-time jobs.
So two years later, when I showed up and they're saying, no, you can't work a part-time job, I just sort of held them to that.
Like I moved here.
I'm 22.
I'm not 18.
I have to have a job.
So I had a foot out in the real world the whole time, which I think really helped.
Yeah, just trying to understand, like...
What Gratia was saying about, like, she realized, oh, maybe that wasn't a big healing moment.
I was like, these people, so many of them are genuine and wonderful, but there's also a lot of just not keeping your word, right?
Like, it's one thing, you know, just a 22-year-old moving across the country and not having what I was told was going to be here.
And, like, I had signed a year lease at that point, so I was a little bit Stuck.
And so year after year, more things like that happen.
It's a world-class music school.
It's not.
We're 24 hours.
Actually, we need you here for 80.
When, you know, two years in or one year in, we had The Awakening.
So we had this kind of revival look.
Look, like, we've been praying for this.
Here it is.
And so that, you know, kind of keeps you there longer.
And I remember the One of the many scale moments for me was Mike used to say at the One Thing conferences, the Lord always pays this bill.
We do this offering and the Lord always pays this bill.
And two, three years in, I'm friends with staff and they're talking about how much IHOP is struggling.
And I'm like, why?
And they're saying it's because one thing is such a financial burden.
I said, but Mike says that they always pay the bill every time they're done.
And they're like, oh no, one thing is just costing us so much money.
And I was like, What else is he lying about?
You know?
Like, that wasn't... Okay, if that's not true, like, what else is he lying about here?
And so... Yeah, coming...
Yeah, I just, it's hard to say when I finally let go.
I was, because I was around and singing on teams and still working and yeah, just, it was a very slow, slow fade and a slow, I thought that this could be my church where I volunteer part-time and then realizing that that couldn't be a thing and hearing story after story after story.
The years that I was still trying to make it work, and realizing how many people are burnt out and exhausted, and just going, you know, this place, something's not right here, and I can't put my finger on it, and I just need to take a break, and kind of like a year turned into six years, that break turned into 10 years.
And so, but it's been, the fog is still lifting, and the dust is still getting blown away.
Yeah, it sounds like for both of you, for obvious reasons, You know, even after you leave, it takes so long to heal and it's really a process of healing and recovering.
I want to bring us into the present.
This week, things have really, just to put it bluntly, Mike has been removed, at least for now, from his post.
There have been former staff members who have publicly challenged the leadership of IHOP to take action.
There have been others who have come forward.
There have been public events and tongue lashings.
Both of you, at least for now, have been You know, in Kansas City, as this has been happening, what's it been like?
Have there been other survivors that you've gathered with?
Have there been people that you all have been able to gather in community?
What's happening on the ground in terms of like, what does it feel like that this is actually happening?
Because I know that the two of you are only two of many more who have experienced similar things from bad to worst.
And I'm sure that on the ground, there's a certain vibe, there's a certain sense of anticipation, of relief, of more to come.
So Gratia, what has it been like for you to be back there and to kind of be part of everything that's happening as it unfolds this week?
Yeah, it's been crazy, honestly.
I believe I told you a little bit when I talked to you the other night that when I left IHOP, I started a support group for other people that had negative experiences there.
And so there's about 200 people in that group, and stories have come into my inbox over the years.
So many stories.
I mean, hundreds of stories have come into my inbox about things IHOP has done, and none of those things ever involved Mike.
Even the people that have the harshest opinions of him, of IHOP, still spoke positively of him or at the very least neutrally of him.
So this whole thing coming out was just such a huge shock that I was like, I have to fly down.
I have to be down here.
So I came down from Minneapolis on Sunday morning for a few different reasons.
One of which was I wanted to support the other survivors, the others that were still in Kansas City that We wouldn't all have to be alone in our own houses finding this out.
I wanted to be with other people so we could rejoice, so we could cry, so we could be confused, so we could celebrate.
All of those emotions to not have to go through it alone in our own communities where we have to explain, you know, 50 minutes of backstory just for people to understand what's going on and still not get the gravity of it.
And that has been So healing.
There's been so many hugs with just tears.
I never thought this was going to happen.
I have spent the last six years of my life fighting for this to be exposed.
Not specifically with Mike, but as a whole.
And it's finally happening.
People are finally listening.
People are finally talking about it.
More stories are coming out.
And it has just been one of the most honestly incredible experiences of my life getting to actually be here for it.
Be here for the unfolding.
Going to the church building for these meetings.
I Believe I mentioned the other day to you that on Sunday morning when I got in town I buzzed right for the church building where they're having their morning meeting and I confronted some of the leaders about some of the things that they've been doing and that was very scary but very freeing.
It was a healing experience to finally get to tell them not only Did you do me wrong?
But I actually forgive you for that.
I let go of that.
Not because some man in a book from 2,000 years ago tells me to, but because I've come so far from then.
I've recovered so much since then.
I don't deserve to carry this anymore, so I'm done with that.
And I left that load right there with them.
And they did not like it at all, but I feel a thousand pounds lighter from that.
And so I'm just so glad it came down.
I'm so glad that I've been able to be here for this.
Things are continuing to unfold really fast before our eyes, and I think they're going to continue to unfold for quite some time.
I don't think that we've heard the end of the list of victims.
I don't think we've heard the end of people's complaints against IHOP.
How's it been for you, Jolynn?
Oh my gosh, all of it.
I'll say out the gate, I'm looking forward to what Gratia just described, because I have been trying to reach out to people and trying to reconnect, but it's always, is this person still in love with IHOP, or was this person really wounded and wronged like I was, you know?
And just thinking now, feeling so much safer to reach out to people and be like, okay, let's really be honest.
About what our time was like there.
And I didn't really have that opportunity until I joined Gracious Group and met other people and was like, oh my gosh, like, I'm looking forward to that.
Like, oh my God, how have you been for the last 10 years?
What have you been up to?
You know, I'm really looking forward to that.
And at the same time, mostly sorrow.
Mostly sorrow.
What I sort of left out of my exit was, you know, you're so isolated when you're there.
And as you're leaving, you're just going like, oh, I couldn't raise support, or I didn't get the position.
It just didn't work out for me.
But I had good times, and this place is just still so wonderful.
And Mike is just still so wonderful.
I wasn't raised in his preaching, but a lot of people were.
I loved his preaching, and I loved his classes.
I feel like almost everyone I've talked to who's left is like, Mike's legit.
You know, that's what people will always say.
Mike's legit.
And now it's, I at least, I'll speak for myself, has just been overwhelmed by sorrow because it's like, we don't know, but it feels like we don't even have that anymore.
And I'm surprised at the people who were reaching out to me going, I didn't realize how this would affect me because I always defended Mike.
That's what everyone's saying right now.
For all of the stuff, for all the disorganization, for all of the intentional or unintentional harm, everybody was like, Mike's legit.
And now people are just... The rug's been pulled out from all of us and no one knows up from down.
And it's very hard.
And as much pain and suffering as I went through there, you know, I...
I never saw this coming, and it's even still, you know, walking away going, it's unhealthy and things need to change.
It's even still going, I never would have wished this or expected this, and I'm heartbroken, and I'm sorrowful, and I'm relieved that things are coming out, and I can't wait to reconnect with people, and I'm also, you know, breaking down, and it's really, really confusing and dysregulating and all the things.
Joe, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that Mike was really the last good thing about the place, the last thing that people still believed in.
There were so many of us who We condemned aspects of IHOP, but we said they mean well.
Well, they're not trying to hurt people.
They just have bad communication.
And that was always the defense.
And that was the defense of a lot of people at IHOP, too, where they maybe even validate our experiences or say they're sorry we were hurt.
But Mike means well.
And now that that's gone, it is this vicious grieving process for people inside, for people outside, for people that were hurt there, for people that had positive experiences there.
Everyone is finally kind of united over the same thing in a weird way, where we've always been On conflicting sides, is IHOP good?
Is IHOP bad?
Well, at this point, all of us finally have something in common.
We're all really sad that these things have come out.
Well, I'm happy they came out.
I'm sad that these things existed in the first place.
The two of you have just expressed the whole, I think, range of emotions in these instances.
The sense of relief, the sense of community, the sense of bonding, the sense of sorrow, the good times that are taken from you, the last good feelings that might exist being pulled away.
Ripped away, really.
And I just think the complexity of your experiences and what is happening around IHOP and the people who survived it, you've really given voice to today.
And so I'm so thankful for that.
And I know many people listening will be really thankful for that.
Before we go, is there anything we should know?
Y'all are there.
A lot of us are following.
We're reading the bits of news we can get.
We're looking at the social media accounts that we trust and people that we think have a good view of things, but anything on the ground happening in terms of just new information, new events, new whatever, before we jump, is there anything you want to report to us, you know, as folks who are near the epicenter of all that's going on?
I understand that people really want to stay up to date with what's going on, and frankly, I would too if I wasn't here, and there's validity to that.
But at the same time, I struggle to say too much of what is going on and what I do know because there's so much speculation, there's so much that's still unfolding, and it's so easy to accidentally hurt people through that speculation that I'm just really cautious to proceed with that.
In time, things will come out.
In time, there'll be clarity of the why and the who and all of that, and for now, I'm just more concerned that accidentally rushing this process is going to hurt more people in that, that I'm trying to be really cautious with what I say.
And also, remember that these leaders that have mishandled this, as much as I want explanations, they don't owe me anything.
They owe the victims that are coming forward right now something, and even though I don't think they're giving them that, they don't really owe the public as much as they do them.
And so I hold a small, very small, skeptical hope in my heart that maybe they're being slow in this because they're trying to make things right with them first, rather than the public.
Because what good is it if they're just trying to save face and talk to the public if those victims are still hurting?
Granted, I do not think they are making things right, but I don't want to speculate that either.
I'm just hopeful that in the end, Things will be made right.
Victims will receive healing and reparations, and everyone can continue their lives, taking the good times, leaving the bad times, and healing for all.
Well, I'll say one boots-on-the-ground thing.
They had a service last night that I think is normally a weekly scheduled healing service of some kind, and they announced that Frances Chan was going to come and Chris Reid was going to come, and they were both going to speak or preach, or... And I watched... Frances Chan did not come, and Chris Reid...
gave a message that I've heard many times along the lines of stay the course, don't look back, God's not done with this place.
some doubling down and I wasn't there, but I heard people were walking out.
And I hope that they would.
And I'm fearful for, you know, 2000 people in South Kansas City that very likely are traumatized right now.
And a media circus that's just ready to pounce on the next mega pastor going down for salacious, sexual, whatever.
And IHOPers, both present and former, angry and want answers right now They want the list of victims right now.
They want to discredit this right now.
And I'm going, you know, maybe we could have a Me Too, where victims aren't required to be on billboards for the rest of their lives.
Maybe we can trust advocates this time.
We could trust therapists this time.
We could trust the leaders that were here when I was here, who are speaking out and saying they are victims.
These allegations are credible.
As angry as I have been for years at my experiences at IHOP, I don't need a list of names.
I don't need lots of details.
And I really would push for that and just say that it appears right now that they're doubling down on using tactics they've used in the past to not be transparent with their own community.
Which is how things went down after Bethany died, and it's not working this time.
And so, it'll be interesting to see what they say publicly as the days move forward, but I just want to say, as someone who was so hurt by the place, you know, please don't demand names, and please, let's really look at The ways the Church, the Capital C Church, has failed to both listen to and protect victims, because people need to feel safe to come forward, and it's likely we're going to have so many coming forward.
And I'm concerned, because the M.O.
is, we don't want to hurt the, you know, protect the ministry, don't protect the victims.
So yeah, just maybe, could we shift people into I don't have to know exactly who it was and when and exactly what was done.
I need to trust the professionals and trust an investigative process, whatever investigative process is chosen, versus I have to know details and I have to have proof and I have to make this my next true crime binge because people are really suffering in South Kansas City right now.
I say that as someone who left 10 years ago.
And if I can just add on to that too, a lot of the people in the IHOPKC community are hurting just as bad as the people that left the community.
I think right now is a time to build bridges between current IHOPers and former IHOPers.
As I said a few minutes ago, where we previously were not enemies, but kind of enemies in a lot of ways.
We disagreed about a lot of things.
Right now, we have something that could bring us together in our commonality and hopefully build a future that is Healthier.
I know that they're not going to stop the prayer room.
They're not going to stop the prayer movement.
IHOP is going to do everything it can to not shut down.
And I believe a lot of the leadership that's in place now is going to do everything they can to cover this up.
In the meeting Joe was talking about yesterday, they used the example of Lot's wife.
Don't look back or you'll turn to a pillar of salt.
It's what they said.
You can even listen to it.
They still have it as of right now up on their website.
What's before you is greater than what's behind.
Yes, they are definitely trying to push this under the rug again, but I think we could at least take this time and connect with the people in the community that are really just innocent bystanders that believed in a guy and they're wrong.
I mean, I was on that side of the fence at one point in time too, and I have a lot of empathy for them.
There's a lot of people that were really close to Mike for a lot of years that They didn't know anything that was going on.
I would be texting people updates and finding out that these people close to Mike were finding out from me.
I mean, I live in another state and I knew more than they did.
I knew what was going on Thursday morning at 6 a.m.
and most people in the IOP community didn't even know until Friday sometime in the afternoon.
It was just really sad to see that failure of communication and I am Don't know the people on the outside really know how bad the community is hurting too.
And what they do with that, I don't know what they're going to do with that.
But I think it's a good chance for us to bond together.
Both of you just gave such a great reminder that all of this should be attentive to and centered on victims and what they need and the community healing.
And that's what's important.
It's often what does not happen.
Often what happens is, as you both said, are true crime dramas and salacious details and tabloid headlines.
So I appreciate both of you and just those wonderful reminders about what's at stake here, and that's people and people's lives.
I want to thank both of you for the vulnerability, for the willingness to go back in time and share things that are difficult and painful, and to talk about something that is both immensely important to you and something that you spent years recovering from, which is not easy.
So thank you for being here.
Thanks for sharing your story.
And I know it means a lot to people listening all over the place.
Thanks so much for having us.
Thank you for taking the time to listen to our stories and for helping us get this out there.
