PREFACE: Awake very early. I’ve been hearing a stillness in the Lord the last three nights. Tonight, I’m unable to dismiss it. As our little House of Prayer goes into the last week of lament, I am pained over the judgment from the Lord, that I believe is passing from the “prayer-movement”, to the larger American Church culture. Beloved, it’s not about one ministry organization, I believe the swift judgment that’s fallen upon this house is now falling upon the church in America, and the destruction that erupts in the Church will be terrible, and heart-breaking. As I’ve said from the beginning. The Lord is using the House of Prayer in Kansas City as a “forerunner of judgment” upon the rest of the unrepentant Church in America… We need to understand what’s at risk, and why.
10 THINGS IHOPKC GOT WRONG
Underneath the collapse of this beautiful community of believers was a system of beliefs that could not hold either the weight of its success, or ultimately, its demise, under the judgments of the Lord. The load-bearing walls to this bonafide movement of God finally proved insufficient, both in terms of what it had built, and what it simply would not, or could not do in order to be saved. For all that IHOPKC got right; for all its orthodoxy, these 10 theological beliefs, and praxes are what the Lord was aiming at in His judgments, and the reason why the organization collapsed, and hundreds of families fled in six, short months.
Here’s the salient, sticky part: EVERY ONE OF THESE ELEMENTS ARE PRESENT IN CHURCHES and HOUSES of PRAYER throughout the United States.
Here are 10 beliefs and practices that could not stand the test of the Lord’s refining fire:
1. Casual practical, lack of daily appreciation for the utter, eternal holiness of God. We forgot, (or never inculcated) an awareness that the One we were standing before in the place of prayer is supremely holy, and was calling us to serve Him as priests in a privileged place of utter holiness.
2. We hurt people. The top-down leadership, pastors, professors, counselors, section leaders, worship leaders, and intercessors tolerated, and contributed to community dynamics that used people, manipulated people, abused them, and ultimately, in too many instances, abused them sexually, and then applied little to zero pastoral, accountability to safeguard the people.
3. A one, or two-dimensional approach to prayer. IHOPKC never developed a bonafide model of corporate confession, lament and repentance. IHOPKC never applied her own many teachings of “Joel”; in fact she resisted every encouragement to engage the Joel assembly.
4. A pre-packaged, hermeneutic for interpreting the Bible that could not transcend the gravitational pull of western, 21c culture. We saw, and applied Biblical truth through a very Ameri-centric lens.
5. No theology of the cross… She never cultivated training on the crucified life in a way that leveraged Jesus’ warning: “Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it. Whoever loses His life for My sake, and the gospel’s will keep it.” (Luke 9:24)
6. No theology of the cross… is what allowed Mike to stay hidden in darkness for (now) 7 months…
7. No theology of the cross… is what has allowed the “current” ELT to so desperately “save itself” that it yielded to pretense instead of repentance.
8. No theology of the cross… is what kept the “current” ELT from believing that if all of IHOPs sins were brought into the light, it would have no ability to “recover”.
9. No theology of the cross… is the void that satan used to keep Mike, and many others in bondage to hidden, unaccountable sin, and not healed and set free from sin.
10. No theology of the cross… is ultimately why no outside evangelical ministry, voice, or leadership personality maintained a prophetic, redemptive, crucio-centric dialogue with IHOPKC through her judgment from the Lord.
No theology of the cross could make this list on 100 different planes. And, it must be understood: this is at the crux of what is ultimately going to contribute to the ashes of SO MUCH of American evangelicalism in the coming years.
This isn’t merely a list of what IHOPKC got wrong. IHOPKC didn’t exist in a vacuum. She existed within an evangelical culture that looked for, rewarded, and provided a seed-bed for these contra-Kingdom elements of belief. This is one reason why when we debate, lament, defend, and criticize IHOPKC, we is talking about “us”.
Unless the American church recognizes herself in these same dynamics; and unless she surrenders herself to the Lord’s zeal to rebuild our faulty load-bearing walls of prayerlessness, cultural ethno-centrism, fear of repentance, and no theology of the cross, the rest of us will suffer the same judgment as IHOPKC.
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JSB • May 25, 2024
SPIRIT WORD & CROSS 