Transcript for:
Allegations and Abuse at IHOP

I really think that Mike used cult tactics. I think he is a cult leader. I'm not ready to understand the whole big dynamic of IHOP in general. Like, give me some years. I I don't even know how to parse it all. But I will say that with his victims, he was just a cult leader with with these women. I mean, he the way that he used prophetic words to lock them in, the way he um you know, won their whole family systems, but the spiritual part, I don't think people have understood how deep that is. [Music] Well, joining me today is someone who knew Mike Bickl at the very beginning of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. And she actually roommed with one of his victims, Deborah Perkins, and also Misty Edwards, who's a very well-known worship leader at the International House of Prayer. For most of the time that my guest was at IHOP KC, as it's often referred to, she believed that Mike Bickl was healing her from the sexual abuse that she had received as a child from her own father. But today, she believes that Mike Bickl was actually grooming her so that he could sexually abuse her friends. My guest today is Shelley Hunley, and she joins me now um from another state. Uh, I won't say which one, but it is so great to be with you, Shelley, and thanks so much for taking the time. Glad to be here, Julie. And for a lot of folks, this idea that um that Mike Bickle would groom someone to sexually abuse their friends. And I know we're going to walk that out and exactly what that looked like. But just kind of in a nutshell, what do you mean by that? That he groomed you so that he could sexually abuse your friends? I think for me what I mean by that is that when I look back I see as you mentioned I came from a sexual abuse background and interestingly with Mike he didn't as far as far as um the survivors that I've known of and have talked to and different things. It seems like he he selected the girls who came from these in in intact families and then kind of prepped their whole family. Prep the father to um you know in the case of Tenny Woods and as well as Deborah Perkins, he had these strong relationships with them and then everybody around his victims worshiped him and just had this deep connection with him. And so as I was putting pieces back in my own story, that is really what I believe has happened in my own life is that he became this super father to me. um as I came in, you know, as this young little uh 20-year-oldish around that around that age being around him, it this uh this father that took up so much space that it normalized things like him coming in of the house of us girls that live together or the many many many times that he was in a back room in a closed door with one of these girls that you've mentioned, you know, just so it I look back at it now and I go, I was so tight tightly connected to him so that I would not notice all that was going on around. So that's that's kind of what I mean by that. And you're not alone in saying things like that. So many people say now in retrospect the things that they saw Mike do, they're like duh, like what was I thinking? But because of the culture he created, because of the way that people were groomed to just think that he was the most pure thing that's, you know, ever walked the earth, they didn't see these things as red flags that they should have. And that's a very very unfortunately common uh phenomenon with these kind of abusive and and predatory leaders. So um I think you're going to shed a lot of light on that as we walk out your story, but do really appreciate you um being willing to talk about this. And I know part of your motivation and not just to to talk about these kind of characteristics and grooming behaviors, but also in hopes that some of those uh who maybe doubted any of the abuse victims that you could corroborate their stories, but also for those who are still blinded themselves. and and unfortunately that seems to be the case that he still has people in his grip um that they might, you know, have an epiphany and be able to walk out of really a grip of darkness that that's on them right now. Um let's start with your background. I made reference to it already. Um, but your your parents were missionaries in Colombia. And I, you know, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that someone who would go as a missionary to another country is actually a sexual abuser, but that's who your father was. Tell me a bit about that background growing up and kind of how that predisposed you uh as a young adult. Yeah, my parents were missionaries in Colombia and that was a beautiful place for me growing up. It was a little wild. It was the Pablo Escoar years. Um I was born in Medí and it was a high-risk place to be a missionary and I don't I don't have all the answers of what went on um with my dad. He has he's passed away now and I have told my story many times and even written a book and at that time didn't name that it was my dad that was the abuser in my life but everyone that knows me knows that and um and I'm comfortable saying that now at this point but whatever was going on in his own heart uh he ended up sexually abusing a large number of children boys and girls it was kind of anyone who was around my age group who he had access to in our home uh was sexually abused by him and And within our family system, it was physical abuse. Um, I was sexually abused horribly. Different ones of us had different experiences amongst the siblings, but it was a absolute um, you know, Jacqueline Hyde type of situations of what was going on behind the scenes and what he was doing. He was a very influential um, Methodist preacher. His his teaching was um, you know, it was it was good. is connected to Asbury College and Asbury Seminary, a solid, you know, place, a solid background. And um that secret held all the way through my life. I never knew other children were being victimized until right before I went to college. Um some things had broken out before then, but I wasn't aware yet that they had. Uh he was going to be promoted to president of a large mission organization, and that's when his victims, who are now adults, began to come forward really courageously. And it took a long time for all of that truth to trickle to me and my siblings. But then in the end when we did find out about it, you know, there was um a huge crisis of faith for all of us within our family system. I know for me, I went into depression and suicidal um uh struggles through my college years. And so that was kind of the the background for me. I the person I would have mistrusted the most in the whole world would have been a pastor. Um because of that dynamic with my dad where he was such a gifted preacher and then the sexual abuse was going on behind the scenes and physical abuse that was just so bad. And I, you know, I began my counseling process at that time and and and there was a part of me that wanted to be able to work through it. But it was a crisis time for me during my college years dealing with all that. And what you said is what I've experienced in my reporting that these men who sometimes are very gifted preachers are maybe not sexual abusers themselves. Sometimes they are, but they are ones that cover for other sexual abusers. They can be incredibly cruel. Like this complete jackal and hide and and the public has such a tough time coming to grips with it because they're they're good preachers. And we always thought, I know I grew up in a totally different situation in a really godly home with godly parents who lived and walked what they talked, you know, I I was very blessed that way. And so I just I just always assumed that the bad guys, you know, that would do something like this or outside of our tribe. Like they were, you know, people that needed to be saved, not the ones. And and maybe they we don't know that these men that live these double lives don't need to be saved. In fact, I would guess that they do. Um, because you know, a tree by its fruit. Um, but how how people can live that that compartmentalized of a life. And again, we're going to be talking about Mike Bickl. So, you know, speaking of which, but it is just absolutely um mind-numbing to to see these things happening. And as you said, you you went through a crisis of faith. you you ended up going to Asbury, which sounds like that was your denominational school where probably people expected you to go. Yet, when you're there, you're you're not pursuing God at all at this point. Um, in fact, what that that lasted for a couple of years till you really encountered God. Tell me a little bit about that journey. Yeah, so I I went there because in our family, you could go to any college you wanted, but that was the one that my parents would pay for. Um, so that that kind of narrows it down. Narrows it down. So, um, but going there was really it was intense because a lot of my dad people that my dad had victimized were connected to the institution or you know even in the area and it was it was um it was crazy to be to to be in that environment. It was really difficult. Made things harder. But yeah, I I you know I never um got into drugs and alcohol. I tried a few times and I'd always get caught at the last segment before I quit. I think there was a safety net for me, but I was the most vocal um anti-Jesus person uh around. I refused to go to chapel um which is required for Asbury. I got called into the dean's office for that. And um and he I just remember he asked me to sit down and and I said, "No, I didn't even want to. No, I'm not sitting down." And I like your spunk though. I have a lot of spunk, you know. Um and I said, "No, I'm not sitting down." and he said, "You have an attended chapel and you know that's a core part of our of our coursework here, etc. You have to do it." And um I just since I was standing in my active position, I said, "I am" and I and I said my dad's name um's daughter. Do you have any effing question why I would not go to chapel? I mean, I'm sorry, but that was my favorite word. I said, "Do you have a question about why I would not?" Because everyone everyone knew about my dad. and he just looked up at me and said, "No, I don't." And he just signed a piece of paper and handed it to me and that was that. I was fierce um against people who wanted to talk to me about Jesus. I think and it it kind of speaks to the Mike Bickle story as well because I in my own story that's what happens when a member of clergy, a trusted pastor abuses, they mingle all this spirituality and and the whole thing gets flushed through that often. not always, but the ability to rescue some image of God was was impossible for me at that time in my life. And I didn't want to hear anything. And I knew all the Bible verses. I'd grown up with all the things. And so I'd frequently cussed people out on my on my dorm hall that would try to talk to me about Jesus. And people knew I was troubled and depressed and didn't, you know, show up to things I supposed to show up to. So I had quite a few people um trying to talk to me about Jesus. And it I would leave them in tears. Um, not because I was this I was an atheist, but I was not like some really intellectual smart, you know, uh, putting thoughts together. I was very emotional about it. I basically felt like if you hadn't experienced the violation and all of the horrible things and I would just put it in the, you know, most crass terms to them and say, "Have you have you experienced this? Has this happened to you by a pastor? Has a pastor done this? Has a preacher done this to you?" then shut the ble, you know, and I would leave people crying and vacuuming away. And um you know, to to make it short, a group of students on my campus were really praying for revival and they they had a um kind of a ring leader that ended up being a professor I got for history, Dr. Robert Nef. Um, and they uh met in his at his house for Bible studies. And they were reading through William Booth from the Salvation Army, his journals. And he talked about finding the hardest heart that would never turn to God and zeroing in on that person and seeing the ripple effect of what God would do if you if you got the one that people couldn't believe you'd get. And just beautiful. They picked me. um you know and he just started screaming and um and pursuing me and I didn't know that of course that that had happened. I was on my own journey, hospitalized um for depression and for and being interrupted in the middle of a suicide attempt. And I had cried out to God in a certain kind of a way, pretty weak way really, but I had basically done one of those if you're real. Um you know, show yourself to me and and and the phrase that I said when I was in the hospital at that time was um you have to show me between just you and me that you're real, not through somebody that I have to believe. and you have to show me that you can do something about this pain. That was the thing I said. Um they asked if they could pray for me and I said yes because I thought it meant by and they put a chair in the room and began to pray over me just gathered around me and put their hands on me and prayed for me and um it would take too long to explain all it but I experienced the Lord like for pretty much for the first moment I experienced the first answer to my prayer that um God showed me he was really real just between me and him. It wasn't like a vision or something like that, but it was this very tangible presence of God. And then um the second part was this girl who uh named Molly who was praying right near my feet, just right on the floor in front of me. And she was just sobbing and sobbing and sobbing the whole prayer time. I was actually thinking, I think she needs help. Like I was kind of thinking, what's going on with this girl? And um but what was happening was she was feeling the love, God's love for me. And at a certain point, she was able to kind of climb up and get close to my ear. And she said, "It's just that. It's just that he loves you so much." And when she said that, it dawned on me because I had yelled at her, cussed her, mistreated her. She was on my hall. I thought, "That's not human." Like, there's no way that a person could feel that without coming in contact with a real God that feels it. And I felt like if a person can feel that for if God loves me, that that's neat. But like if a person can feel that love, then that means I could feel it. And if I could feel it, then that's the answer to my question. That that would be enough to deal with this pain. And honestly, that's really kind of the segue that sent me into why I went to IHOP um soon after, which wasn't IHOP yet, but why I was drawn to McBickle was the message of the love of God was my focus from that night. I mean, I it really it really took it deeply in my heart. I thought I have to get an understanding of how God feels about me. That's what's going to heal my heart. But that was um my journey. And then shortly after that, I met Alan Hood who was across the street at seminary and came in to chapel. They they asked me to share my testimony quite obviously in our sophomore class chapel. Um and I did and he was he was there listening that day. Wow. That's powerful. And for those of us who have experienced and I have experienced that kind of um just really tangible sense of God's presence and his love, it is life-changing. It was life-changing for me. And interestingly for me, it happened similarly when I was in a crisis of faith when I was in my early 20s and um and God showed up in in a way that has marked me for my entire life and so so grateful for that. Um, you mentioned that you you told your your testimony in chapel. Alan Hood, who later would become a key member, a key leader at the International House of Prayer, heard that and you became part of what was it like a a disciplehip group that that he that he led. Um, talk about that and kind of how that kind of brought you to International House of Prayer eventually. Yeah. So, he um I think it was an assignment for seminary. Um but I I he he was connected to that to that girl Molly who I just said had um prayed for me in such a beautiful way and just marked marked my my heart such a beautiful way. He was connected to her and some of the these other students. I think he had an assignment. I think it was an assignment part of his ministry training because he was just in seminary at the time um to lead a disciplehip group and then he led the disciplehip group and then kind of our our purpose was to then go and share our testimonies in Methodist churches throughout the country. Um and so we did some traveling together. So it was a it was a core group. Um I don't remember exactly how many but you know around 8 to 10 uh college students my same age. And I met Allan and and his amazing, beautiful wife Rachel who I adore. So I met the two of them and they had one child at the time and um Samuel and the journey began. I was so rough during that time. I did not like um well, how can I say I didn't trust any men. I didn't trust anybody to um disciplehip of Shelley Hunley was a was a very difficult task. I remember being on a ministry trip and like refusing to talk to him because he had um very gently called me out on some character growth that I needed that was real and true, accurate, and it just impressed me. And I remember um I yelled in his face and I and I said, "You are a manipulator and you're a controller and you're doing you're just like my dad." The literal worst thing I could have ever said to a person. and beautiful heart that he has. He stood there and he just looked at me in the eye and he said, "Shelly, everything that you just said is accurate to how men have treated you in your life and I stand in place of them and ask you to forgive um those that have treated you that way." Um I just he just stood as a representative which made me more angry cuz then I couldn't like continue to to be silent to him. I was just kind of like what am I supposed to do with that? But he said, "My wife and I love you and we're not going away." Um, and it was just beautiful. And he said, "I'll give you as much time as you need, but we're not going anywhere." And they just continued to just love me so faithfully through my whole life. But Allan had been to um Kansas City and had he didn't know Mike yet personally, but he had been in the Bible school in Kansas City. And at the end of our ministry trip, or I don't know if it was the end, it was kind of peppered throughout. We went to two or three places where uh Ellen felt like we could receive from the Lord. in a special way like something was happening there that was worth taking note of and receiving from and one of those places was Kansas City and so when we went through there um and we had listened to some Mike Ble teachings in the car on the way different places and so I knew him I knew about Mike to be the person that teaches on the love of God that was what drew me and when we went there that's kind of how it was and after just being there for a short time I just felt really strongly to come to Kansas City and so I I actually didn't finish my degree at Asbury and I moved to Kansas City after my sophomore year and um joined the little Bible school grace training center at that time and um it for the purpose of I want to sit under this uh this teaching of the love of God and Allan wasn't there he was still at seminary um but we stayed connected and we've been close friends and they've been he and his wife have just been beautiful mentors to me all this all these years but that's how I ended up kind of that thread of ending up in Kansas City as well. Yeah, I met Allan and his wife for the first time at the Restore Conference uh in February. And you know, again, I don't know him well, but what I saw and witnessed there was a very very tender heart towards the things of the Lord. And uh it was really a pleasure to meet him and also to know of the role that he's played in supporting women victims of Mike Bickl despite the fact that he was part of the system for a really long time. Um, but I've seen a man who seems humble and able to to admit that. And so that's that's really a wonderful thing. Um, so you went to, again, this is the precursor all to International House of Prayer. It wasn't founded till 1999. This is a few years before that. You're at the Bible school that that Mike Bickl is doing. Was that associated with Metro Vineyard um there in Kansas City? Okay. I think it Metro Vineyard had just changed to MetroChristian Fellowship, but yeah, it had different iterations in its name. I got there right after they left the vineyard and became like independent. Okay. So, Metroch Christian Fellowship was the new Okay. And I actually I remember because we were part of Vineyard back in Chicago at the time, but I remember hearing about Mike Belel. In fact, my husband tells me that he came and spoke at our church and I don't really I kind of remember it to me. He just was nothing great, you know, that's what I recall. It just didn't hit with me. But I was like, h whatever, you know. But apparently he he had come and I heard him around would have been right around the same time. Um but he starts the international house of prayer. But before this you spent a year in in Bolivia, right? I mean you were really interested in missions work. So you were at the Bible school for like a year then you went to Bolivia and describe your work there because it was it was pretty intense. I mean you were working with sex trafficking victims. Is that right? That's right. I I was in um Santa Cruz, Bolivia, and I actually went there to join a Bible smuggling team um to take Yeah. Yeah. This is back in the uh Brother Andrew days, and that was kind of the thing, wasn't it? And yeah, I mean, I think I think for me, I just Jesus turned me around so so deeply. I just wanted to do whatever was the most radical thing for God. But so I went there to join a Bible smuggling team that was going to head into the Middle East. And when I got there, the um the team leader said that he just heard from the Lord that that we had to wait. And I don't think you want to take Bibles when when Jesus says wait to the team leader. So we waited. But um what I ended up doing was he that that team leader was associated with a home for boys, for street kids or boys. And um so I just started working in that full-time in college. I was studying to do social work and like counseling with children. And that was kind of what I where I thought I was going to go um because of my own uh you know trauma. But anyway, I ended up working with this home for street for boys and finding out that there was no home for girls and finding out that most people had given up on the girls that they had not even tried to find them that they were all within prostitution rings. And you know being a young 20some who felt like Jesus had had done already the impossible why wouldn't he want to rescue uh these little girls? That's what I did. So I I connected um with that home and helped pioneer the home for girls. There wasn't there was I kind of the area that I helped with was actually going to the places of prostitution and finding them finding where they were and gaining trust with them and um you the the biggest memory that I have of that time was it takes quite a while to find little brother. I grew up in South America, so I speak, you know, fluent Spanish, dual citizenship with Columbia. And so, you know, language wise, I can get into the culture and all of that quite easily, but the little girls in Latin America, I don't think they last more than a day on the street. So, a lot of these little girls would be indigenous populations that maybe their parents send them or sometimes the parents um you sell them, you know, unknown, not knowing, maybe giving they're given money to for their daughter to have a new life or a better life, but um you never see them. And so, the biggest problem was finding them. And I remember uh hearing some tips that the taxi drivers knew where they were. And so, I just started building relationship with the taxi drivers. And then one night, I think it was 3:00 in the morning, I couldn't get anybody to go with me for my little church that I went to. They were all like, "You're crazy. We're not going with you." But I sat in the back of a taxi and he drove me to this far off location where they were just picking up these little girls, you know, just one at a time. And I think um it just the thing that hit me was how young they really were. And they were I was expecting 13, you know, 12 and I saw six, seven, five, six, seven. And these little girls would have makeup on, like lipstick and stuff, and no shoes. So, it was just kind of like this. I just remember that being such a visual, and one by one, they just came through and put them into the taxis, and that each taxi took each girl to the to the John to the guy that had asked for them. I just remember trying not to throw up and just feeling the the fury and then um just the the it's just it was the darkest thing I had seen at that time. And um and I uh was able to to break through into some groups of those girls and gain trust. I would just sit on the floor in the bathroom and and announce to the girls at some of the dance places that I knew that some of the older ones were, I would just sit on the floor and say, "Hey, um, you know, Sister Shelley or whatever, and if anybody wants to talk to me about their friend, maybe their friend needs some help." Just that kind of thing. So, I did that and I was there for a year until a home was opened up for the girls. Um, and I think it's continuing. I'm I've I've been in contact with the main guy, but I don't know where it all is at today. But I at the end of that year, I really wanted to do that for the rest of my life. And that and my the little boys, which was just like just beautiful work. I mean, now I actually have my own little boys and I just can't imagine u the life that these guys would live, but you know, you would find them. They'd live in they would sleep in trees and they'd be eating out of trash dumps and but it was a similar process of gaining trust. They wouldn't just come to a home just because there's a home. there needed to be a lot of trust there. And I actually worked in the home with the boys each day, just kind of their routine and did Bible times with them and just built relationship with them. And I've had a few of them stay in touch with me, which is neat. But um I wanted I love to do it. I really wanted to do it. I think the thing that sent me back to Kansas City after that year was I just felt like um I was kind of I don't know if it's kind of funny way to say it, but it's almost like I was operating on spiritual adrenaline. I didn't have a lot of depth. I knew I didn't have a lot in the scriptures. Um, I knew I didn't even have that much in a prayer life. I just was somebody that would just kind of believe that God wanted to do something and would just kind of jump into it. And I did some preaching and things at that time. And I had a lot of open doors to stay there. But I just felt like I need a season of going deeper. I feel like I will I could continue and it would be good, but there's just more that I could have that would be a deeper foundation. So, I had headed back to Kansas City. um to develop a prayer life and to um yeah just get to know God in a deeper personal way. And that's what I did. I moved back. I lived with a family in Kansas City and um helped with child care some and really just dug into as many hours of prayer as I could and worked as a waitress to to support my prayer habit and like prayed as long as I could, you know? I mean it and and so that was that ended up being right around that 1997 1998 period of time when um it was the precursor to the house of prayer that started in 1999 and there was a lot of spiritual um kind of activity I guess you'd say like there was a sense of poignency in the air there was a feeling of like the prayer meetings that the church had there were three prayer meetings a day um seemed to be just more engaged and stronger and there was just a sense of God is doing something and um so I was right in the midst of in the midst of that. I'm just really struck and and we could probably spend an awful lot of time talking about your life even outside of International House of Prayer, but the way that this ministry attracted some of the most soldout authentic sincere believers. And what's sad is, and I've said this before, but in all of my reporting, I will say the one characteristic that I have found that predators seem to just have a six sense for, and it is that sincerity. It's the the pure in heart, and they pray on that, which is actually just about the most wicked thing you can imagine. people that have a childlike faith exactly like Jesus, you know, said that we should have, those are the very ones that that often get prayed upon. Although in some ways, the fact that you had that suspicion in the back of your head because of what you'd experienced kind of worked a little bit to to protect you in some ways. Um, so you come back and and you're working there. you you worked for then what became Friends of the Bridegroom or was at the time Friends of the Bridegroom, which is Mike Bickl's own personal ministry. Um, and then you said that you kind of stumbled into doing what's now known as like this harp and bowl style of worship. Describe what that is for the uninitiated who don't really know. You know, I've heard of this, but I'm not sure that I really know what the harp and bull worship is, although it's something that Mike Bickl made famous. Mhm. I um so I have a musical background. I played jazz piano and stuff. I'm not the best singer ever, but I did lead worship some and um so if you think about it, for the musicians out there will kind of get this. In jazz, you have a dynamic where you play a song that everybody knows, a j a jazz standard, and then you go into a chord progression and everybody solos off of that chord progression and then you come back to the song that everybody knows. That's kind of basically what Mike called it the harp and bowl model because of Revelation um five where before the throne of God there's a harp of the songs of the saints going up and there's the bowl of incense, the prayer. So, it's just a prayer and worship combined. And what happened was I was in a prayer meeting where there was no worship leader and someone either Deborah or one of the other girls outed me to Mike as being a worship leader. I had never talked to Mike at this time. In fact, I think chronologically I was just connecting to the girls and I'm trying to think if I was on the payroll as research right before this, maybe just barely or if it was right after, but somewhere around that. But I had never talked to him. But I had connected with this core group of girls and I ended up leading worship and he made me so nervous. Um I sang a song. I was unprepared, right? I was leading a worship at the very last second and um I started out on piano and I sang a song that was a newer worship song and no one knew it. So he came over to me and said um that was really great. He whispered in my ear, but like nobody knows it so it's it didn't work. Like come up with another one. And the way he talked to me was so kind of brusk that I just panicked and every song I'd ever known just went right out of my head and I had nothing. And so he I didn't know what to do. So, but what we ended up doing during that prayer meeting, um, you know, we ended up kind of singing what he would call singing in the spirit for a while and then we would somebody would pray and from the prayer I would just kind of take a phrase or a phrase that was maybe an answer to the prayer that was just a Bible verse, something sim uh simple and um I would sing that and then the whole room would start singing it and there's a chorus. So, back to the jazz model, it was like a worship song, except for I didn't do great on that part. And then there was like a spontaneous singing. Everybody could just sing from their own hearts out loud, whatever. And then a um time of a person praying and then me grabbing a phrase from their prayer and the whole room singing the the phrase, which kind of is a neat way to agree with somebody's prayer. It's kind of neat. And then at the end, a norm to go back to worship song, but again, I was kind of failing at that part. But at the end of the prayer meeting, um I remember I was sitting in the car with the family that I was living with and Mike came up and knocked on the glass and I was panicked. I was like, "This is where he tells me I can't be in the church anymore." Lied when he said, "Can you lead worship?" I should have said, "No, I cannot, you know, or whatever." But and so I was expecting a rebuke, honestly. But um I came out and we started walking back and forth in the parking lot. He was excited and he said, "This is it. This is the this is the model. This is what we need to I want you back at tomorrow morning's prayer meeting and the lunch per meeting and the night permitting. All three per meetings. I want you just here singing doing this every time. And I was just kind of like it was like being run over by a train. I mean I did I didn't even know what was happening. And and it's a it's a good moment to say for those that weren't that have never been a part of the International House of Prayer, those that have know exactly what I'm talking about. But there's kind of an aura of who gets to be close to Mike. It's it's one of the really deeply I now see as evil dynamics that was going on there or at least profoundly unhealthy and potentially cultlike is the dynamic of you know so while I'm talking to him the whole family's going she's having a conversation with Mike I wonder what he's saying cuz that's how everybody was and so there was this sense of like being in conversation with him being singled out being talked to being asked to do something with like a currency and he's the one that created that he said that, you know, I mean, you can't just develop that in a whole church body because somebody's a gifted teacher. I've been around many gifted teachers that do not create anything like that. So, that that was something that he created and is on health. But that was that was the beginning of it and that's what I did. I started singing at every prayer meeting and um continuing to kind of um experiment with this harp model and and that he ended up calling it and that would that led up into the months of us starting the house of prayer and um being formerly an intern that helped start that after after just a few months of practicing in the prayer meetings if that makes sense. Yeah. So somewhere al in this time period he tells you that he wants you to go with him to rent a car or something right there's there's an experience tell about what happened during that what you were expecting to happen and then what what actually happened. Yeah. So, um you know, around this time as well, uh just to kind of flesh the story out, I ended up moving in with um Deborah Perkins and a few of these other girls, her sister and you know, another another roommate and um later on Misty cuz you know Deborah's sister got married and there was this new spot. So Misty moved in after that. Um but so there's this tight group and there ended up being five of us that were interns for the house of prayer. We were actually putting thing we were actually getting chairs and putting the house of prayer together in a small trailer and that was car rental situation. Mike said, um, I didn't have a car and, um, Mike at that time said, "Well, let me take Shel. I'll rent her a car so that she can do all these errands, pick up these chairs, do all this stuff, get get this thing rolling." It was days before we started the House of Prayer. So, it's the first time that I was ever by myself in a vehicle with Mike and um, in my state of mind, which just shows where I was, you know, and I I think I was around 21. I can get a little hazy with exactly the how old I was, but somewhere around this time this time frame and I um I get in the car with him and I immediately think to myself calmly this is where he's going to sexually assault me. Um now I thought that because he's a man and a pastor and that is that was the level of my healing. I've done a lot of great counseling and I was still working through things but that was a very clear thought to me. I thought because he's the big pastor, which was my dad. My dad, people would come up to me and say, "Wow, what is it like to be, you know, Ray Hunley's daughter, that was my dad's name, you know, and you know, wow, it just must be amazing." And so I was used to that. And here was another guy who people saw that way and he's a pastor at that level. And I thought that's what's going to happen. So I moved my head over to the door handle and I just thought through what I was going to do and I just thought, "Okay, we're going kind of slow. I can if he reaches over and tries to do something and he probably will, I can jump out. Like I'll just jump out and roll. I'll be fine. And so I had my hand on the hand on the handle like and I wasn't even like panicky. I was just like this is what happens. And it didn't happen. He he didn't try to do anything um physically. But I got to the uh car rental place and we walk in there and he just says really kind of nonchalantly to the uh people working at the counter, I need to rent a car for my daughter. And it was the first time that he used the word daughter. And now I now I think as a 40some um I think you know he was just trying to get through insurance like you know he was being shady and trying to kind of get around something. There was a reason for this. But in my little, you know, young twinn's heart, I was going, whoa. Like, it was both a trigger word that made me angry at him and wanted to make me want to punch him for even trying to be my father and then another deep longing. Something inside of me that said, could that could he view me that way? Oh my gosh. Like, could I have like a a relationship with Mike Bickle that way? And so, I had this just these kind of highs and lows, these feelings going on at the same time. And so, he signed the paperwork. He like looked over at me and winked at me cuz he saw that I was that I was noticing that he said that and he was just like he wked and he said he looked over he leaned over and said, "I like that. I like the sound of that." And it was just it was intrusive in the way of like it was um that was the first time that that what I would really characterize as this over-the-top unhealthy level of father that he stepped in and it was invasive. I I felt it was good, you know. I thought it was good. It felt good. I also felt like I might want to punch him. I had all these different feelings. But that was the first of many, many times where he would end up signing his emails. Dad, he would um call me his daughter, you know, all through all the next years. Um he would introduce me as his daughter to people and you know, uh other leaders, he would um he would give me a lot of room as his as a as a spiritual daughter, I guess. But like I don't feel like he even really um bothered to say the spiritual part like you know what I mean it was just really strong and you know now in in in a place of health I I can't that it was unhealthy for right from the very beginning like that's to do that and he knew my my history with my dad. He had asked those questions. In fact, I think it's part of Mike's memo that he knows pretty much everything about any everybody that's around him by asking by asking questions or other people telling him he knows everybody's uh stories and in their weak areas. And I've seen over the last two years how he has used that multiple times. But in my case, he knew exactly what he was doing and he just bulldozed it. Um and it felt to me like exciting. Um he still had some proving to do to like I said I had thought he was gonna make some kind of physical sexual assault you know move and he never did but um but something was happening emotionally and we've heard that in multiple stories I mean most recently with with Dr. Michael Brown calling uh at least according to well I think they both admit actually I could I don't even have to say allegedly he did call this young woman his daughter and had a a fatherdaughter relationship and it it's got a I mean when you have a hole and I used to do ministry so I remember you know the whole and you you would try to direct those people towards God as their father but I think a predatory pastor or somebody who just it stokes their ego, but in this case gave him position, gave him power, likes to step into that role and knows that they can. And it's interesting to me where you say he saw the look on your face or he saw the impact it had. And and I will say, you know, that's often what what predators seem to do. And you even said at one point like you he would say something like um this is what a father says or something and he would have like these father words and you made an actual collage of all of these father sayings. That's how important and and did you post this like on a poster that where you would see this? Yeah. like I um he he would say all these different things in in emails and you know at this time I because of my own father and I had confronted my dad. I had um you know blew up my family system is a truth teller and um I had no relationship with him. And during the first few years of IHOP I also went through physical sickness pretty severe um sickness where I was hospitalized and very sick for three the first three years off and on. So, and during those times, Mike would come and sit in the hospital room and um talk to me and you know, uh tell me church history stories or he gave me a lot of seminary assignments during that time like systematic theology and church history and and kind of fed the intellect side. My parents were both well, my dad was a PhD that studied at Cambridge and and there was there was something of that intellect part that was kind of untapped for me having not finished college and different stuff. And so he kind of saw that and sewed into that and had me do different assignments. But um a picture of what you're talking about was, you know, one time I was in the hospital and he um he began to to paint a picture of my father and himself and um very overtly and he said um he said, "You know, if you called your dad right now, would he come?" And I was mad that he said that cuz I was like, "I don't want him to come. I mean, he's an unrepentant abuser." I had forgiven him and I'd walked through some kind of moments, some closure moments with my dad, but I I said, "I don't want him to come." He said, "No, I want you to know. I want to know. Would he come?" I said, "No, he would not come if I called him." And he said, "He's not a father, and I don't want you to call on him your father anymore. He's a monster." And he said, "A father?" And then he described everything he was doing. A father would be here right now. A father would be sitting next to you in the hospital bed, in your hospital room. a father would be the one that talks to the doctors and finds out, you know, what's going on. He just went through a whole list of everything he everything he he was doing. It just cemented it. And um and the collage that you're talking about, which is a part of it was I submitted it as the part of the investigation report and it it it puts me as one of the 17 women that he has abused because of the language that he used in that email. Um, in those emails, I took phrase by phrase, and I did I I printed it and I cut out little phrases and put it on a one sheet of paper, like a little scrapbook, and I had it in kind of a discrete place in my in my room, you know, where I could see it. Like, I think it was the inside of a closet. And what was going on with that with me was this was a time for me where I was trying to gather evidence. What's a father like? Because my dad wasn't just a person who went off the handle and sexually abused me a few times. He was also just um I mean he it was horrible and there was never any attachment you know there was never any good father there there's not a good story I don't have a good story with him and so when whether it was Deborah Perkins talking about her dad she would tell a story about her dad that was really neat I'd come I'd go in my room and write down in my journal Deborah's dad did this you know it was just kind of like this really precious like gathering of of evidence kind of thing that I would do and I did that with Mike I gathered the evidence this is the stuff that a father says and he says that this is what a father's like. And so I put these little phrases in there and when um the story first broke or even before it had fully broken and I just knew uh about Deborah and was connecting and supporting her, I remember saying to my husband like, I guess I have to burn that thing to find this collage. I said somewhere there's a collage that I made with phrases that he said that were so beautiful and precious to me is how I felt, you know. Um, and I did that with other fatherly statements. It was like my own little way of kind of constructing what a father is like. Um, and it's just it's completely heartbreaking that the whole time he was doing that, he was my dad. You know what I mean? Like I mean, he's exactly missing as my dad and here I was just being completely duped by it. Um, and he he spent tons of time creating this. So, it must have been important for him for me to feel this way and for me to see him that way. Well, I'm sure it built into his ego and but it also made it so that and you you've made reference to this already, but that he was coming to your house a lot. And which by the way, were there any interns who were men or were they all young women? Yeah, there were two there were two men and three girls. Um, and then people like Deborah Perkins was not an intern. She was like greater than an intern where she like we were all like yes sir, you know, I'm not really like we were like Deborah was somebody that we just all wanted to be like her cuz she was just fiery uh for God and deep in prayer. So she was not she was she was cool to be an intern for real. But um yeah, three girls and two boys, but I bet she didn't go over to the boy's house. I'm sure that he did not. So he was coming to to your house all the time. They were like movie nights. I think I I read about those. Um I mean things that I He's a married man with kids and he's hanging out with all of these young women at their house and he's even Did you say he parked like further away so people wouldn't see his car? Yeah. He would come in and out and he would go into the different girls' rooms and and see the different decoration changes that they had done and you know just kind of fool around. I remember him jumping on one of the girls' beds like just you know playing around in the different rooms and he would bring movies or documentaries or whatever. Um, and he would, you know, he would come in when I was sick there. He'd come in, he'd be like, "Where's my girl?" You know, and um, every be like, "Oh, Shel's over here." And he would take me in the car and drive me around if I was, you know, um, sick or whatever. And, you know, tell me stories or whatever it was. And again, like the the type of grooming with me and it was confusing when I was first putting all this together. I was processing and sat with my own counselor and talked about the scrapbook and the different things and the way I've kind of come down on it is I had a lot of purity in my heart of wanting to know what a father was like and and this guy just came in and violated it and stomped on it mostly because I was not his his chosen victim but my friends were and that's what he was about and he normalized this crazy stuff of like let's meet at this restaurant but don't tell anybody or I'm gonna come over, but I'll park a different spot or um just all that kind of stuff. He did that kind of thing all the time. And you also became like the conference director at at IHOP. And so you were doing a number of conferences at the Forerunner Church. And as I understand it, there was sort of a back room there, which sounds a lot like Mike's office at the International House of Prayer, where it locked from the inside. and you observe some things that now you're looking back going, "What was I thinking?" But at the time, again, you're overlooking this. It's you're you're just throwing out the red flags even though now looking back you see them. Talk about what you observed with Mike and women and that back room. Yeah, it's it's so hard for me uh because I yeah, at a certain point I was the MC of the conferences and I also did the organizational behind the scenes at Men Forum and a lot of the time I pretty much just ran them for years. Um the local ones and a lot of the one thing big which was the big youth conference once a year. Um, but you know, it's just it's just so hard. Like the backstage area, um, would be like my little workstation and Mike's workstation and maybe one other person's workstation back there in an open area. And then just kind of down the hallway was a back room that was pretty much exactly like the back room that he had at the prayer room, which had locks that locked from the inside. Um, and I mean just multiple locks that you could do all kinds of locky things with basically, right? But, um, and he would always say to me like, you know, it's great for taking a nap. If you just want to go in there and just lock yourself in and take a nap, I do it sometimes. So, he had his little stories about it. Um, but you know when, and I don't want to jump ahead of chronologically, but it's I just kind of have to to explain about those rooms, but you know, when um Allen Hood is actually the one that called me and told me, Deborah asked him to tell me about it about her her abuse and what she'd been through and to check on me and see if I had been through anything. That's actually what her first motivation was because of the closeness and all of that. And um and when Allan first called me, he was fresh into just having heard from from Deborah and lots of emotion and and I think both of us were just kind of hoping that somehow it wasn't true. Um even though there was, you know, immediate recognition in Allen's heart that it was there's just that tiny dot where you're just like, could there be some other way that this all pins out? And when he told me, I just sobbed. I had immediately about five things and these rooms were one of them that made me say it's 100% true. And I just remember us both balling like just both my husband swooped in and took my boys somewhere around. I was just crying on the back porch um talking about it with Allen. But one of the things was these rooms uh because I remember him going into the that back room um with multiple you know people I can think of. I the most predominant ones are Deborah and Misty that I remember him spending long long periods of time in the back room and I remember when they would come out the girl would look upset and I always thought it was um or flustered or off and I always thought man he's probably like letting them know something that he needs to change in the organization or a class or a you know I don't know I just figured something of a pastoral nature nature was going on there. By this point, I was no longer the girl that had her hand on the door lock, right? I really trusted him at this point. And I didn't imagine I never imagined once and never for one second thought that anything sexual was going on with any of these girls ever. Never thought it didn't even occur to me. And I brushed it away. Like didn't even occur. Um, even though I saw him going in that room and I just like, you know, I I think I spent I had to definitely have a a few counseling sessions for my own heart of just thinking through. I was right there like I was like I don't know it, you know, how many yards away um from that room and this her these girls I care so deeply about and I love these girls. love Misty and Deborah so much and um some of the others do that I've seen in those in those positions with him that I believe were most likely abused by him or some in some cases I do know that they were but like I just like the powerlessness I mean and I I've shared a little bit of my story with Bolivia but I've also had I've had family member that went you know uh off the rails and tried to hurt his own kids and I was the one right there even though it was my own family member saying let's get this handled by the police and stop this. Like I I have multiple stories like that in my life. This is core to to me is being a protector. And I just I don't know how you get past I don't know how you get over that. I haven't heard a single person yet who suspected it with Mike. Everybody said the same thing. And you know there's we have limits to our ability to conceive things especially when we're within a system. I know Alan Hood telling me the exact same thing. You know, I mean, Misty had her own cubby hole or whatever in his office at IHOP. And uh again, Misty's never come out and said she was abused, but um uh those are the facts of of the matter. Um and they spent an inordinate amount of time. Inordinate. Yeah. Yeah. In in in that back back room or or his office, both of them. um and and a lot of people witnessed it. So, um again, hindsight is 2020, right? But at the time, we can only know what we know and and we have limited limited knowledge. Um so, and you've said to me, I mean, you're saying it now, you never suspected it, but there's there's a lot of people that will say, "Well, why didn't they just say no? Why didn't these women why did they give into it?" And again, I've heard enough of these stories that I that I get it. But for those who absolutely are just going, "Wait, these were adult women. They knew what they were doing. Um, they should know better. They participated in it." Explain what what this system, which again, you were never sexually abused, but you were part of this system, how it conditions you to think and to act even when boundaries are crossed. I don't think that people have understood enough about the spiritual dynamic and the spiritual language and how powerful the misuse of the prophetic as the charismatic church would you know call it um really was and how just completely twisted and um difficult to unentangle disentangle that really is. And I and you know you know for those that know me from my years at the house of prayer I I love that God talks that God speaks to us you know and I I still love that but I have more questions now as to how that can be walked out safely. I I'm not ready to to to figure that out right now. I I I'm so wrecked over how the prophetic words God's words were used and usurped for these girls. um and where you had these weighty weighty prophetic uh utterances and ideas. And an example is Deborah who when she was started dating her amazing husband now um when she started dating him like any other girls in their 20s that are roommates, she'd come home from the date. We'd all be excited to hear how it went. What did he say? Did he does he really like you? You know, like what do you think? Like doing all of that kind of thing. Well, she would uh have a lot of excitement about him and we were all excited about how great he was, but she would go into these dark dark um swirls of weeping, crying, uh like complete emotional distress over the one of the things she said um was that uh she would say to us and we were all just sitting there going, "What? What? You know, what's what's going on?" And she would cry and say, "I'm not supposed to marry him. Like, I'm supposed to wait for Arthur. there's this older man that I'm supposed to marry and she said that and so when I heard this prophecy thing from Allan that day I was like it's 100% true like she said it at that time she didn't say it was Mike but she said he's you know I'm supposed to wait for Arthur King Arthur and this is Lancelot this is the infidelity to what God's plan is which shows how deep this thing was that you marry that you would be dating a great Christian guy who is fun and engaging and respectful and loves you and all those things and that you'd be in torment, you know, you'd be in torment during a beautiful time because of this word, because of this vice grip of this of this prophetic word. And and that's where like I really I really think that Mike used cult tactics. I think he is a cult leader. I'm not ready to understand the whole big dynamic of IHOP in general. Like, give me some years. I I don't even know how to parse it all. But I will say that with his victims, he was just a cult leader with with these women. I mean, he the way that he used prophetic words to lock them in, the way he um you know, won their whole family systems, but the spiritual part, I don't think people have understood how deep that is. He wasn't just saying like here's five ways to you know, I don't know, live a godly life in your workplace. Like he was saying this is who you are. You are the beloved of God. You are this to God. God feels this way about you. And so the the message and the person merged. And for these these young women that he gathered around, their whole families worshiped him. Their whole family system feels uh deeply connected to him and trusts him. And then he says, "You're the one. My wife is going to die and you will be my next wife." I I feel deeply saddened when people question why somebody wouldn't, you know, be hooked into that. I think it's very very deep and it's a dark twisted web. I've had some people who I've talked to over the last two years who say, "I have some stories to tell you, Shelley, but I can't until God himself speaks to me and releases me to do it." Because it's they're spiritually locked in their silence. It's not normal. I've I've I've been a vocal uh person about my own sexual abuse history for more than 20 years now. I've done lay counseling and um disciplehip and mentoring and kind of coaching and walking with women through that. I've educated myself for the last 10 years and done courses with American Christian Counselors Association D. I I I can sit with survivors. This is different. This is not like that. And it's my feeling that it will take years and years and years for some of his victims to come out of the spiritual bond that goes on. And certainly most profound for those who had sexual experiences with him uh who you know this is the the spiritual abuse is bound up even in those experiences. Um, but also you you even told me like you couldn't make decisions without checking with leadership. Like you had he he cultivated a dependency and you would see people go in to quit their job and they would come out not quit quitting their jobs, right? I mean you saw that happened with numerous people where they'd even maybe up their involvement. Absolutely. Absolutely. It was a known joke even. uh I'm going in to quit I'm going in to quit IHOP or to quit my my role or you know whatever it is and we would be like mhm you know good luck with that and they would come out with new responsibilities more work um you know more uh commitment and that was over and over and over again um he was extremely persuasive and uh I you know it the the picture for me personally is you I left IHOP. I had been gone for, you know, a a good amount of time. I mean, really over over the over a two-year period, I was gone most of the two years. I was back a little bit and then I left again. And um I met a phenomenal guy. I uh decided to marry because he's awesome, you know, and uh just best choice ever for me. Um and I remember thinking, but like Mike hasn't approved this, like Mike hasn't signed off on this. like what if he um you know and what and he did meet he met my husband one time but it was like you know um I just had this deep like panic that hit and I remember praying through and going God I just you know Mike and the other leaders it wasn't just Mike it was like Mike and the other leaders may not might not know that I'm I still love God even though I've left IHOP like I mean and I've I'm marrying a really great Christian guy like um and it's all beautiful but like what if they don't approve and and and I just felt the gentle leading of the Lord of just being like Shel like you know I am your savior like I mean like the I am like who am I like I'm I'm the one that is leading you in your life and I had people around me that that could lead me in my life and my brother could speak different people like that that know me it was this uh root that had to be pulled out and it was significant for me it was hard and um and again I also as I'm telling that expressing that I know people have I have been a part of the system that has caused others to feel that way. I know my students have felt that way and likely have felt that way about me. Like I they they needed me to prove likely what what it was that they were doing. The whole system was like that, but Mike's approval was the most important and everybody else's was a little bit, but it was an unhealth. I mean, I as a grown person gone from the place still had to go through if Mike Bickl thinks I'm making a poor choice or if he doesn't think I'm as godly cuz I don't spend time in this physical prayer room in Kansas City, Missouri, am I still okay? Am I can I be a deep Christian outside of there? Can I make a decision to marry a really phenomenal person that will be, you know, a beautiful life choice? And that's and I was and like you said, I don't have a sexual abuse bond that also would cement me in shame and all kinds of who knows what else he has said in some of these cases with these women. So I just look at it and I just go I I don't ask the question why did they um why couldn't they say no? I ask the question how can Deborah and Tammy and others that have come come forth um how did they do it? How did they get free like this? And I've said it to um Deborah almost every day for a year. Like I am so proud of you. I don't know how you shook free from this because it was deep enough for those of us that were not even in that kind of a bond. And so I I again I'm I'm like this is going to take a while. Just listening to you. It just it sounds like it was the Hotel California. Like you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. And that is that is so um that's such a hallmark of a cultic kind of system and and surely surely that was a I I think was very much a cult in the way that that it operated. Can I say one other thing to that Julie something that stumps me is how Allan Hood was so different in almost all of these practices than Mike. Like if you went into Allen you had a shot at at quitting. you had a pretty good shot at quitting. You know what I mean? Like you could quit, it'd be all right. You know what I mean? You could move somewhere and still love Jesus. It'd be okay. So, it was it was a Mike thing, you know? And even with that, it would be like people would go to Allen and he would say yes to it and know and then Mike would find out about it and get involved in it and the person would end up saying no, you know, getting talked right back into it. There was such a weird dynamic. Mike in his room with these girls by themselves. Alan Hood would never do that. I mean, he I would have to beat his wife to it because she'd be there speaking into it faster, but he has everybody in his life with the ability to check that kind of stuff. It would. And it's amazing to me that we accepted a different category for him than in Allen. You know, Allan wouldn't do it, but Mike, well, you know, he's Mike. That's the thing everybody has has always said. Yeah. A real double standard. And especially because there was like a real purity culture at at IHOP. So, you know, almost it's so weird. Like on one side just this hyper vigilance about purity and then on the other side sexual abuse happening by the very leader. I it's it's so wicked. Um but I want to go to what precipitated you leaving which uh started with something that happened in in 2012. There was a major scandal involving the death of Bethany Deon and my understanding she was discovered in a van. Um she was a 27year-old nurse discovered in a van with a bag plastic bag over her head. She was dead. Um and a suicide note um supposedly in her handwriting right near her. Um her death was initially ruled a suicide. Um but then and and she was part of this religious group that her husband uh sort of cultivated that had loose ties to IHOP but it was it was modeled after IHOP and was very culty. Um a couple years or was it even that long? But uh Michael Micah Moore who was a part of this group confessed to her murder and then eventually the charges were dropped against him because apparently a lack of evidence there. But you and Alan Hood were kind of tasked by International House of Prayer to sort of investigate because I mean so much scrutiny now that you know national spotlight is on the International House of Prayer because of the death of this woman and the investigation. Um so you guys were tasked with the job of investigating this and I don't know if what you can even say about it. Um but yeah and and I will I know that you you've told me that you can't say very much because it's it's an open investigation. So but what what happened there from from your perspective as much as you can tell it it is a tough one for me because um but I and the only reason I'm clarifying that is because I could never investigate. You know what I mean? like I mean I wouldn't be able to investigate but as as two pastoral people we were there to support um what seemed like a tragic death and then there were occurrences that happened that that involved the police and suggested that there was perhaps something else that had gone on and it's still open. It's still they're still pursuing what really happened to Bethany. As you mentioned I I have checked very recently with the police again. I can't talk about the details of what happened until the case is resolved. And it's my understanding that they have evidence being brought in even in recent times, but if anybody would have the courage that to still continue to give information to the police about it, I think um I would I would want to say to do that. I would I want uh truth to come forth for Bethany and for her parents in its fullness. I don't have a specific agenda related to what that truth looks like, and I never did. I just um in that situation that it's very rare in a pastoral case that you go from pastoring and and helping to counsel grief to it being something that has to involve the police. And this was one of those times. I do want to say I did reach out to uh Captain Rhonda McGomery of the Jackson County Sheriff's Office just to confirm because again it's been this is 2012. We're talking 13 years ago. Um, and I said, you know, is this still an open investigation? She responded quickly, actually. Uh, and I quote, "The initial suspect was arrested and charged in the fall of 2012. However, 2 years later, the Jackson County Prosecutor's Office dismissed the charges. Therefore, no one has been convicted of the murder. The sheriff's office continues to seek justice for Bethany, and we welcome any and all tips that may lead us to the arrest and conviction of a suspect in the case. Interesting um that she she says, "No one's been convicted of the murder. Nobody's talking about this as a suicide uh at all anymore." Um, and in a later email from her, because we went back and forth just a little bit, and she said that she was involved in a case from the from the outset, and she would really love to see justice. So, I don't get the sense that they're dragging their feet at all, but she seemed very eager. Um, so I do want to just say she ended our correspondence by saying, you know, anyone with tips to call the sheriff's office at 816-541-817. again 816-541-8017 or anonymously at the Greater Kansas City Crimestoppers tips hop line and that is 816-4748477 again 816-4748477 and again as we know from a lot of these what seem like cold cases the evidence you know sometimes it's one tip that is that key so uh I know a number of people who have been a part of IHOP will be listening to this podcast. And I just encourage you if you do know anything anything for the sake of this this young woman and for some some peace and uh resolution and justice for her family, I do just encourage you to to do something about that. But this because you were and and I apologize for saying that you were tasked with investigating um that you were tasked with with pastoring. It's I I'm sorry. Sorry, I'm an investigator. It's just in my head. Um but um that you were at this point, as you call it, pushed out of the cult. So for some reason, um and maybe you have some some uh suspicions about why that is. Um you became sort of persona nonrada in this organization that you had served so faithfully for over a decade. I chose to leave. Um I I left for what I thought was a short time. I ended up choosing a new life. It's beautiful. Go figure. But somewhere in the mix of that, and this is curious to me, came up when I um did my interview for the IHOP investigation um with the Firefly organization at the very end was just this spin-off conversation about why did Mike try to destroy me as a person who could ever connect to IHOP again? And he did. Like Deborah and I is a great example. It tore our relationship. the the lies and the rumors and the pressure and there were other friends of mine who were told you will lose your job if you if you don't stop talking to her. So then no one ever saw me at any any anniversary. My my my data was wiped from the history. It came up in the end of my interview with Firefly because um as as someone objectively hears it, it seems very evident that Mike was separating me from the victims. um that he was maybe feeling unsettled that Deborah was going to tell me or uh others were going to say something to me and that seems to be really make a lot of sense and if it's because of um the their stories were starting to kind of crumble or their their compartmentalization was crumbling or um there was a sense that I've I'm a person that does go allin when I hear something like this. I don't know. I And I might never know. But it was evil and it was sad and it was another round of wounding. But it was also kind of my deliverance that set me free from this bond and this need for approval and it it tore that up. I mean, it tore up and I I it was really stunning. I'd never in my 17 years with Mike except for that one video time that I had with him where I was making my own boundary. And he doesn't like husbands, you know, and he doesn't like boundaries. Um, I did choose to leave, but I um and and there was no reason uh because there's just so many I so there's so many dark tunnels in it, but there was no reason for me leaving um other than I I left for what was a going to be a short time and really did decide to move into a different life, you know, and and establish a different life and um got married and just pursued, you know, marriage and family, which turns out uh is beautiful. Like you always something like Mike Pickle greatly discouraged, you know? I mean, he wanted everybody to be single. And he constantly said to all of us girls, I hope you never leave me. I hope you never get married. And we would say that we'd get that we're getting married. He would act kind of petulant or hurt or bummed. Um he pushed celibacy. And I'm so sad because this is it's actually the best. I've been married for 10 years now. It's awesome. And kids is great. As a as a mother and grandmother, I can attest to that. The the probably the greatest joy in my life uh outside of my relationship with the Lord is my relationship with my spouse and my kids and now grandkids is such a beautiful thing. But I I know he ruined that. Yeah. He ruined that for some women and and it's it's grievous. It's it it's devastating. You know, you've got your IHOP system, but often these systems are part of the larger system, which I often refer to as the evangelical industrial complex, and you'll get blacklisted in the whole system. And it's only I mean, honestly, it's those of us who have burned every one of those bridges. Like, I don't care. I don't need your approval. I don't care whether you because I remember when I blew the whistle on Moody, somebody saying to me, "Now, Julie, you realize when you do this, it's not going to work out too well for you for the other ministries, you know, who are impacted by Moody." And I was like, I couldn't care less. But how crazy that you say that like that that you think that that will keep me quiet or whatever. It was just it it but it's so sick and and what you describe the way that people are are you know you're either in or out and once you're out everybody else can't talk to you either. I mean guys, if if you're a part of that right now in some church you're in or some system, run, you know, do not look back. Run because that is a just such a a telltale sign of a cultic system and an unhealthy system because that's not at all how how those should operate. And I remember once being at a church where I left and I had experienced the opposite where they actually had our family come up and prayed for us and blessed us as we left and understood that we had good reasons for leaving. Wow. Like that was so, you know, that was so huge for me. But it's so unusual. So unusual. how you how you're treated when you leave an organization tells you a lot about that organization. So, um, I want to, and this is one of the most, uh, disheartening but telling parts of your experience because after Deborah came out and and and Tammy and and the abuse, we began to realize and there there's others, many others, and now we know by the investigation that they're probably more than a dozen, but there's probably dozens and dozens, you know, that that didn't participate. Um Mike Bickl is a serial abuser is what it seems very clearly and um but even now so after this all happened and we've mentioned some of the names but there are a number of women that it went off in your head the things that had happened what you had seen and at this point you're thinking you have a close relationship with them you can be the safe per the safe place for them, the safe person for them to finally tell you because even as close as you were to Deborah, she never told you the whole time, you know, that you were there, but now you're thinking as these are coming out, these women are going to come to grips with what happened. Describe what happened as you went and and met personally one-on-one with with some of these women who you highly suspect were abused by Mike Bickle. you know, I found out about Deborah and um immediately reached out to her and you know, pretty soon I was able to we were able to kind of talk through again there was this push to keep keep us apart. She she's told me since then that like the very first time I reached out to her and texted her and said it was before um it was public but Alan had had let me know. Um I reached out to her and said I don't care about whatever's gone on in the past or whatever but like I believe you 100%. And I have about five to six reasons that I do. I am just deeply distraught for you. I want to be here for you in any way, you know. And I remember and she's told me recently that she went to her husband and said, "Wo, we were wrong about about Shelly." Like whatever this weird swirl was, she she's Shelly, you know, she's actually who we thought she was. And um and so we've watched really closely together and that's been that's been really beautiful. I'm so, you know, just amazingly proud of her. You know, I talked earlier about seeing little girls in the midst of um sexual trafficking, you know, in Bolivia and that being the darkest thing I've seen. I I've I now would say that talking to some of my Bicles victims that are still um deeply bonded to to him and and still, you know, just that they would kind of I would I would see something I would observe a dynamic that would go on where people would be about to tell the truth and then would kind of suddenly, you know, almost bolt upright and start, you know, defending Mike. I saw that on several occasions and um I think that it's going to take a lot more time. It's going to take a lot more patience and it's it's my belief having walked through that that there is going to be an inner circle of um of you know potentially a lot more cult type of abuse that has gone on than what we perceived. you know, more of a dynamic of people um you know, experiencing perhaps a lot more spiritual language. I wouldn't be surprised if 10 years from now we hear that he has said that they're concubines and he's David or that you know um you know multiple women being aware and feeling like they're an inner circle of a Song of Solomonesque type of uh you know herm for lack of a better language. I I just there nothing would surprise me about whatever the hold is that's been going on. Um and I think that it's I I think listening to any survivor is always about patience and gentleness and that that would always be my approach, but now I'm I'm adding the patience into like years. And I think I went through a long period of time of just having to grieve that like just um having to grieve that like It just wrecks me that, you know, some of these women have, you know, stayed single for this abuse dynamic and have uh lost the chance to move on potentially into a different life, are, you know, putting every single thing into this basket, so to speak, are are destroyed. You know, I look at Deborah and and Tammy and I go, "These guys are they're you've you've talked with them. They're they're not just okay, they're shining, right? They're gonna make it. But not everybody's going to be like that. And it's going to take us 10 15 years to really see what these stories are. And there going to be some devastating ones. And I like that's where like, you know, the the outrage, you know, just this guy did this like Mike did this to these girls. He destroyed them. And that that just like it shock. It's been shocking how dark it is. It's been shocking how hard it is to get free. It's been shocking um just to see uh that even with a safe place or confidentiality and gentleness or whatever that that's not that's not going to be enough. Um this is cultlike and it's hold on these women and it's so profoundly evil and and I just have to say like I am so shocked that anyone would talk in any terms of restoring this guy. Um, Mike Pickle should never be restored in ever any possible way other than if he came to know Jesus and could, you know, be counted as a recipient of grace. That's it. You know, I mean, this is horrible. Um, and I think it takes a certain savvy to uh fool a nine-year-old like my dad did. But it takes a spiritual web to get these 20-year-olds and to get them and keep them silent for 10, 20 years. It's evil. It's sheer. And I'm saying that as somebody who, you know, considered themselves a spiritual daughter of Mike for many years. It is sheer evil. And I don't I don't know. I I feel like, you know, I felt devastated for for the lack of victories. I just thought I remember saying to Deborah like, "We're going to get some victories. We're going to get and we haven't had those victories as much as we would like." I I'm so proud of every woman who maybe I don't even know who they are but they went forward or participated in investigation or maybe they've just told their families or I'm so proud of them for that because again and I said it earlier um my question isn't how did Deborah and these guys you know why couldn't they resist it my question is like how did they get free like it's this is really hard to get free from that's my point well and it is it's deprogramming it's it is really cult deprogram programming and and it's never too late. I mean, for those who are listening, if anybody is still caught in this web, it is never too late to come into the light. And you know, I I love the verse in scripture where it says that God restores the years, the locust of Eden, and he he is that's the business he's in. and and in light of eternity, these things will will still seem, you know, short, but but yes, it is never too late. And I just urge uh I I think we need to continue to pray for these women who who are caught because they are just 100% these are victims now. Some of them have victimized at the same time. Um, and that's real and that's something they'll have to deal with. But at the same time, it's never too late. Absolutely. And I also think that it's important to know for anyone that is hearing this, you don't have to be a Deborah or Tammy and go on Julie Royce, you know, like to be free. I think there's power in it. I'm super proud of them for doing it. And I understand um like Deborah, her motivation, I can speak to, you know, she's doing it for the body of Christ and for safety for other young women. That that is the only reason she's doing it. It's an incredible cost and that is that's it. There's no other reason she's doing it. Not to be bad, not to be vindictive, not to tear apart ministry. She's doing it because the body of Christ needs this kind of help to understand what went wrong and how we can stop this from happening. But also for some survivors out there that they're in a place where they just go, I just need to be free. Tell your family, tell a counselor, keep working through it. And I and I I believe there are some that are like that, that are in that place and they just they're not ready to participate in a public way about it. But get your get the healing. Separate from Mike truly. Um cut off that contact. Get with your family members. Get with the counselor and start working through it. We're cheering for you even if we don't know who you are. I love that. And where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So if if you are walking in the spirit of the Lord, there will be freedom. You will not feel bondage. So if that's not what you're experiencing, that is not the spirit of the Lord. Um just a very very dark thing. I think the most dark thing that can happen is when you have someone who definitely is working as an agent of Satan, who is pretending to be an agent of God. And uh and that's clearly what happened here. So, well, Shelley, thank you so much. You've been very generous with your time, and I think I even heard maybe your kids are rustling out there in the background, which means they're up from their naps, but thank you so much. Uh, I appreciate appreciate your heart and appreciate your boldness, which clearly has carried carried through despite 17 years in a cultic system. So, thanks again, [Music] Thanks so much for listening to the Royy's Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. And just a quick reminder that we are listener supported, meaning we don't have advertisers or major grants. We have you. So if you believe in what we're doing, would you please consider donating to the Royport? To do so, just go to julieroyce spelled roys.com/donate. That's juliroy.com/donate. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Royys Report on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or YouTube. That way, you won't miss any of these episodes. And while you're at it, I'd really appreciate it if you'd help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then, please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining us today. Hope you were blessed and encouraged. [Music]