The International House of Prayer in Kansas City wasn’t presented with “any actual evidence” in the sexual abuse allegations against founder Mike Bickle, it announced in a report last week. In a four-page “Report On Initial Findings” published on the ministry’s website, the executive leadership team said the evidence presented remains lacking.
“Within days, the ELT commenced consultation of outside legal experts on how to conduct a proper examination of the facts and how to best handle the situation,” the report said. “Significantly, at all times, the allegations were treated as if they were credible in order to care for any past or present victim while objective due diligence was to be performed. However, upon review by outside legal counsel, it was determined that the collection and presentation of the allegations by the complaint group lacked any semblance of reliability or due process.”
IHOPKC was able to identify five of the eight women whom the complaint group alleges are victims of Bickle. Three of the alleged victims called the allegations “lies.’” One of the alleged victims refused to communicate with attorneys for the ministry. Just one of the cases, which predates Bickle’s founding of IHOPKC, was found to have some credibility.
“The document prepared by the complaint group to accompany the presentation of allegations on October 24 does not contain any actual evidence: no statements from the victims, whether sworn or unsworn, and no emails, texts or other exhibits between Mr. Bickle and the alleged victim to substantiate the allegations (only blank squares acting as exhibit placeholders),” the report said.
“IHOPKC remains open to inviting a third party (or even multiple third parties) to examine these findings/ t is our sincerest desire that alleged anonymous Jane Does would come forward as soon, either directly to IHOPKC’s attorney, via the complaint group or through their own legal representative, so that IHOPKC can then take the appropriate next steps.”
Despite the challenges the ministry has faced in recent weeks, IHOPKC leaders said they have accepted there are “things in our organization that need to be improved.”
“We are planning to review everything from operations to administrative protocols and are engaging experts to recommend best practices,” the ministry’s leaders said. “Some of these areas were already being addressed before this crisis hit, some will take time to remedy and some we need to address immediately/ The first change is that, very soon, we will be announcing a clear and simple process and protocol for people who want to report any form of sexual abuse.”
–Alan Goforth | Metro Voice
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