(CP) Kris Vallotton, senior associate leader of Bethel Church in California, has apologised to victims of abuse and sexual misconduct within the Church after offering support in a sermon Sunday to International House of Prayer Kansas City founder Mike Bickle, who faces sexual misconduct allegations from multiple women.
“On February 18, 2024, I shared a message regarding the necessity for accountability, transparency, and true repentance from leaders, especially within the Church. The intention of my message was to share the critical need and call for greater levels of health, purity, and accountability for leaders,” Vallotton, who also co-founded Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, said in a statement shared on Facebook.
“However, I realize now that I didn’t express compassion for or address the necessity for the protection of all victims of abuse and sexual misconduct that I see out and in of the Church. This is and has at all times been my priority in these situations.”
Vallotton states that his “omission” has “hurt many within the Body who’re processing hurt regarding the heartbreaking situations unfolding at IHOPKC and elsewhere.”Â
“This is my mistake, and I’m deeply sorry,” he concluded. “I express regret for the people whom I even have hurt with this omission.”
In the sermon, Vallotton lamented what he called a “culture of justice” within the Church that makes it difficult for religious leaders fighting sin to “tell someone they’re struggling.”
“I would like to indicate that fallen leaders aren’t entertainment to observe. They’re a tragedy to intercede for. … It’s not a movie where you get to know all the main points because you will have to know all the main points. It’s necessary that we all know all the main points. Why?” he asked.
“We watch a fallen leader like we’re watching a movie. We cry out for all the main points, tell us all the main points and let’s put it on the web so the world can see how our fallen leaders are handled. And I’d wish to indicate that that is a culture of justice, and we’d like justice, but we’d like reconciliation,” Vallotton argued prior to mentioning Bickle.
“Watching what’s happening with IHOP — and by the way in which, I would like to say publicly, I like Mike Bickle — I do not know what the final result will likely be, however it won’t change the proven fact that I like him. That’s right, he’s my brother. It won’t change the proven fact that he’s my brother,” he insisted.
The pastor said that about two days before his sermon, someone reached out to him on social media about why he hadn’t said anything publicly in regards to the situation at IHOPKC.
“They said, ‘Oh you have not said anything about, , [the] IHOP situation, so that you obviously are a part of the issue.'”
“I replied, I wrote, ‘You’re an idiot.’ But then I noticed that I used to be an idiot for calling him an idiot, and I had just answered a idiot in response to his foolishness and have become a idiot right with him. So, I immediately took it down,” Vallotton said.
“This just isn’t entertainment. This is tragedy. I’m not going to play out on social media to allow you to all know, ‘Well, , I feel that Mike Bickle should do that, and that is the way in which it should occur. I just want everybody know I’m against it, too.'”
“Listen, should you cannot have a look at my life and know where I stand, I suppose I haven’t got much of a life. My goal for Mike Bickle and IHOP and everybody else who’s struggling, including the Bethel struggles we have now, is that we might reconcile and that we might see righteousness grow out of it, not one other documentary.”
On Monday, Cindy Jacobs, a well-liked self-professed prophet and creator, said she was “deeply grieved” as allegations of spiritual and sexual misconduct proceed to mount against Bickle.
“As a frontrunner within the prayer movement, I’m deeply grieved on the sexual misconduct of Mike Bickle,” Jacobs wrote in a statement on XÂ Monday night. “There are many pure and wonderful individuals who love 24/7 prayer, and I’m praying that their intercession won’t be lessened. I’m also praying for IHOP and the victims.”
Her comments got here lower than two weeks after Lou Engle, a co-founder of IHOPKC who currently leads Lou Engle Ministries and founded TheCall prayer movement, expressed grief over the allegations against Bickle. Engle said he’s praying that Bickle will come forward with “a full confession of all that’s hidden.”
For months, IHOPKC and a bunch of former leaders often known as the advocate group have butted heads over an investigation into allegations of abuse against Bickle since they were made public last October.
A Change.org petition launched last November, which has greater than 4,400 signatures, calls on IHOPKC “to conduct a real third-party investigation into the sexual abuse allegations and the systemic environment at IHOPKC with the intention to protect the interests of the alleged victims and current congregants.”
The two sides never agreed on a third-party investigator, and IHOPKC hired independent investigator and attorney Rosalee McNamara to review the allegations against Bickle. She presented the findings in a seven-page document on Jan. 31.
Since the publication of McNamara’s report, one other woman, Tammy Woods, alleged that Bickle groomed and sexually abused her within the Eighties when she was 14.
Another woman, identified as “TH,” alleged in an interview with The Roys Report this month that Bickle began grooming and sexually abusing her when she was 15 and he was a 20-year-old church intern within the mid-Seventies.
In his sermon on Sunday, Vallotton said this “culture of justice” and “shame” getting used to carry Christian leaders accountable is not going to make fallen leaders willingly come forward.
He cited Scripture like Mark 16Â and suggested that when the Apostle Peter had fallen within the Bible by denying Christ, he was ostracized by the opposite apostles of Jesus.
“In Mark chapter 16 verses 5 through I feel 7, Mary runs into the tomb and she or he sees the angel. You know the story. And the angel says to her, ‘Go tell the disciples and Peter that Jesus rose from the dead.’ ‘Go tell the disciples and Peter that Jesus rose from the dead.’ Why did the angel say ‘and Peter?’ Because the opposite disciples had already excommunicated him because he had a fall,” Vallotton argued.
“I’m declaring that should you treat individuals who’ve had a fall or are coping with temptation like any individual who cannot are available in the camp anymore after which wonder why so many individuals fall, I’m declaring that unless you will have a culture where people can inform you about their struggles, you are not going to have a culture of accountability,” he said, noting that leaders within the business world can have falls and remain leaders.
“I understand religious leaders must be under stricter judgment. According to James, a teacher must be under stricter judgment. I’m not saying we should always be all equal. I’m declaring that if I’m a CEO of an organization, I haven’t got the challenge of getting to go tell someone because I’m going to lose my job,” he said.
“If I’m a non secular leader and I even have a struggle and I tell someone I’m likely going to be sat down or perhaps even excommunicated,” he said.
Vallotton used the narratives of Peter and Judas from the Bible to suggest that if fallen leaders are treated in a different way, the Church can have higher outcomes relating to accountability and repentance.
“How many understand that Peter and Judas each failed?” he asked his congregation. “Peter became the pinnacle of the church and Judas hung himself.”
