Mike Bickle is the president and director of the International House of Prayer (IHOP-KC), and author of numerous books.
Mike is also the founder of the International House of Prayer University which includes a full-time Bible school, music school, and media school. He also oversees other associated ministries in Kansas City. He is a frequent speaker at Sunday worship services at Forerunner Christian Fellowship, the local church associated with IHOP-KC.
Mike Bickle's ministry is an evangelical missions organization based on 24/7 prayer with worship that is engaged in many evangelistic and inner city outreaches along with multiple justice initiatives, encouraging houses of prayer, and training missionaries. The ministry (IHOP-KC) has continued in non-stop prayer led by worship teams since September 19, 1999, and is committed to combining 24/7 prayers for justice with 24/7 works of justice. Around 2,000 people (staff members, students, interns) serve full-time on the missions base, investing fifty hours per week in the prayer room, classroom, and ministry outreaches.
The primary focus of Mike's teaching is on growing in love for God and encouraging people to live out New Testament Christianity. He is most well known for his teachings on "Passion for Jesus" and his contribution to 24/7 prayer.
With his leadership of IHOP-KC, Mike Bickle has been at the forefront of the emergence of a renewed global prayer movement. Throughout the centuries, groups in Ireland, Germany, South Korea, and elsewhere across the globe have established day and night centers of prayer and worship. Notable examples include Comgall of Bangor, the monastery of Cluny, and Zinzendorf and the Moravians.
Mike Bickle teaches that the Holy Spirit is orchestrating a global worship and prayer movement that will operate in great authority (Lk. 18:7—8; Mt. 21:13; Rev. 5:8, 8:3—5, 22:17; Isaiah 62:6—7; Joel 2:12—17, 32). This prayer movement will operate in the spirit of the tabernacle of David. He denies that the restoration of the tabernacle of David is the same as the end-time prayer movement.
With his involvement with IHOP, Mike Bickle has been on the forefront of 24/7 prayer and worship in the "spirit of the Tabernacle of David."[9] Mike Bickle was called to this ministry in 1983 during a citywide prayer gathering.
Regarding the Tabernacle of David, Bickle states "It's a prophecy about the victorious church in power. It's more than a prayer and worship ministry, but that's a key part of it. There's a priestly and a kingly dimension to it."
Every December, Mike Bickle hosts an annual conference called 'onething' at the Kansas City Convention Center, that is attended by 20,000 young adults. The conference, now in its tenth year, has covered topics such as intimacy with God, Sermon on the Mount Christianity, the end-time prayer movement, healing, the coming harvest, the necessity of works of justice, and the Great Commission. In December 2008, a podcast promoting this event was released in which Mike Bickle summarized the role of the praying church in the End Times: "We're [the church] not afraid of the great tribulation, the judgment of God, we're [the church] releasing it. We're not victims that are fearful and helpless, we're participants. We're agents in God's hands, loosing through prayers of faith supernatural provisions for the saints and heavenly arsenals striking the power bases - the political and military and economic power bases across the world, the Holy Spirit will release Heavenly arsenal and strike and literally and physically destroy them through the prayers of faith of the unified body of Christ."
Mike Bickle was formerly the senior pastor of Kansas City Fellowship, now known as Metro Christian Fellowship. In that role, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, he was pastor of a group known to detractors and supporters alike as the "Kansas City Prophets". This group included Bob Jones, John Paul Jackson, Paul Cain, and by some accounts Francis Frangipane. Mike Bickle never used the term "Kansas City Prophets" to describe the prophetic team that he was associated with during this period. "I hated that name...it really hurt us because there was no such group. It clustered a whole bunch of personalities into one group and one stereotype."Some Christians have challenged some of his teaching and practices. Their criticism sometimes surrounds his allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs, (an interpretation shared by many commentators and Church leaders throughout Church history) but mostly focuses on the moral failings of some of the prophetic ministers that he ministered with in the 80s and 90s, including Bob Jones and Paul Cain.
These criticisms have also come both from contemporary critic Rev. Keith Gibson, director of the Kansas City office of the Apologetics Resource Center and by a former Kansas City pastor, Rev. Ernie Gruen, who, in 1990, authored a report entitled "Documentation of the Aberrant Practices and Teaching of the Kansas City Fellowship (Grace Ministries)." It was around this time that Mike Bickle and his church affiliated with John Wimber and the Association of Vineyard Churches (AVC) in part to address the issues raised by his critics. Regarding these issues, Bickle responded by saying "We were tempted to say that the attacks were all of the devil. In retrospect, we see that God’s hand in all of this - even using the things that came from Satan’s hand as well. Some of the criticisms were valid (especially concerning our pride) others were not."Some of the controversy still circulating on the internet appears to stem from quotations from this period, often taken out of their original context. Mike Bickle's Statement of Faith and "Affirmations and Denials" regarding many of the "controversial" issues can be found on the IHOP-KC website.
Mike Bickle's ministry has also been endorsed by many Christian leaders:
"The Church today needs to be mobilized with continual prayer and fasting to release the harvest of souls waiting to be garnered from among the nations. Mike Bickle’s reliable ministry at his missions base in Kansas City is helping to answer a great need in this hour." Dr. Jack W. Hayford, The Church On The Way
"The Great Commission needs to be fueled with fiery, continual prayer with fasting. Our greatest effectiveness in reaching millions of souls will be seen only as our work is bathed in prayer and fasting. Prayer ministries like Mike Bickle’s in Kansas City are important for the completion of the Great Harvest." Bill Bright, Campus Crusade for Christ
"The Great Harvest needs to be supplied by continual prayer and fasting. Intercessory ministries like Mike Bickle’s in Kansas City are vital for the fulfillment of the Great Commission." Loren Cunningham, Youth With A Mission (YWAM)
"As a lifelong missiologist, I cannot help but think that the landscape of humanity will drastically change when the body of Christ actually becomes a house of prayer. Mike Bickle has risked it all to convince us of this fact. I heartily recommend this amazing work!" Dr. C. Peter Wagner, Wagner Leadership Institute
"Many pastors in the Kansas City area are grateful to God for raising up IHOP—KC in our city. The knowledge that hundreds of intercessors are crying out night and day with fasting for revival in our city strengthens our hearts in the battle. We thank Mike Bickle and the IHOP—KC leaders, and stand with them knowing that their labors are resulting in spiritual blessing and unity in the church in our city." Rev. Howard Cordell and leadership team, Midwest Ministers Fellowship (a network of over 200 pastors and ministries in the Kansas City region).
"Anyone who knows Mike Bickle, knows that insofar as he is consciously able, he has subordinated everything in his life to this one goal: acquiring and promulgating passion for the glorious Person who sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven." Jack Deere, Th.D., Author and Lecturer
