Metro Voice News Celebrating Faith, Family & Community
Billy Graham’s grandson, attorney Boz Tchividjian, has called for the International House of Prayer Kansas City to be permanently closed. A third woman recently alleged she was groomed and sexually abused by the 24/7 prayer ministry’s founder Mike Bickle in the 1980s, when she was just 14.
“It’s time. It’s time to permanently close the doors at IHOPKC,” Tchividjian wrote in a message posted on his law firm’s Twitter account. “It’s time to take whatever monies are left & put them into a fund for those whose lives have been wrecked by a place that claims to love Jesus so much it prays to him 24/7. The praying hasn’t worked. It’s just made IHOPKC more pious in defending the indefensible. It’s time.”
Using her maiden name, the third woman, Tammy Woods, who is now a 57-year-old mother and grandmother, said Bickle abused her in St. Louis, where he pastored a church before moving to Kansas City and starting IHOPKC in 1999.
READ: Investigation of Bickle finds abuse, misconduct
Report released
As reported by Metro Voice, Woods’ revelation comes in the wake of an independent report released to the public on January 31 and prepared by attorney Rosalee McNamara in which Bickle confessed to engaging in “consensual sexual contact” with a woman connected to the 24/7 prayer ministry in addition to a previously confessed relationship with a primary Jane Doe who alleged she was his kept woman for several years.
“Words cannot express the anger, shock, heartbreak and sadness we have experienced as we have learned of allegations and testimonies of sexual abuse and manipulation concerning Mike Bickle, ” the ministry wrote in a statement on X. “We believe that Mike Bickle sexually abused and manipulated Jane Doe and Tammy Woods, who was a minor at the time. His predatory and abusive actions are sick and violate the word of God, the marriage covenant and holiness; we condemn them in their entirety.”
Tchividjian was a sexual abuse attorney and founder and executive director of GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment). In 2019 he resigned from the position as well as his position teaching law at Liberty University School of Law, to focus on his law practice.
–Alan Goforth | Metro Voice
