BREAKING NEWS LIVE STRANG REPORT with General KURT FULLER

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Hello everyone, I'm Stephen Strang and welcome to this very special edition of the Strang

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Report for Thursday, January 25th.

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And I have an exclusive today, a scoop if you would, from the acting chairman of the

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Board of International House of Prayer Kansas City, which has been embroiled in a controversy

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for more than three months.

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And today I believe that we can say that it's a turning point and it came as a result of

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some decisions made by leaders of International House of Prayer Kansas City who released a

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video on X formerly known as Twitter last night and General Kurt Fuller, who said to

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call him Kurt, has agreed to be on my podcast today live.

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And those of you who are watching live are able to ask questions and the ones that are

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appropriate, our engineer John Matarazzo will share them and maybe we can get some clarity.

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But first let me just say that I was very encouraged to see this video.

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I have dealt with what's going on in Kansas City a couple of times in a very, very general

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way.

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I didn't want to get into taking sides.

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I didn't want to try to decide who was right or wrong.

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There's so much that we don't know.

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We do know that we want righteousness to prevail.

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We want this ministry to go forward and to succeed.

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I have been concerned talking to a few people I know who are affiliated with the ministry,

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watching what's on social media, that there are some people who almost want to burn the

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ministry to the ground.

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And I believe that it's a spiritual attack.

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The Bible says we wrestle not against flesh and blood.

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This isn't about people who have brought accusations.

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It isn't about different leaders in the ministry.

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I believe this is a spiritual attack to bring down quite for many years has been a very,

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very effective ministry to call the entire body of Christ to a deeper intimacy with Jesus.

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I focused on 24-7 prayer in a way that no other ministry has, any ministry that I know,

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and I've been involved.

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I knew this ministry when it started back in 1999.

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I've personally been a supporter.

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I've personally been to the prayer room many times.

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I'm always happy to divulge my perspective.

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I'm trying very hard to be objective as any good journalist would be, but I do have a

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vantage point.

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And as time goes on, I will be opining.

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But today I want to get from Kurt Fuller himself what he shared and where the ministry

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is as of today, January 25th.

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Of course, it changes as circumstances changes as decisions are made.

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So let me first of all, welcome General Fuller and thank you for taking time.

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I know how busy you are, and I'm excited that we're able to get a scoop in the sense that

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this just happened.

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Why don't you start by telling your role.

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I know you're the acting chairman of the board and also acting executive director of the

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mission base there in Kansas City in Grandview, just south of Kansas City.

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I've been there many times over the years and have the app on my phone.

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I often will turn the app on in my own quiet time in the morning with whatever's happening

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in the prayer room.

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I know many people who are watching do as well.

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So how did you get involved with International House of Prayer, Kansas City, and specifically

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the topic of today's podcast is really to talk through what you announced on X, formerly

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known as Twitter last night.

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Sure.

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Thanks, Steve.

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Well, to start with, I was listening to Mike Bickel all the way back to my time as a colonel

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in the Army back in the mid 2000s or early 2000s.

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I think I heard his first teaching on the book of Revelation and I got interested in

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the whole concept of end times prophecy.

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And so, yeah, we've been listening to him for quite some time, my whole family.

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And then my daughters became big fans of Misty Edwards and some of the other worship leaders

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here.

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So we started playing prayer room live stream in our house.

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But how I got involved in this crisis situation was I was the vice chairman of the board of

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directors.

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And when the crisis broke, we heard about the allegations against Mike Bickel.

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I was appointed as the head of an executive committee that would look into the allegations.

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And then a little while later, Stuart Greaves, who was the chairman of the board and also

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the executive director of the missions base, when he resigned, I didn't realize this was

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about to happen, but I automatically became the acting chairman and also the acting executive

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director.

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So I had play I'm dual headed in both roles right now.

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Well, I've had Stuart on my podcast, of course, in happier times.

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And I know he's a very fine man.

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In fact, over the years as I've gotten to know different leaders, my impression without

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exception was the people I met were good, godly people.

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In some ways to me, the ministry almost seemed above reproach.

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It wasn't greedy.

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They gave things away.

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They were able to recruit thousands of people to actually move to Kansas City to be a part

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of the movement in a lot of different ways.

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I've always known Mike Bickel to be very, very generous.

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He has not clamored for fame and success like a lot of ministry leaders.

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And in my role as the publisher of Charisma Magazine, I've seen it all over the years.

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And so I was shocked when these allegations came forth.

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Of course, it's not the first time there have been allegations against a church leader.

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I mean, all of us are aware that in the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist, in

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the early Pentecostal movements, there were accusations of immorality with Amy Semmel,

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MacPherson, even if anybody knows the history, Charles Parham himself.

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I mean, we're not here to talk about that.

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The Apostle Paul had to deal with these things at the church in Corinth.

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So this is not new.

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It was just that I hop Casey, in my opinion, as an observer, was that it was in kind of

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it was.

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There was a purity.

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There was teaching on intimacy with Jesus in a way that a lot of a lot of good ministries

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teach kind of what's in it for me.

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You know, how can I?

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How can I tithe and receive God's blessing?

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How can I do this and and receive freedom from whatever unforgiveness or offenses or

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kind of complicating my life?

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But with I hop Casey, it was harp and bowl.

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It was like worship before the father in a way that I did not grow up with in a Pentecostal

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church where my father was a minister.

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I mean, the Pentecostals loved the Lord.

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They'd love to sing and dance and praise the Lord and clap their hands and everything

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else.

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But there wasn't this intimacy with Jesus.

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And so and Mike Bickle and the other leaders there, because he didn't do it alone, seemed

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to bring this to the entire body of Christ.

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In fact, we have a house of prayer here in my area in Orlando.

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It's not 24 seven, but it's many, many hours a week.

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They follow.

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They kind of follow that model.

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And my understanding is it's not even really affiliated with the International House of

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Prayer in Kansas City because Mike Bickle told people they could take his idea and kind

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of run with it without any control.

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This is almost unheard of in Christian circles.

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There's always control and sometimes there's good reason for control for discipline and

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other things.

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So on October 7th, the same day that Hamas attacked Israel, these charges were leveled

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against Mike Bickle.

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I was stunned, as I've already said, and I had had Mike on my podcast just a month or

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two before when he was calling people to pray for Israel.

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If I remember correctly, five million people signed up often through their networks.

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It would be networks of prayer where it all added up to five million.

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I mean, I was stunned.

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I'd never seen anything like it was unprecedented as far as I was concerned.

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And interesting that millions of Christians, you know, I took time myself, in fact, not

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in any kind of official capacity, but because I was motivated by what Mike Bickle encouraged

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people to do to fast and pray for Israel, and of course, the Lord knew that all these

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things were going to happen.

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So here we are.

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This has been going on.

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I've been amazed at how nasty people have been on social media.

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Meanwhile, Mike Bickle, we're not really here to talk about it, but he has confessed to

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some things that happened 24 years ago.

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He's been asked to step down.

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But if I understand right, he actually turned over the control or running of the ministry

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to other leaders several years ago.

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So this is not even about getting him out of his.

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And we're really not here to talk about Mike Bickle.

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We're here to talk about the accusations that and it's been strange because there's accusations,

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but there's no facts.

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So where does that stand and in what decision have you and the board of directors made in

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the last couple of days?

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Well, where it stands is we have an independent investigator who by her contract contractual

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agreement with us is separate.

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We have no control over how she conducts the investigation, who she interviews or the outcome

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whatsoever.

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She will release a report independently from us.

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And we've been encouraging everyone who has any information at all about these allegations

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to come forward and speak with her.

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But we do know that the members of the advocate group, as they're called, which are the initial

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people who brought these allegations forward, have decided not to cooperate with our independent

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investigator.

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And the whole issue, the kind of standoff has revolved around this idea of a mutually

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agreed upon investigator.

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So the concept is the victims themselves, who we don't know their identities, the advocate

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groups as they have them.

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And then the advocate group themselves get to decide for us who does the investigation.

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And if we don't agree to that, then we're at a stalemate.

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On the other hand, if we pick our own investigator and they don't agree to that, we're also at

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a stalemate.

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So that's how we've arrived at three months of negotiations trying to sort this out.

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And my statement last night was just to say I've had enough negotiating.

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I know in my heart that this investigator is absolutely independent.

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She's a professional.

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She's got decades of experience doing these kinds of investigations.

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She's trauma informed and she understands abuse in the context of a ministry setting.

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So I don't believe there's any reason for another investigation, one that or an investigator

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that was picked by the advocate group or their attorney.

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And that's the statement I made last night.

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We're going to press ahead with the person we've already hired.

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And we still urge everyone, anyone who has any relevant information to provide it to

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our investigator, Rosalie McNamara, and her report will be out very soon.

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And I'm certain it's going to show that we had no influence over her during the course

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of her investigation.

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Well, I think this is very interesting.

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And I saw the video this morning when I got up.

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I did not see it last night.

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And I thought it was very well spoken.

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I had actually planned to opine on it, not knowing that I would be able to get you live

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to comment on it.

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I will opine some later because I believe there's some bigger issues in the body of

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Christ.

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You know, whatever it comes up with Mike Bickle, he's going to have to stand on what he did

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or didn't do.

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Personally, I wonder how long someone is, I don't even know how to say it, but it happened

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24 years ago.

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So how long does that disqualify someone?

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Obviously when he is obviously repented and moved on.

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But also there's some issues about people who attack ministries.

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I mean, this reminds me of an old fashioned church fight.

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Most church fights are not that well known outside the church where it goes on.

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But I mean, I know people that aren't living for the Lord because they were involved in

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a church fight and they were so repulsed by it.

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They rejected God in the process.

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And you know, the enemy of our souls, who we call Satan, does not want 24 hour prayer,

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does not want intimacy with Jesus.

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And all of these things that I hop KC has been known for and which will continue long

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after Mike Bickle's not around either from retirement or death.

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You know, this is bigger than just one man.

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He was the visionary, the one that God used.

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And I'm just concerned that it's almost like a cancel culture type of mentality.

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I wrote a book on cancel culture and so I'm very well aware of all the...

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That was more in the general culture where people are trying to cancel anyone who's conservative

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or believes biblical values.

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But people are coming in and it's like they're trying to cancel Mike Bickle and Inter-Anaheism

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National House of Prayer, Kansas City.

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And I don't think it's right.

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It's like the spirit of the world has come in.

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It's almost like a spirit of me too, ism, where a person is guilty until innocent or

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you're guilty because I say you're guilty.

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And really every ministry is vulnerable to this kind of attack.

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And I know you're very well aware of this.

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And I'm concerned about these ladies who are called Jane Doze.

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And when I do another podcast, I'm going to opine about this.

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But several of them issued a statement and said, you know, what about us?

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Our name has been pulled through the mud and the mire and we...

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And this is wrong.

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This is not right.

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What they're saying happened to us didn't happen to us.

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Why do you believe these unknown Jane Doze and you don't believe us?

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And I think that's a very valid question that needs to be raised.

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Now are you just going to leave everything like it is or do you think that your investigation

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will get to the bottom of this and tell the truth?

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I don't know because I don't know what the members of the Advocate Group claim that they

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have.

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I would say they have 20 credible eyewitness reports.

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And I have begged them to provide those that information to me.

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I understand why at the very beginning of this thing, there was trust broken on both

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sides, the leadership here at IHOPKC as well as the leadership in the Advocate Group.

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And so they didn't trust each other enough.

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They felt to share this information.

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But I asked them to share it with me directly and they have not provided it and told me

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they will not.

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And they will not provide it to our investigator.

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And I haven't really got a good reason for why that's the case.

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I mean, they said that the victims were concerned about this investigator's potential approach

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that it might be painful for them to share their story.

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On the other hand, Jane Doe, number one, the primary Jane Doe, who shared her story with

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pretty much everybody already to include the Roy's report and others.

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So I'm not sure why she's unwilling to talk to our investigator.

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And the men that represent the Advocate Group, I don't understand why what they would be

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afraid of in talking to a female investigator.

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But that's where it is.

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And actually, the videos that they posted, which caused me to finally end the negotiations,

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include a lot of the information that I was asking them to provide to me.

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But all I can say, Steve, I'm committed to digging up the truth, whatever it takes.

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We found a lot of stuff on our own here, the new leadership team and I here on the base

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that will be combined with the report of our independent investigator, despite the lack

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of cooperation from others who claim to have information.

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I think we can piece together a good part of it.

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And then, you know, if there's more information out there, hopefully somebody will be willing

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to finally provide it to us.

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But I will say this, the reason I am here and I've unapologetically said it from the

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very beginning is because I want to see that 24-7 prayer and worship continue.

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I have personally experienced the prayer room.

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I have seen the dedication of these young men and women singers and musicians and prayer

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warriors for God's army that have done this for years, some of them decades, and just

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selfless service to the Lord.

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And I see, I mean, I am absolutely committed to make sure nothing happens to that or to

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them.

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And this video that you made, which people can find on X or by Googling your name, I'm

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sure, it impressed me because you talked about how things that you find wrong, you're going

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to clean up in that ministry.

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And I think that's praiseworthy.

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In fact, every ministry probably needs to do that kind of self-reflection from time

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to time, whether or not there's a crisis.

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And the fact that you're going to move ahead and improve things and continue to promote

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the 24-7 prayer, I think, is laudable.

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I was also impressed by your statement that in your career, you have negotiated with all

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kinds of different people in your role in the military.

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And I wanted you to just elaborate that because this is not your first rodeo.

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You've had to deal with difficult situations and war situations, with foreign governments,

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with powerful people in our own government all the way up to the cabinet level.

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I know you didn't say that to make yourself look important, although you are important.

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But just to put it in perspective, it's interesting that the Lord has put you in this place to

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deal with one of the most difficult ministry situations.

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And listen, I've been covering the Christian community, especially the Pentecostal and

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Charismatic arm, for more than four decades.

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And this is absolutely one of the worst crises.

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As far as I'm concerned, it's right up there with the Jim Baker and Jimmy Swagger scandals

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that we saw in the mid-80s in terms of how it affects the body of Christ.

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That one was different, that it was more in the secular press.

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This is more on social media.

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It's not headlines in the New York Times.

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It's not on the evening news with Fox News, which didn't even exist back then.

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But I just said that to say that this is very difficult and it's interesting that someone

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with your qualifications is in leadership at this time.

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So maybe you can say better what I just tried to say about your experience with negotiations.

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Well, first, I took a long course in strategic negotiations at the Army War College.

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And then I had the opportunity to put that education into practice in Afghanistan and

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Iraq.

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I spent six years deployed after 9-11 fighting in the war on terror.

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Most of it in our nation's counter-terrorist organizations, but some in the 82nd Airborne

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Division as well.

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And so, yeah, I had lots of opportunities to negotiate people with people and to include

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the National Security Council level talks on.

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I wasn't directly involved in like the principals or deputies committee, but there's a thing

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called the Coordinating Staff Group in the NSC that I was directly involved in those

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talks that were concerning the way ahead in Afghanistan.

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And I was also the NATO Operations Officer in Afghanistan for the International Security

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Assistance Force there.

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And so there were negotiations, pretty significant ones, with their NATO partners in terms of

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providing extra troops to the effort, et cetera.

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So yeah, I had a lot of experience in it before this.

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And then I've done my best to negotiate with members of the advocate group to sort out

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this concept of an independent investigator.

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And we just couldn't arrive in an answer.

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And I gave the reasons why last night, why negotiations broke down, because I can't

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negotiate with people who aren't being honest in their negotiations at all.

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And also, who are really not doing it in good faith.

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At least that was my impression.

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Well, I admire the stance that you're taking.

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Of course, it's going to take some time to find out exactly what is happening.

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But hopefully the ministry will survive and be even stronger.

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I think that there needs to be accountability with people.

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And I realize it's a fairly small percentage.

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But every ministry has a certain amount of critics.

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And there have been people that have just been waiting for this and are just downright

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nasty.

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To burn a ministry to the ground is just the tool of Satan, in my opinion.

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And if there was a leader needed to be removed and a new leader put in, that's one thing.

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If a ministry needs to clean up its ass.

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If it needs to burn it down, what's going to replace it?

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Are we going to quit interceding and have that harp and bowl kind of thing?

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I hope not.

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This is a movement that is way bigger than what's happening there in Kansas City.

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And I just encourage my viewers and listeners to speak up on social media and defend righteousness,

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tell people to pray for the leadership there, General Fuller and the others.

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And these people that apparently are offended or have some kind of grudge or they have some

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kind of axe to grind, they're bringing in lawyers, which always complicates everything.

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I mean, their motives, their actions, their attitudes, not cooperating like General Fuller

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said, releasing things to these videos and so forth.

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That's just wrong.

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And they need to be confronted.

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We need to do it in Christian love.

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We need to not be guilty of worse than they are.

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But I would encourage people to stand up to them, share this podcast on social media.

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And next Tuesday on my regular strength report, I'm going to opine.

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There's some things that we did not specifically go into today, partly because of time.

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I think you can kind of see my own perspective.

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I've never hidden it.

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You can go on my strength report and see previous podcasts that I've done, which is mainly just

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try to voice caution and let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

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Let's let this process go through.

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And I didn't want to say a whole lot until it's come to some kind of conclusion.

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But basically, you're just going to move on.

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And I'm not even sure what the other side can do except just gripe about it on social

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media.

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I mean, there's not a legal thing that, you know, there's no lawsuit, for example.

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And isn't it a pity that lawsuits get involved in what happens in the church?

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Thankfully, it's not happened here.

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But let me, as we wrap up this podcast, I want to give you the last word.

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Well, I thank you for that and appreciate especially the prayers for everyone here because

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it is a very difficult time for both sides of this.

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But I will say there's a lot that we're going to do.

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We've already started.

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We are reorganizing the way, for lack of a better term, the headquarters of this ministry

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functions and cleaned it up significantly.

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I know a lot about organizational efficiency.

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We've gone in and updated or in the process of updating all of our HR policies, concern

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and sexual harassment, sexual assault, misconduct of all kinds to bring them up to the today's

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best practice standards and making sure we've got training for the people involved on the

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proper way to report these incidents and then how a person who receives that report must

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handle it going forward.

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And so, yeah, we're working on this.

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And then another one is you may have heard my, I talked to the leadership here on the

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lack of leader training and leader development and leader selection criteria.

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And so we're working very hard to put those measures in place because with good leadership,

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well-trained leaders at every level, these kinds of incidents and reports can be handled

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really quickly and properly and not get into a swirl of long-term investigations and such.

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And there's also a need for a governance structure that allows for an external look if some senior

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leader in the organization is accused of something because obviously it's not appropriate for

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the members of the organization to investigate their own boss.

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And so we're working on that too.

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We're going to put that structure in place so that we can prevent these kind of things

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from being blown all out of proportion in the future.

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Well, that sounds like a lot of wisdom and also those steps will also protect a leader

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that is falsely accused.

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That's true.

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And if this is just an example that was very well known was Justice Kavanaugh.

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There were people who wanted to do anything they could to keep him off the Supreme Court

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and they came up with what turned out to be trumped up charges from when he was in college.

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He maintained that they weren't true and there was no evidence.

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And finally, the whole thing just kind of went away.

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And there are some other examples as well.

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Alan Dershowitz, the well-known Jewish lawyer, also was able to prove that charges against

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him were not true.

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Sadly, too often, whether there's smoke, there's fire.

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I don't want to minimize it.

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And I'm not specifically trying to defend Mike Bickle, even though I consider him a

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friend and he has, of his own accord, you can find it online, has issued a statement

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admitting to impropriety that happened 24 years ago.

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But I'm just concerned about the body of Christ, the Christian community, what is going to

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happen if these kinds of things are allowed to go on.

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Every ministry is vulnerable in some way to attacks.

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There is a small industry of people who just hate ministries.

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There are people in our culture who hate religion of all types and just want it to go away.

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And thankfully, the government is not persecuting ministries in the ways that we see in some

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foreign countries, although persecution of Christians in our country is worse now than

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has ever been in my lifetime.

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But this persecution is coming from within the Christian community.

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It's not from outsiders.

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But there are people who pick up on this.

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The right-wing watch is a group that comes to mind.

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They just love to publicize this kind of thing.

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And really, we Christians need to pray, as General Fuller said.

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We need to pray.

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This is a spiritual attack and we need to recognize it for what it is.

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Now spiritual attacks use circumstances and people.

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It doesn't mean one side is all right and the other one is all wrong.

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But we have to recognize that this is a spiritual attack and we need to take authority over

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those spirits in the name of Jesus.

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And I like to believe that the Scripture, that all things work together, is true.

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Even in horrible situations like this, I hope that IHOPKC comes out stronger.

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I hope that Mike Bickel, this is my opinion as his friend, I hope that he reemerges in

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ministry stronger than he has before.

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You know that this is a humbling experience to have your name thrown all over social media.

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To his credit, he has been very quiet and doesn't defend himself.

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This has been his stance over the years and I respect him for that.

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I think that other Christian leaders and other organizations can learn from this.

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So thank you for tuning in.

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We actually went over a little bit.

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We had one of the largest audiences live and I'm going to be interested in reading all

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the comments later and if you have questions that you'd like for us to deal with in future

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00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:26,400
podcasts be sure to put them in the comments.

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But let's close in prayer.

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And General Fuller, I'd like to ask if you would lead in prayer and then I'll wrap up

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at the end of the podcast.

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I haven't said yet that if you don't subscribe to my podcast, be sure to do so.

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00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:44,400
Hit the little bell so that you're notified when we're on live Tuesdays and Thursdays

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00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:47,000
at 4pm Eastern time.

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00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:50,520
And as I said before, be sure to share this on social media.

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00:32:50,520 --> 00:32:56,080
I think what General Fuller shared about what's going on at IHOPKC is very, very important

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and we need to get that word out.

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So would you do what you encouraged us to do and that's to pray about the situation and

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then I'll wrap it up.

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Lord Jesus, we thank you with all of our hearts for all that you do for us every day, all

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of the things that we don't even deserve.

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And we ask you to enter into this situation here and bring forgiveness, Lord.

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Bring forgiveness and healing for everyone involved because there's a lot of hurting

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people here.

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And Lord, you hear my voice.

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I'm breaking up because I know how much pain is involved.

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And I know that the only way to cure, to heal a wound is for you to forgive the one who

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inflicted it on you.

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00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:52,640
And so we asked you through your Holy Spirit to move the hearts of everyone involved and

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bring us that place of tearful forgiveness and healing in the name of Jesus.

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And Lord, I say amen to what Kurt Fuller has prayed and I believe, Lord, I just humbly

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00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:12,400
ask that good somehow comes from this terrible situation.

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And Lord, even as the unbelievers watch what happens, I just pray that it be handled even

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as IHOPKC moves forward.

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Lord, I just pray that you cause the advocacy group as it's called to see the wisdom in

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00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:34,160
these decisions and to let this thing just drop or to bring things forward so they can

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00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:36,200
be dealt with.

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And Lord, I just pray that each of us will examine our own hearts and try to live righteous

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lives before you and to deepen our own relationship with the Holy Spirit and to be sober and to

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not be judgmental.

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Lord, help us not to be judgmental, help me not to be judgmental in my own attitude or

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how we cover things at Charisma Media.

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We just thank you and praise you, Lord, for answering this prayer.

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Amen.

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And I thank everyone who tuned in, who stayed with us this long, and once again, share this

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video and thank you to General Kurt Fuller for being my guest today on The Strang Report.

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God bless you.