The truth has to come out: ‘I had to confront what Mike was doing’

An independent investigation revealed in January 2025 that Mike Bickle engaged in sexual misconduct with 17 women, including minors, over several decades. The 68-page report by Firefly Independent Sexual Abuse Investigations details instances of abuse dating back to the mid-1970s, including allegations of rape.

Jemimah Wright (JW): Elizabeth, could you share a bit of how you first arrived at the International House of Prayer? 

Elizabeth Zion Herder (EZH): My family had started going to conferences, and that was my initial connection. So I was at the church in the late 90s. I ended up in the business sector while I took some Bible school classes at IHOPKC. I left Kansas City, but I came back in 2002 at Mike Bickle’s request to help IHOPKC on the operations and business side.

JW: Mike Bickle is now 70 years old and from the report it sounds like he was abusing women for years?

EZH: We know that he had been abusing Deborah Perkins during my Bible school years. We were not close friends but I knew her. I remember I was stunned by how close she was to Mike but I had no grid for a wicked leader with hidden sin, so my trust was 100 per cent. When I saw the time that he spent with these girls, I put it on them, largely in a good sense, thinking: “They are so committed, they are so consecrated. They are so fervent for the Lord and willing to sacrifice so much time. That’s why Mike is paying attention to them. He’s responding to how amazing they are.” I would try and reconcile that inside me; I think actually I experienced some jealousy as I watched him pay attention to other women.

JW: It’s amazing how his attention on these women was so out in the open.

EZH: Mike is a master at normalising behaviours so that you don’t see the [red] flags. Most people didn’t know that he would show up at their [the girls’] door, and do pizza and ice cream nights just with the girls and him.

JW: But what about his wife, Diane and their two sons?

EZH: They lived a very interesting life from our perspective. Diane was running a real estate company and she homeschooled the boys. The 24/7 prayer and worship started in 1999 but even before that, every ministry that Mike was leading had a prayer expression that was very fervent and had lots of hours dedicated to it. I don’t know if this was the motivation, but there were lots of hours that Mike could be gone that no one would question, because [everyone would think]: “He’s doing ministry; he’s praying somewhere.”

Mike is a master at normalising behaviours so that you don’t see the [red] flags 

JW: You worked for the church for 15 years, and then after your fourth baby you left to start your own business – why was that?

EZH: I was suffering under the extreme dysfunction of IHOPKC – the dishonour, and the dismissal. I was experiencing that narcissistic cycle where you’re brought in super close and just love bombed. I would get my tank filled with affirmation, and then after that moment, nothing else would line up with it. Decisions were made when [I was] not in the room. I was on the board of directors, leading all the fundraising and I would sit in a service and find out that our children’s ministry was launching a $5 million capital campaign, and I had no idea. It felt humiliating. 

JW: But in all of that you weren’t ever thinking there’s something wrong with Mike, that he’s not who he appears to be?

EZH: No, not at all. In fact, in all of the dysfunction I gave Mike the pass card most of the time, and I put it on others. It wasn’t until the latter years of me being on staff that Peter, my husband, who did not have idolatry in his heart towards Mike, said: “You have Mike in a wrong place in your heart. He’s just a guy, and he’s a benevolent dictator, he doesn’t lead well and all this does go back to him.” He was right. About six years ago, Mike took up a weird relationship with our friend’s wife. I saw some [red] flags, but still never dreamed of what the truth was. She ended up having an affair with Mike’s married son, Luke.

That’s how Peter and I got very activated. We went to the leadership with these pure hearts saying: “This is tragic, let’s pastorally get around the situation. Who’s going to take what part? Let’s come together.” I knew the news would destroy the community, and so I didn’t want people to know. The number of nights I went to sleep, weeping, holding the weight of what we were starting to find out, and telling Peter: “I don’t want anyone else to know this.” I could see faces of my friends, that have now betrayed us, and I would cry thinking: “I would rather we know and no one else ever has to know this, because it will break them if they know that Mike participated in this.”  

JW: Were you involved with the advocacy group right from the beginning, and how did that affect you?

EZH: Yes, because of my advocacy for the previous situation [with his son’s affair] I started to get a reputation in the community. Mike immediately made sure that he spread that I was a gossip, that I was exaggerating, that I was divisive and so my relationships immediately started to fracture. It was mysterious to me, as I trusted Mike so much. I would say to people: “I know that he probably is mad at me, but at least I know he will never say anything negative about me. Mike doesn’t do that.” I was wrong. So our relationships started to fracture, friends would not answer texts. We asked to meet, they’d say no or they’d ignore us. 

I would say that probably, to this day, the most painful thing is the betrayal of friends and the willingness of friends to spread evil about me and my motivations in order to protect Mike and cover the system.

[my husband] said: “You have Mike in a wrong place in your heart. He’s just a guy, and he’s a benevolent dictator, he doesn’t lead well and all this does go back to him.”

I’m willing to confront. I’m a bold person. The Lord has given me courage. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t have the same feelings that someone who maybe isn’t bold enough to confront would have. The fact that people hate me is really hard. 

JW: Mike Bickle was an influential and very popular character. How was it as a woman standing up to such a powerful man?

EZH: It was utterly terrifying. I experienced panic attacks. There were months when I was carrying information that others didn’t know. It went from: “Something’s not right”, to within days my phone blowing up with reporters. 

JW: What would you say for people who want to walk away from the Church because of people like Mike Bickle, or who discount their experience of God at IHOPKC because of what has come out.

EZH: I’d go back to the fact that God is my God, and he’s your God. He has a very a personal relationship with us. He would not be God, and he would not be true to himself, if he refused to come near to me because I was sitting in a room of people who were engaged in wickedness that I had no idea about. The Bible says in Matthew 13:24-30 that the wheat and the tares grow up together and you can’t even tell which is which. 

I think that we have been looking at the fruit of a person to be anointing and signs and wonders, but the Lord tells us that the fruit of the Spirit is character – it’s love, goodness, kindness, gentleness. And so that’s my new grading card. Do I see those things? And you cannot see them until you’re up close. 

JW: What are your takeaways from this awful experience? How do we stop it happening in the future? 

EZH: There’s the idolising and the worship of men. It’s mostly men. It’s not an excuse for them, but it sets them up. We’re not made for power; most people do not handle it well. It corrupts most people. You combine that with kind of the predilection of narcissism, being drawn to a place where you can have a stage. For me, personally, one of my red flags, is if someone desires the platform. If somebody has built a big ministry around a person on a stage, basically, that’s my out. 

JW: What will happen to Mike Bickle now, will there be a police investigation? 

EZH: Police reports have been made, but in Missouri, clergy sexual abuse is not illegal yet. In many states it is illegal. So then you have to lean on the statute of limitations for the abuse that he did do, which the investigation found did include rape, which is horrifying. I don’t anticipate that he’s going to be criminally prosecuted, because it’s been so long since anyone has come forward with the level that would be prosecutable in Missouri.

JW: Is there anything that you have learned from stepping up and speaking out, anything that you would have done differently?

EZH: I learned that I could not keep quiet once I found out what was happening. It was not an option to keep quiet, it would have haunted me and I would not have been able to sleep. The truth has to come out.

Elizabeth Zion Herder founded a fundraising consultancy agency, zionconsultingteam.com which helps nonprofits achieve sustainable funding and develop healthy donor relationships.