(CP) International House of Prayer Kansas City has denied a report that the ministry is within the means of shutting down but says it’s in a restructuring phase that may shutter some facets of its operations this 12 months, including its school of ministry.
“In a word, IHOPKC is NOT closing,” the ministry told The Christian Post in a press release Monday.
“To state the apparent, the last six months have been a test to the strengths and fortitude of our missions-based organization. Over the course of those last months, our leadership team has tirelessly endeavored to review and analyze the whole IHOPKC organizational structure and the numerous missions we’ve undertaken over our 24 years of existence,” the statement continued. “That review and reflection has led to internal decisions to start a transition and reorganization process, which can allow us to deal with our major mission yet cope with the realities of finance.”
The Roys Report, citing a leaked recording from leaders at an internal IHOP University staff meeting in addition to an email from IHOP University President Matt Candler, reported this week that IHOPKC was within the means of shuttering for good on account of the financial impact of founder Mike Bickle’s sexual abuse scandal. IHOPKC permanently cut ties with Bickle last December.
In the statement to CP, IHOPKC insisted that the ministry intends to proceed despite phasing out IHOPU, its ministry school.
“We are NOT closing the 24/7 prayer room; it stays a major stay of our existence. We do intend to review the functionality of assorted operational locations and can likely consolidate several. We have also decided to conclude the operation of IHOPU, our ministry school, after this 12 months’s graduation,” the ministry said.
Officials with the ministry also appeared to disclaim claims that they’re searching for to flee liability connected to the allegations of sexual abuse against Bickle.
“We have supported and can proceed to support any and all victims of abuse, sexual or otherwise, whether here inside IHOPKC, or anywhere in the neighborhood. To be clear, there have been no lawsuits filed against IHOPKC; the allegations of prior misconduct pertained to a person, not our organization,” the ministry said.
“As we seek to create a ‘bettered’ version of IHOPKC, we may close some windows of our mission while opening others, but once more, IHOPKC is NOT closing,” officials added.
Leaders of IHOPKC, including IHOP University President Matt Candler, revealed that the ministry was losing some $500,000 per thirty days on account of donors being too connected to Bickle, The Roys Report noted.
“IHOPKC as a company is starting to wind down,” Candler said within the leaked recording of the meeting. “We’re going to be maintaining our prayer room and eventually starting a recent organization.”
Isaac Bennett, who leads IHOPKC’s Forerunner Church, also noted that lawsuits from the victims in Bickle’s sexual abuse scandal presented the ministry with “significant liabilities.”
“We’re the people to sue at the top of the day,” he said. “That produces significant liabilities.”
Boz Tchividjian, Billy Graham’s grandson, an attorney and longtime advocate of sexual abuse survivors who’s representing considered one of Bickle’s alleged victims, said if IHOPKC leaders consider the ministry can just shutter then re-emerge as a rebranded organization to flee liability, they live in “fantasyland.”
“The notion that they will just shut it down and begin a recent organization and all of that prior potential liability is wiped away is fantasyland,” he told the news outlet. “To suddenly take all of the property, put it in name of [a] recent organization to limit liability that will what I think be called a fraudulent transfer. A court wouldn’t allow that.”
Bennett reportedly explained within the leaked recording that while IHOPKC has been taking a look at other ways to navigate the Bickle scandal, they’ve found no way across the liability the organization has been exposed to because of this of the allegations of the ministry’s mishandling of the abuse allegations.
“In cases where there’s clergy abuse, where there’s allegations which might be outstanding — when there’s now interest in having an investigation that goes back through all of our 24-year history to search out cases where there’s been mishandling of abuse, or where there’s been cover-up, or whatever else it’s people consider has been gone on — those things will produce inevitably a contingent of people who’re wanting to get restitution,” Bennett said. “And they are not going to go knock on Mike’s door because, well, he probably won’t answer. But they are not going to knock on Mike’s door because he doesn’t have any money. But IHOPKC has facilities.”
