Survivors Of Pastor Mike Bickle’s Abuse Seek Truth And Justice
The highlight of a two-day Restore Conference in Chandler, Arizona, organized by The Roys Report, was Saturday morning’s all-female panel that was devoted to sexual abuse at the International House of Prayer Kansas City (IHOPKC).
After panelists ended the talk and began to pray, some in the audience of 550 began to weep and wail, like a wake mourning the betrayal of thousands and the death of innocence.
“Lord, we know many were abandoned,” prayed longtime IHOPKC leader Elizabeth Herder of Kansas City, Mo. “There were no friends (or) leaders who defended them. … Whisper to every person what you whispered to Deborah on her kitchen floor: It wasn’t your fault.”
The “Deborah” being referred to was Deborah Perkins, a victim of IHOPKC founder Mike Bickle.
She and Tammy Woods, another victim of Bickle’s, were also on the panel, which was moderated by journalist and TRR founder Julie Roys.
“Squeeze our hands and make us brave, Lord,” prayed Woods, now a grandmother ministering with her family in Michigan. “Where there has been despair, shame, hopelessness, and fear, may a new day dawn of hope and healing.”
Roys offered prayers, too. “As a church, we have not lamented enough,” she said. “We have thought more of the powerful than the people that they have brutalized.”
The panel discussion and impromptu prayer session came only days after a third-party investigative report that detailed Bickle’s decades of grooming made headlines worldwide. It found that Bickle sexually abused at least 17 women, some of them minors, over multiple decades.
Perkins, featured in the report as Bickle’s former assistant starting at age 19, told Restore attendees she thought at the time that the coerced encounters with Bickle were “his only darkest secret.”
She added, referring to a friend’s revelation of Bickle still abusing women in 2023: “But when I found there was a current victim, I knew I had to tell my story.”
That report, funded by donations to Tikkun Global and conducted by the investigative firm Firefly, has come under fire from IHOPKC survivors and advocates, even though some 200 of them were interviewed for it over the past five months.
As a member of the Advocate Group — 16 former IHOPKC staff seeking reforms — Herder agreed with those who praised the report’s conclusions about Bickle but criticized errors and a lack of detail.
“We are actively following up and finding out what can be done about issuing a revised version,” Herder told TRR. “It needs some factual corrections. And for victims that brought their tender, precious, sacred stories and didn’t find themselves in there, I feel they deserve to know why.”
On Feb. 8, 2025, former leaders of International House of Prayer Kansas City (IHOPKC) speak on a panel hosted by Julie Roys (right) at Restore Conference in Chandler, Arizona. (Photo by Andrew Rush / The Roys Report)
Profile of a predator
The panel recounted how Bickle disarmed victims and their families, leading to sexual abuse.
In 1981, then 25-year-old Bickle asked Woods, a 14-year-old, to lunch to discuss babysitting his kids. Weeks later, taking her home at night, he stopped the car on a back road and confessed his affection for the minor.
“I trusted him because he was my pastor,” said Woods. “He was prophetic. He was the spiritual mentor in my life. So, I had great confusion, I had great guilt and shame.”
Woods’ story was first published a year ago in the Kansas City Star.
Woods said she came forward after reading about Perkins, then known as Jane Doe No. 1, as reported by TRR in November 2023. She had sat down to read it next to a fireplace in her St. Louis home, not expecting a bombshell.
In that story, Perkins shared how Bickle had special code words between them, and how Bickle said his wife, Diane, was going to die and be remarried to Perkins. Certain details: That Bickle would build her a house with a plain exterior but a lavish interior; the whole ‘fasted lifestyle’ routine that Bickle said he kept to; matched his pattern with Woods to the letter, though her encounters with Bickle occurred 27 years prior.
Upon completing the story, Woods said “everything went in slow motion” for her. She recalled thinking, “Oh my God, I have been treacherously duped for 43 years.”
During the panel, Perkins summed up a longer story — released this week on a TRR podcast — of how, on a ministry trip in Europe, Bickle wined and dined her in Paris, and booked what the then-20-year-old woman thought was a private hotel room.
“He full-on made out with me, after giving me multiple drinks,” she said. “And I never drank.”
Woods praised Perkins for speaking out. “It’s so important that we tell our stories — because you don’t know who’s sitting by a fireplace reading it, and an internal detonator is going to go off.”
‘Hundreds of thousands’ followed Bickle’s ministry
Herder, who was instrumental in supporting the two women and coalescing the Advocate Group, clarified why the IHOPKC survivors and advocates came to Restore to share.
“It’s not to be salacious,” Herder told TRR. “It’s not to spread sordid details of horrible things across the world. It is for the purpose of redemption of those who are still trapped. For Deborah, her heart was to set others free and make sure that no other women were harmed.”
One attendee from Riverside, California, said it took multiple victims coming forward for her to believe the accounts.
“It’s been very hard for me to move from Mike being a hero for 35 years to seeing that he’s evil,” Tammie Goodwin told TRR. “I’ve never found a church after many years in California, because I didn’t think any of them measured up to Mike’s teaching.”
She added: “Hundreds of thousands of people believed in this man. I drove five and a half hours from California, because I needed to hear it from them face-to-face.”
Earlier this week, multiple leaders issued apologies for their part in backing Bickle.
Theologian Sam Storms released a 1,060-word statement, to “express my deeply sincere and profound apologies to those who suffered under Bickle’s leadership or abuse because of my former endorsement of him,” he wrote.
Similarly, worship leader Matt Gilman, whose music went global during his decade at IHOPKC, spoke out in a lengthy Facebook post. “To the victims ... I’m sorry you experienced such evil from ones who should have been your greatest champions and shepherds,” he wrote in part.
In an interview with TRR, Herder addressed detractors, including some in the IHOPKC survivor community, who criticized her, as a 20-year senior IHOPKC team member, for being onstage.
“I get that my presence or any of the other leaders here may cause some people to feel pain or say, ‘That is painful for me,’” said Herder. “I think that should be allowed. I also think no one can parachute in to understand how we were all groomed and how little we knew.”
IHOPKC culture has not changed, say advocates
Allen Hood, a former senior IHOPKC leader who attended Restore to support the IHOPKC survivors, addressed the question of complicity.
“No one who was involved at any level of leadership at IHOP should be given a pass,” Hood told TRR. ‘That’s why this investigation was there. If myself or Elizabeth or Jono or any one of the advocates were named in that report as being abusive, the light needs to shine.”
On the panel, Perkins praised how Hood responded to learning of her abuse. “The gift of his tears as this righteous leader in the body of Christ, that was such a part of my healing journey.”
Survivors and advocates spoke about “going to war” against an abusive system. It’s a struggle that continues, despite IHOPKC closing its church and losing much of its funding and staff.
Regarding the recently released investigative report, Hood confirmed that survivors were “devastated” by its incompleteness.
“The first half about Mike was strong,” he said. “The second half with all the other victims sure was weak, and so were the application points for current IHOPKC leadership.”
Tikkun, which sponsored the report, also empaneled a pastoral recommendation team as part of its IHOPKC investigation, which has yet to issue a companion report.
Hood said he has contacted that group.
He said, “I’m appealing to them to say the hard things concerning IHOPKC and the culture of the organization. These leaders claiming ‘our culture has changed’ are the same ones saying Mike should be restored. They need specific, detailed application points.”
On Sunday morning in a post on X, Tikkun Global spokesman Ron Cantor revealed new details of the current IHOPKC board’s ongoing defense of Bickle.
According to the post, IHOPKC board member Kurt Fuller said in a July 24, 2024, meeting: “People ganged up on a guy and destroyed [Mike Bickle]. ... Mike Bickle should be restored. ... I think he is a massive asset to the kingdom.”
This article originally appeared at The Roys Report.
Josh Shepherd writes on faith, culture, and public policy for several media outlets. He and his family live in the Washington, D.C. area.