NOTE TO MIKE BICKLE: WE HAVE DOWNLOADED ALL RESOURCES BELOW AND OTHER RELEVANT MATERIALS FROM MIKEBICKLE.COM. PULLING THEM NOW WILL ONLY LOOK AS IF YOU ARE HIDING THE TRUTH. WE WILL SIMPLY UPLOAD WHAT YOU HAVE PULLED DOWN.

We’ve already provided a simplistic overview of the Shepherding/Discipleship Movement (SDM) in the 1970s. This time we would like to turn your attention to the Prophetic-Apostolic Movement (PAM) of the 1980s. 

Apostle Mike Bickle has done the body of Christ a massive favor by advertising the historical foundations of his iHOP movement in the 1980s. He has done this through the sessions and resources he’s put up on his MikeBickle.Org website. We decided to advertise these resources and sessions below. In the attached resources you will hear:

1. Their experiences with the ‘Dominus’ Jesus and the ‘Don’ Jesus,
2. How they helped pioneer the APM, with leaders such as John Wimber,
3. How the Apostles of the Vineyard Movement worked with the Prophets of the Kansas City Prophetic Movement to further establish their governance over the visible church,
4. Countless bizarre prophecies and experiences from Mike Bickle, Bob Jones and other false prophets and leaders.

Although Wimber and Wagner played a significant role in developing the Apostolic Movement through the Vineyard Movement (US) and New Wine Movement (UK) in the 1980s, our focus will be more on the Prophetic Movement in Kansas City, led by Bickle and Jones.

This article exists so people can hear for themselves, Bob Jones and Mike Bickle talk about iHOP’s creepy origins. Back in the early 1980s, it was known as the Kansas City Fellowship (KCF). It later became the Kansas City Prophets (KCP) prophetic movement which helped bring into fruition other movements, mainly Bickle’s iHOP movement.

We will also include an important work of a man who helped expose the dangers of this cult-like movement within the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR).

In this resource you can hear an interview with Bob Jones talking about where he gets the source of his revelations, healing and power and the Jesus both he and Bickle follow (their Jesus is called Dominus/Don). Compare what Jones and Bickle talked back in 1988 as to how everything came about, in contrast to Bickle’s later embellished stories of these events.

Tape 1 Visions and Revelations – 1988

Tape 2 Visions and Revelations – 1988

Tape 3 Visions and Revelations – 1988

Tape 4 Visions and Revelations – 1988

If you would rather read the transcript of the interview, read here:

Interview Transcript: Visions & Revelations – Bob Jones and Mike Bickle (1988)

Bill Hamon (now an Apostle) was part of the New Order of the Latter Rain (NOLR) and was helping pioneer and establish the Apostolic and Prophetic governance in the church through the Charismatic Renewal Movement (CRM) in the 1960s. Bill Hamon taught that the NOLR made the CRM and how this came into birthing what he called ‘Prophetic-Apostolic Movement’ (PAM). He notes that prior to the construction of the PAM,

“a progressive work had been going on for years in the lives of many people, with several years of revelation, preparation, and application. Many were “pregnant” with this movement for years before it was birthed into the Church. Several people played key roles in praying, proclaiming, and expecting this coming move, but one was instrumental in helping to bring about the birthing of the Prophetic-Apostolic Movement.”

Hamon is referring to Bob Jones and Mike Bickle at this point. Hamon then connects what Jones and Bickle had started to the roots of the NOLR:

“The Prophetic “Blast-Off.” The “launching pad” of preparation and the “space shuttle” of the Prophetic Movement had been in a state of preparation for years until God’s appointed time for launching. The countdown had begun several years before, and finally progressed to the moment of blast-off. The revelation principle is that someone at some insignificant place must be used to launch what God wants activated. God’s timely purpose for His prophets was officially birthed into the Church world on October 15, 1988, and was launched into what has become known as the Prophetic-Apostolic Movement.

Forty years. In 1947, 40 years before the initial “labor pains” in the Prophetic-Apostolic Movement, William Branham, Paul Cain, and a few other men arose as prophets within the Church. But they were just the few, and they began to fade from public ministry after a while. Then, on February 14, 1948, the Latter Rain Movement was supernaturally birthed at a small gathering of about 70 ministers and Bible School students in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, Canada. The particular truth restored at that time was the teaching and practice of personal prophecy to individuals by prophets and the prophetic presbytery, and the revelation knowledge that there are apostles and prophets in the 20th-century Church. The movement started in a small, insignificant place, but within a few years it had spread across the world. In the 1950s it caused a great controversy among Pentecostal churches.

It was exactly 40 years from 1948 to 1988, between the Latter Rain Movement, which revealed that there are prophets and apostles in the Church, and the Prophetic-Apostolic Movement, which revealed and proclaimed that God wanted to bring forth a great company of prophets and apostles. […]

Other Prophetic Ministries. John Sandford and Bill Hamon were the first to write books that prepared the way and made ready a people for the Prophetic-Apostolic Movement. They became pioneers who propagated the ministry of prophets and apostles until they were accepted and established in the Church. Other men and women arose across the world to demonstrate the ministry of the prophet. Mike Bickle and Paul Cain became leaders of the Kansas City prophets. A few out of the hundreds of prophets grew to have international ministries, such as Emmanuele Cannistraci, Rick Joyner, Dick Mills, Kim Clement, and several female prophets, including Cindy Jacobs.”

Source: Bill Hamon, The Eternal Church, Destiny Image Publishers, Published: 1981 (Revised Edition: 2003).

It is important to note an important figure who exposed the controversies and dangers of KCF/KCP/iHOP’s Prophets at the end of the 1980s. A charismatic pastor by the name of Ernie Gruen released a report titled ‘Documentation of the Aberrant Practices and Teachings of Kansas City Fellowship‘ (more popularly known as Aberrant Practices), in May 1990. He recorded that what he observed were ‘aberrant practices’ under Bickle’s leadership. Thanks to his work as a faithful pastor who diligently scrutinized their teachings by comparing them to the Word of God, he needs to be remembered for his faithfulness and due diligence. Click the link below to download and read his work in PDF form.

PDF: Aberrant Practices by Ernie Gruen

The after-effects of this report were controversial. Sites such as The Grey Coats, Banner Ministries and Not Unlikelee have done a faithful job recording the aftermath of Gruen’s work and preserved Gruen’s integrity when he received backlash. To this day, Gruen’s work remains unchallenged and highlights the major problem with iHOP, Bickle and his prophetic leadership to this very day.

Beyond Grace stated

“In the years after this public challenge Mr. Jones would be exposed as a sexual deviate engaged in horrendous manipulation of female congregants and Mr. Cain as a profligate homosexual and alcoholic. In spite of these very public scandals, Mr. Bickle’s current ministry appears undaunted and unaffected by the well established facts of the above history.” [Source]

Even Wagner reported the significance of Ernie Gruen’s work claiming,

The Ernie Gruen Controversy

Meanwhile, another severe complication had entered the picture. In January 1990, Ernie Gruen, an influential Kansas City pastor who had been building a case against the Kansas City Prophets for sometime, finally went public with a recording of a sermon entitled “Do we keep on smiling and say nothing?” He proceeded to circulate to circulate thousands of copies of the audiotape through his worldwide mailing list.

Gruen followed this up in May with a 233-page criticism entitled “Documentation of Aberrant Practices and Teachings of Kansas City Fellowship.” This caused charismatic leaders across the country begin taking sides. In an effort to manage the controversy and facilitate whatever damage control might be possible, John Wimber agreed to absorb Mike Bickle and the Kansas City Fellowship into the Association of Vineyard Churches. Wimber then decided to deviate from his normal pattern of not responding to critics and to move into polemics.

This controversy, combined with a similar attack from Australia and the disappointment of the prophesied-but and realised-revival in England, was very draining on John. In May 1991 he used a meeting of the board of the Association of Vineyard Churches, held in Snoqualmie Falls, Washington, to begin a process of backing off on what had been perceived by some as unconditional support of the prophetic movement, represented by the Kansas City Prophets.

The phrase was used that Vineyard had to get “back on track“ as a movement. Bill Jackson reports that four years later at a pastors’ conference in Anaheim Hills, California, in 1995, “Wimber told the movement that he regretted leading the Vineyard into the prophetic era, saying that it did, indeed, get [them] off track. Behind closed doors, it became apparent that John had been deeply hurt by the lack of a significant revival in London and had become disillusioned.“

Source: C. Peter Wagner, Apostles and Prophets: The Foundation of the Church. pg. 134-135. 2000. 

Wagner likened the Gruen controversy to an ‘attack’ on the New Apostolic Reformation. Wagner then further acknowledges the fact that what Bickle and Jones had started was the Prophetic Movement. However, Wagner did not report on these false prophets repenting. Instead Wagner reported that Apostle John Wimber managed “the controversy and [facilitated] whatever damage control might be possible.”

So rather than repent of their false prophecies, Wimber and Bickle locked arms and united against men like Gruen and Christianity as a whole who were calling them out for their failed prophecies and false doctrines. Yet in the eyes of these so-called apostles and prophets, who were the enemy? The faithful Christians.

It is also important to note that in his book ‘Apostles and Prophets’, Wagner considered John Wimber a ‘true Apostle’ back in the day. He says this as he recognized that “one thing that attracted to the Prophets and their pastor, Mike Bickle, to John Wimber” was his Apostolic order.

We say all this so people can understand the pivotal role Bob Jones and Mike Bickle played in the 1980s in developing the New Apostolic Reformation of today.

Finally, we present Mike Bickle advertising the history of his movement. We encourage you to download the videos, trasncripts and notes so you can research the problems of iHOP for yourselves. If you want to lead people out of this international cult, it’s important you back up all your research and claims with what these dangerous leaders actually say. We sincerely hope and pray that this resource will be of benefit to you.

Bickle writes,

Encountering Jesus: Visions, Revelations, and Angelic Activity from IHOPKC’s Prophetic History

Email all comments and questions to c3churchwatch@hotmail.com.

Categories: iHOP

Tags: bob jones, C Peter Wagner, Ernie Gruen, iHOP, John Wimber, Mike Bickle