IHOPKC founder and former leader Mike Bickle has been accused of sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl who attended South County Christian Fellowship in St. Louis, the church he was pastoring in 1980.
Bickle was 25 years old, married, and a father of two at the time. The allegations were made public yesterday (Feb. 7) after The Kansas City Star reported on the story of Bickle’s alleged survivor, Tammy Woods, who is now 57 years old.
“This is my story. It really happened. I’m not Jane Doe, I’m Tammy, and you did this,” Wood said as she directed her comments toward Bickle. “But I don’t want you to continue controlling the narrative of my life today, as Mimi, as mom.”
Woods explained that she is just now telling her story because of what she’s witnessed unfold since the end of October 2023, when Bickle was first accused of sexual and spiritual abuse, including by a woman identified as “Jane Doe.” At the time of Jane Doe’s alleged abuse, Mike was 42 and she was 19.
Jane Doe told the The Roys Report that she and Bickle engaged in sexual interactions that involved everything but intercourse and that he repeatedly told her that God told him that his wife was going to die and that he would marry her.
On Dec. 12, 2023, Bickle released his first statement since claims of sexual abuse were brought against him, admitting that two decades ago, he “sinned by engaging in inappropriate behavior—my moral failures were real.” But he said he wasn’t “admitting to the more intense sexual activities that some are suggesting.”
On Dec. 22, 2023, IHOPKC announced that it had cut ties with Bickle, citing that IHOPKC’s Executive Committee received new information confirming “a level of inappropriate behavior on the part of Mike Bickle that requires IHOPKC to immediately formally and permanently separate from him.”
A report, which was released at the end of January following an independent third-party investigation conducted by Rosalee McNamara, concluded that Bickle engaged in “inappropriate contact” three different times with another woman connected to IHOPKC between 2002 and 2003. Bickle told McNamara that there was “consensual sexual contact that involved her touching me but not me touching her.”
Woods told The Kansas City Star that she met Bickle when she was 14 after her parents started attending his church in St. Louis. Bickle reportedly asked if she could babysit his two sons, who were younger than two at the time.
The babysitting job at the Bickles’ was every Monday night so the Bickles could go out on dates. Woods said when the pastor would take her home, she noticed him taking a “mentoring” type interest in her regarding “spiritual things”—which included giving her Christian books to read.
