On Nov. 10, IHOPKC announced that “third parties that claim to represent alleged victims have communicated a lack of trust in the national law firm IHOPKC engaged to lead the inquiry.” Leaders consequently dropped Stinson LLP “and instead…retained a local KC law firm to conduct interviews with alleged victims.”
In a Nov. 15 update, leaders said that on Nov. 9 they had “made multiple attempts” to contact GRACE regarding GRACE conducting an independent investigation but that GRACE had not responded. Leaders also said that they “learned that the founder of G.R.A.C.E. is now the private attorney of the main alleged victim whose claim is from 20+ years ago,” a situation that presents a conflict of interest.
The Christian Post reports that GRACE says it never received any communication from IHOPKC about the Bickle allegations. ChurchLeaders has reached out to GRACE for comment and will update this article in the event of a reply.
On Nov. 16, the ELT published a “Report on Initial Findings” that stated leaders had identified five of eight alleged survivors, three of whom “have publicly called the allegations lies.” Of the other two, one was unwilling “to communicate with IHOPKC’s attorney,” while the other’s allegations occurred before IHOPKC was founded.
RELATED: IHOPKC Releases ‘Report on Initial Findings’ Regarding Mike Bickle’s Alleged Abuse
Furthermore, the ELT said it had discovered that the people who brought the allegations “did not have permission to include at least four of the women in their list of alleged victims.”
In its Nov. 22 update, the ELT stressed that the “Report on Initial Findings” is “an initial assessment,” adding the underlined, bolded words, “It is NOT an exoneration of Mr. Bickle.” Leaders defended their choice of a law firm for the investigation, saying, “Without due process, complaints are taken at face-value, evidence is not required, proceedings are unfair, and there is no accountability.”
The law firms the ELT has chosen, said leaders, “are very experienced in representing victims of sexual abuse, including victims of clergy abuse and victims in the Boy Scouts of America.”
“If IHOPKC is presented with first-hand evidence of sexual abuse by Mr. Bickle, it will immediately take the necessary subsequent steps,” the ELT said, again emphasizing its words.
In the concluding paragraphs of its latest update, the ELT conceded that a lack of information about the news on Bickle “may have created an information vacuum.” Leaders promised “more frequent updates” in the future.
“The events of the past four weeks undeniably constitute a crisis. Every facet of the organization has been impacted and strained in the last few weeks,” said leaders. “We are grateful to the incredible men and women who have been working around the clock and we look forward to announcing several new protocols and organizational changes in the near future.”
 of International House of Prayer of Kansas City (IHOPKC) in Kansas City, Missouri, has defended its decision to use a law firm to conduct the independent investigation into its founder, Mike Bickle.){kind=link}