(CP) Worldwide Home of Prayer Kansas Metropolis is reportedly winding down its Missouri-based motion and missions group because of the monetary impression of a intercourse abuse scandal involving founder Mike Bickle, with whom the group completely severed ties final December.
Citing a leaked recording from executives at an inner IHOP College workers assembly and an e-mail from IHOP College President Matt Candler, executives revealed that the ministry was dropping about $500,000 a month as a result of donors have been too linked to Bickle, in line with the Roys Report. .
“The IHOPKC as a company is beginning to backslide…” Candler mentioned in the course of the assembly. “We are going to keep our prayer corridor and ultimately begin a brand new group.”
Continuous Prayer Ministry didn’t instantly reply to requests to verify the report from The Christian Submit on Tuesday, however Isaac Bennett, who leads IHOPKC's Forerunner Church, famous that lawsuits by victims of the Bickle intercourse abuse scandal have introduced the ministry: “important liabilities.”
Boz Tchividjian, Billy Graham's grandson, an lawyer and longtime intercourse abuse advocate who represents one in every of Bickle's alleged victims, mentioned that if IHOPKC leaders imagine the ministry can simply shut all the way down to keep away from accountability, they’re residing in a “realm of fantasy.”
“The concept that they will merely shut it down and begin a brand new group and all earlier potential legal responsibility might be erased is the realm of fantasy,” he informed reporters. “If you wish to take all of the property without delay, put it within the title [a] a brand new group to restrict legal responsibility, which in my view may very well be known as a fraudulent switch. The courtroom wouldn’t permit that.”
In February, after a 3rd girl claimed she was groomed and sexually abused by Bickle within the Eighties when she was 14, Tchividjian mentioned the division needs to be completely closed.
“It's time. It's time to completely shut the doorways of IHOPKC,” Tchividjian mentioned in a press release. statement through account X of his law firm BozLaw PA.
“It's time to take all the cash that's left and put it right into a fund for these whose lives have been destroyed by a spot that claims to like Jesus a lot that they pray to him 24/7. Prayer it didn't work. It was simply created.” IHOPKC is extra pious in defending the indefensible.
A 3rd girl, Tammy Woods, now a 57-year-old mom and grandmother, used her maiden title and informed The Kansas Metropolis Star that Bickle abused her in St. Louis, the place he led a church earlier than transferring to Kansas Metropolis and beginning IHOPKC in 1999.
Woods mentioned Bickle abused her in his automobile, her dwelling, church and his workplace. She mentioned the abuse, which started when she started babysitting his two sons, included sexual contact however not intercourse. She revealed that the founding father of IHOPKC additionally informed her a number of occasions that his spouse Diane would die younger and instructed that she may very well be the mom of his sons.
Woods' revelations observe an impartial report launched on January 31 and ready by lawyer Rosalee McNamara, wherein Bickle admitted that he additionally engaged in “consensual sexual contact” with a lady related to the 24/7 prayer ministry. to a beforehand admitted relationship with main Jane Doe, who claimed to have been his saved spouse for a number of years.
Whereas Bickle by no means touched the second Jane Doe in McNamara's report, Woods mentioned he did contact her and that he would really feel responsible each time he abused her.
“I witnessed him sincerely crying and repenting, like begging the Lord for forgiveness, begging me for forgiveness,” she mentioned. “At 14, I noticed a person within the anguish of failure and all the time saying, 'I can't, we will't do that once more. And please forgive me.' I believed it was all actual… but it surely didn't cease, we have been doing good for some time after which it got here crashing down.”
The day after the Star story was revealed, the IHOPKC condemned Bickle's actions as “sick” and apologized for the way in which they dealt with the investigation into abuse allegations towards him, which Tchividjian and a gaggle of former IHOPKC leaders have lengthy criticized. often known as the advocacy group.
Bennett mentioned within the leaked recording that whereas the IHOPKC sought varied methods to cope with the intercourse abuse scandal, it discovered no method to keep away from the legal responsibility the group was uncovered to because of allegations of the division's mishandling of abuse allegations. .
“In instances the place there’s abuse by clergy, the place there are allegations which might be unsolved – when there’s now an curiosity in an investigation that goes again to our complete 24-year historical past to search out instances the place there was mishandling of abuse or the place there was a cover-up – up , or no matter else individuals imagine occurred — this stuff will inevitably create a gaggle of people who wish to get restitution,” Bennett mentioned. “They usually're not going to knock on Mike's door as a result of, properly, he in all probability received't reply. However they don't knock on Mike's door as a result of he has no cash. However IHOPKC has the background.”
To stay at present working ranges, IHOPKC must lay off 90% of its paid staff, Bennett mentioned. So as an alternative of 500 staff, IHOPKC must run the group with simply 50, Bennett mentioned.
“We're at an deadlock,” Bennett mentioned. “There isn’t any different means ahead. So the Lord graciously invitations us into a brand new period.”
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