BREAKING NEWS LIVE STRANG REPORT with General KURT FULLER

0:00 Hello everyone, I'm Stephen Strang and welcome to this very special edition of the Strang Report for Thursday, January 25th. And I have an exclusive today, a scoop if you would, from the acting chairman of the Board of International House of Prayer Kansas City, which has been embroiled in a controversy for more than three months. And today I believe that we can say that it's a turning point and it came as a result of some decisions made by leaders of International House of Prayer Kansas City who released a video on X formerly known as Twitter last night and General Kurt Fuller, who said to call him Kurt, has agreed to be on my podcast today live.

1:03 And those of you who are watching live are able to ask questions and the ones that are appropriate, our engineer John Matarazzo will share them and maybe we can get some clarity. But first let me just say that I was very encouraged to see this video. I have dealt with what's going on in Kansas City a couple of times in a very, very general way. I didn't want to get into taking sides. I didn't want to try to decide who was right or wrong. There's so much that we don't know. We do know that we want righteousness to prevail. We want this ministry to go forward and to succeed. I have been concerned talking to a few people I know who are affiliated with the ministry, watching what's on social media, that there are some people who almost want to burn the ministry to the ground.

1:54 And I believe that it's a spiritual attack. The Bible says we wrestle not against flesh and blood. This isn't about people who have brought accusations. It isn't about different leaders in the ministry. I believe this is a spiritual attack to bring down quite for many years has been a very, very effective ministry to call the entire body of Christ to a deeper intimacy with Jesus. I focused on 24-7 prayer in a way that no other ministry has, any ministry that I know, and I've been involved. I knew this ministry when it started back in 1999.

2:34 I've personally been a supporter. I've personally been to the prayer room many times. I'm always happy to divulge my perspective. I'm trying very hard to be objective as any good journalist would be, but I do have a vantage point. And as time goes on, I will be opining. But today I want to get from Kurt Fuller himself what he shared and where the ministry is as of today, January 25th. Of course, it changes as circumstances changes as decisions are made. So let me first of all, welcome General Fuller and thank you for taking time. I know how busy you are, and I'm excited that we're able to get a scoop in the sense that this just happened.

3:20 Why don't you start by telling your role. I know you're the acting chairman of the board and also acting executive director of the mission base there in Kansas City in Grandview, just south of Kansas City. I've been there many times over the years and have the app on my phone. I often will turn the app on in my own quiet time in the morning with whatever's happening in the prayer room. I know many people who are watching do as well. So how did you get involved with International House of Prayer, Kansas City, and specifically the topic of today's podcast is really to talk through what you announced on X, formerly known as Twitter last night.

4:02 Sure. Thanks, Steve. Well, to start with, I was listening to Mike Bickel all the way back to my time as a colonel in the Army back in the mid 2000s or early 2000s. I think I heard his first teaching on the book of Revelation and I got interested in the whole concept of end times prophecy. And so, yeah, we've been listening to him for quite some time, my whole family. And then my daughters became big fans of Misty Edwards and some of the other worship leaders here. So we started playing prayer room live stream in our house.

4:43 But how I got involved in this crisis situation was I was the vice chairman of the board of directors. And when the crisis broke, we heard about the allegations against Mike Bickel. I was appointed as the head of an executive committee that would look into the allegations. And then a little while later, Stuart Greaves, who was the chairman of the board and also the executive director of the missions base, when he resigned, I didn't realize this was about to happen, but I automatically became the acting chairman and also the acting executive director.

5:26 So I had play I'm dual headed in both roles right now. Well, I've had Stuart on my podcast, of course, in happier times. And I know he's a very fine man. In fact, over the years as I've gotten to know different leaders, my impression without exception was the people I met were good, godly people. In some ways to me, the ministry almost seemed above reproach. It wasn't greedy. They gave things away. They were able to recruit thousands of people to actually move to Kansas City to be a part of the movement in a lot of different ways.

6:07 I've always known Mike Bickel to be very, very generous. He has not clamored for fame and success like a lot of ministry leaders. And in my role as the publisher of Charisma Magazine, I've seen it all over the years. And so I was shocked when these allegations came forth. Of course, it's not the first time there have been allegations against a church leader. I mean, all of us are aware that in the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist, in the early Pentecostal movements, there were accusations of immorality with Amy Semmel, MacPherson, even if anybody knows the history, Charles Parham himself.

6:51 I mean, we're not here to talk about that. The Apostle Paul had to deal with these things at the church in Corinth. So this is not new. It was just that I hop Casey, in my opinion, as an observer, was that it was in kind of it was. There was a purity. There was teaching on intimacy with Jesus in a way that a lot of a lot of good ministries teach kind of what's in it for me. You know, how can I? How can I tithe and receive God's blessing? How can I do this and and receive freedom from whatever unforgiveness or offenses or kind of complicating my life?

7:36 But with I hop Casey, it was harp and bowl. It was like worship before the father in a way that I did not grow up with in a Pentecostal church where my father was a minister. I mean, the Pentecostals loved the Lord. They'd love to sing and dance and praise the Lord and clap their hands and everything else. But there wasn't this intimacy with Jesus. And so and Mike Bickle and the other leaders there, because he didn't do it alone, seemed to bring this to the entire body of Christ. In fact, we have a house of prayer here in my area in Orlando. It's not 24 seven, but it's many, many hours a week. They follow.

8:16 They kind of follow that model. And my understanding is it's not even really affiliated with the International House of Prayer in Kansas City because Mike Bickle told people they could take his idea and kind of run with it without any control. This is almost unheard of in Christian circles. There's always control and sometimes there's good reason for control for discipline and other things. So on October 7th, the same day that Hamas attacked Israel, these charges were leveled against Mike Bickle. I was stunned, as I've already said, and I had had Mike on my podcast just a month or two before when he was calling people to pray for Israel.

8:58 If I remember correctly, five million people signed up often through their networks. It would be networks of prayer where it all added up to five million. I mean, I was stunned. I'd never seen anything like it was unprecedented as far as I was concerned. And interesting that millions of Christians, you know, I took time myself, in fact, not in any kind of official capacity, but because I was motivated by what Mike Bickle encouraged people to do to fast and pray for Israel, and of course, the Lord knew that all these things were going to happen. So here we are. This has been going on. I've been amazed at how nasty people have been on social media.

9:40 Meanwhile, Mike Bickle, we're not really here to talk about it, but he has confessed to some things that happened 24 years ago. He's been asked to step down. But if I understand right, he actually turned over the control or running of the ministry to other leaders several years ago. So this is not even about getting him out of his. And we're really not here to talk about Mike Bickle. We're here to talk about the accusations that and it's been strange because there's accusations, but there's no facts. So where does that stand and in what decision have you and the board of directors made in the last couple of days? Well, where it stands is we have an independent investigator who by her contract contractual agreement with us is separate.

10:32 We have no control over how she conducts the investigation, who she interviews or the outcome whatsoever. She will release a report independently from us. And we've been encouraging everyone who has any information at all about these allegations to come forward and speak with her. But we do know that the members of the advocate group, as they're called, which are the initial people who brought these allegations forward, have decided not to cooperate with our independent investigator. And the whole issue, the kind of standoff has revolved around this idea of a mutually agreed upon investigator.

11:22 So the concept is the victims themselves, who we don't know their identities, the advocate groups as they have them. And then the advocate group themselves get to decide for us who does the investigation. And if we don't agree to that, then we're at a stalemate. On the other hand, if we pick our own investigator and they don't agree to that, we're also at a stalemate. So that's how we've arrived at three months of negotiations trying to sort this out. And my statement last night was just to say I've had enough negotiating.

12:04 I know in my heart that this investigator is absolutely independent. She's a professional. She's got decades of experience doing these kinds of investigations. She's trauma informed and she understands abuse in the context of a ministry setting. So I don't believe there's any reason for another investigation, one that or an investigator that was picked by the advocate group or their attorney. And that's the statement I made last night. We're going to press ahead with the person we've already hired.

12:45 And we still urge everyone, anyone who has any relevant information to provide it to our investigator, Rosalie McNamara, and her report will be out very soon. And I'm certain it's going to show that we had no influence over her during the course of her investigation. Well, I think this is very interesting. And I saw the video this morning when I got up. I did not see it last night. And I thought it was very well spoken. I had actually planned to opine on it, not knowing that I would be able to get you live to comment on it.

13:27 I will opine some later because I believe there's some bigger issues in the body of Christ. You know, whatever it comes up with Mike Bickle, he's going to have to stand on what he did or didn't do. Personally, I wonder how long someone is, I don't even know how to say it, but it happened 24 years ago. So how long does that disqualify someone? Obviously when he is obviously repented and moved on. But also there's some issues about people who attack ministries. I mean, this reminds me of an old fashioned church fight.

14:09 Most church fights are not that well known outside the church where it goes on. But I mean, I know people that aren't living for the Lord because they were involved in a church fight and they were so repulsed by it. They rejected God in the process. And you know, the enemy of our souls, who we call Satan, does not want 24 hour prayer, does not want intimacy with Jesus. And all of these things that I hop KC has been known for and which will continue long after Mike Bickle's not around either from retirement or death. You know, this is bigger than just one man. He was the visionary, the one that God used.

14:52 And I'm just concerned that it's almost like a cancel culture type of mentality. I wrote a book on cancel culture and so I'm very well aware of all the... That was more in the general culture where people are trying to cancel anyone who's conservative or believes biblical values. But people are coming in and it's like they're trying to cancel Mike Bickle and Inter-Anaheism National House of Prayer, Kansas City. And I don't think it's right. It's like the spirit of the world has come in. It's almost like a spirit of me too, ism, where a person is guilty until innocent or you're guilty because I say you're guilty.

15:38 And really every ministry is vulnerable to this kind of attack. And I know you're very well aware of this. And I'm concerned about these ladies who are called Jane Doze. And when I do another podcast, I'm going to opine about this. But several of them issued a statement and said, you know, what about us? Our name has been pulled through the mud and the mire and we... And this is wrong. This is not right. What they're saying happened to us didn't happen to us. Why do you believe these unknown Jane Doze and you don't believe us?

16:18 And I think that's a very valid question that needs to be raised. Now are you just going to leave everything like it is or do you think that your investigation will get to the bottom of this and tell the truth? I don't know because I don't know what the members of the Advocate Group claim that they have. I would say they have 20 credible eyewitness reports. And I have begged them to provide those that information to me. I understand why at the very beginning of this thing, there was trust broken on both sides, the leadership here at IHOPKC as well as the leadership in the Advocate Group.

17:04 And so they didn't trust each other enough. They felt to share this information. But I asked them to share it with me directly and they have not provided it and told me they will not. And they will not provide it to our investigator. And I haven't really got a good reason for why that's the case. I mean, they said that the victims were concerned about this investigator's potential approach that it might be painful for them to share their story. On the other hand, Jane Doe, number one, the primary Jane Doe, who shared her story with pretty much everybody already to include the Roy's report and others.

17:49 So I'm not sure why she's unwilling to talk to our investigator. And the men that represent the Advocate Group, I don't understand why what they would be afraid of in talking to a female investigator. But that's where it is. And actually, the videos that they posted, which caused me to finally end the negotiations, include a lot of the information that I was asking them to provide to me. But all I can say, Steve, I'm committed to digging up the truth, whatever it takes. We found a lot of stuff on our own here, the new leadership team and I here on the base that will be combined with the report of our independent investigator, despite the lack of cooperation from others who claim to have information.

18:42 I think we can piece together a good part of it. And then, you know, if there's more information out there, hopefully somebody will be willing to finally provide it to us. But I will say this, the reason I am here and I've unapologetically said it from the very beginning is because I want to see that 24-7 prayer and worship continue. I have personally experienced the prayer room. I have seen the dedication of these young men and women singers and musicians and prayer warriors for God's army that have done this for years, some of them decades, and just selfless service to the Lord.

19:32 And I see, I mean, I am absolutely committed to make sure nothing happens to that or to them. And this video that you made, which people can find on X or by Googling your name, I'm sure, it impressed me because you talked about how things that you find wrong, you're going to clean up in that ministry. And I think that's praiseworthy. In fact, every ministry probably needs to do that kind of self-reflection from time to time, whether or not there's a crisis. And the fact that you're going to move ahead and improve things and continue to promote the 24-7 prayer, I think, is laudable.

20:20 I was also impressed by your statement that in your career, you have negotiated with all kinds of different people in your role in the military. And I wanted you to just elaborate that because this is not your first rodeo. You've had to deal with difficult situations and war situations, with foreign governments, with powerful people in our own government all the way up to the cabinet level. I know you didn't say that to make yourself look important, although you are important. But just to put it in perspective, it's interesting that the Lord has put you in this place to deal with one of the most difficult ministry situations.

21:03 And listen, I've been covering the Christian community, especially the Pentecostal and Charismatic arm, for more than four decades. And this is absolutely one of the worst crises. As far as I'm concerned, it's right up there with the Jim Baker and Jimmy Swagger scandals that we saw in the mid-80s in terms of how it affects the body of Christ. That one was different, that it was more in the secular press. This is more on social media. It's not headlines in the New York Times. It's not on the evening news with Fox News, which didn't even exist back then.

21:44 But I just said that to say that this is very difficult and it's interesting that someone with your qualifications is in leadership at this time. So maybe you can say better what I just tried to say about your experience with negotiations. Well, first, I took a long course in strategic negotiations at the Army War College. And then I had the opportunity to put that education into practice in Afghanistan and Iraq. I spent six years deployed after 9-11 fighting in the war on terror. Most of it in our nation's counter-terrorist organizations, but some in the 82nd Airborne Division as well.

22:31 And so, yeah, I had lots of opportunities to negotiate people with people and to include the National Security Council level talks on. I wasn't directly involved in like the principals or deputies committee, but there's a thing called the Coordinating Staff Group in the NSC that I was directly involved in those talks that were concerning the way ahead in Afghanistan. And I was also the NATO Operations Officer in Afghanistan for the International Security Assistance Force there. And so there were negotiations, pretty significant ones, with their NATO partners in terms of providing extra troops to the effort, et cetera.

23:21 So yeah, I had a lot of experience in it before this. And then I've done my best to negotiate with members of the advocate group to sort out this concept of an independent investigator. And we just couldn't arrive in an answer. And I gave the reasons why last night, why negotiations broke down, because I can't negotiate with people who aren't being honest in their negotiations at all. And also, who are really not doing it in good faith. At least that was my impression.

24:01 Well, I admire the stance that you're taking. Of course, it's going to take some time to find out exactly what is happening. But hopefully the ministry will survive and be even stronger. I think that there needs to be accountability with people. And I realize it's a fairly small percentage. But every ministry has a certain amount of critics. And there have been people that have just been waiting for this and are just downright nasty. To burn a ministry to the ground is just the tool of Satan, in my opinion. And if there was a leader needed to be removed and a new leader put in, that's one thing.

24:42 If a ministry needs to clean up its ass. If it needs to burn it down, what's going to replace it? Are we going to quit interceding and have that harp and bowl kind of thing? I hope not. This is a movement that is way bigger than what's happening there in Kansas City. And I just encourage my viewers and listeners to speak up on social media and defend righteousness, tell people to pray for the leadership there, General Fuller and the others. And these people that apparently are offended or have some kind of grudge or they have some kind of axe to grind, they're bringing in lawyers, which always complicates everything.

25:22 I mean, their motives, their actions, their attitudes, not cooperating like General Fuller said, releasing things to these videos and so forth. That's just wrong. And they need to be confronted. We need to do it in Christian love. We need to not be guilty of worse than they are. But I would encourage people to stand up to them, share this podcast on social media. And next Tuesday on my regular strength report, I'm going to opine. There's some things that we did not specifically go into today, partly because of time. I think you can kind of see my own perspective. I've never hidden it.

26:03 You can go on my strength report and see previous podcasts that I've done, which is mainly just try to voice caution and let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Let's let this process go through. And I didn't want to say a whole lot until it's come to some kind of conclusion. But basically, you're just going to move on. And I'm not even sure what the other side can do except just gripe about it on social media. I mean, there's not a legal thing that, you know, there's no lawsuit, for example. And isn't it a pity that lawsuits get involved in what happens in the church? Thankfully, it's not happened here. But let me, as we wrap up this podcast, I want to give you the last word.

26:47 Well, I thank you for that and appreciate especially the prayers for everyone here because it is a very difficult time for both sides of this. But I will say there's a lot that we're going to do. We've already started. We are reorganizing the way, for lack of a better term, the headquarters of this ministry functions and cleaned it up significantly. I know a lot about organizational efficiency. We've gone in and updated or in the process of updating all of our HR policies, concern and sexual harassment, sexual assault, misconduct of all kinds to bring them up to the today's best practice standards and making sure we've got training for the people involved on the proper way to report these incidents and then how a person who receives that report must handle it going forward.

27:48 And so, yeah, we're working on this. And then another one is you may have heard my, I talked to the leadership here on the lack of leader training and leader development and leader selection criteria. And so we're working very hard to put those measures in place because with good leadership, well-trained leaders at every level, these kinds of incidents and reports can be handled really quickly and properly and not get into a swirl of long-term investigations and such. And there's also a need for a governance structure that allows for an external look if some senior leader in the organization is accused of something because obviously it's not appropriate for the members of the organization to investigate their own boss.

28:46 And so we're working on that too. We're going to put that structure in place so that we can prevent these kind of things from being blown all out of proportion in the future. Well, that sounds like a lot of wisdom and also those steps will also protect a leader that is falsely accused. That's true. And if this is just an example that was very well known was Justice Kavanaugh. There were people who wanted to do anything they could to keep him off the Supreme Court and they came up with what turned out to be trumped up charges from when he was in college. He maintained that they weren't true and there was no evidence.

29:28 And finally, the whole thing just kind of went away. And there are some other examples as well. Alan Dershowitz, the well-known Jewish lawyer, also was able to prove that charges against him were not true. Sadly, too often, whether there's smoke, there's fire. I don't want to minimize it. And I'm not specifically trying to defend Mike Bickle, even though I consider him a friend and he has, of his own accord, you can find it online, has issued a statement admitting to impropriety that happened 24 years ago. But I'm just concerned about the body of Christ, the Christian community, what is going to happen if these kinds of things are allowed to go on.

30:14 Every ministry is vulnerable in some way to attacks. There is a small industry of people who just hate ministries. There are people in our culture who hate religion of all types and just want it to go away. And thankfully, the government is not persecuting ministries in the ways that we see in some foreign countries, although persecution of Christians in our country is worse now than has ever been in my lifetime. But this persecution is coming from within the Christian community. It's not from outsiders. But there are people who pick up on this. The right-wing watch is a group that comes to mind.

30:56 They just love to publicize this kind of thing. And really, we Christians need to pray, as General Fuller said. We need to pray. This is a spiritual attack and we need to recognize it for what it is. Now spiritual attacks use circumstances and people. It doesn't mean one side is all right and the other one is all wrong. But we have to recognize that this is a spiritual attack and we need to take authority over those spirits in the name of Jesus. And I like to believe that the Scripture, that all things work together, is true. Even in horrible situations like this, I hope that IHOPKC comes out stronger.

31:36 I hope that Mike Bickel, this is my opinion as his friend, I hope that he reemerges in ministry stronger than he has before. You know that this is a humbling experience to have your name thrown all over social media. To his credit, he has been very quiet and doesn't defend himself. This has been his stance over the years and I respect him for that. I think that other Christian leaders and other organizations can learn from this. So thank you for tuning in. We actually went over a little bit. We had one of the largest audiences live and I'm going to be interested in reading all the comments later and if you have questions that you'd like for us to deal with in future podcasts be sure to put them in the comments.

32:26 But let's close in prayer. And General Fuller, I'd like to ask if you would lead in prayer and then I'll wrap up at the end of the podcast. I haven't said yet that if you don't subscribe to my podcast, be sure to do so. Hit the little bell so that you're notified when we're on live Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4pm Eastern time. And as I said before, be sure to share this on social media. I think what General Fuller shared about what's going on at IHOPKC is very, very important and we need to get that word out. So would you do what you encouraged us to do and that's to pray about the situation and then I'll wrap it up. Lord Jesus, we thank you with all of our hearts for all that you do for us every day, all of the things that we don't even deserve.

33:14 And we ask you to enter into this situation here and bring forgiveness, Lord. Bring forgiveness and healing for everyone involved because there's a lot of hurting people here. And Lord, you hear my voice. I'm breaking up because I know how much pain is involved. And I know that the only way to cure, to heal a wound is for you to forgive the one who inflicted it on you. And so we asked you through your Holy Spirit to move the hearts of everyone involved and bring us that place of tearful forgiveness and healing in the name of Jesus.

33:59 And Lord, I say amen to what Kurt Fuller has prayed and I believe, Lord, I just humbly ask that good somehow comes from this terrible situation. And Lord, even as the unbelievers watch what happens, I just pray that it be handled even as IHOPKC moves forward. Lord, I just pray that you cause the advocacy group as it's called to see the wisdom in these decisions and to let this thing just drop or to bring things forward so they can be dealt with. And Lord, I just pray that each of us will examine our own hearts and try to live righteous lives before you and to deepen our own relationship with the Holy Spirit and to be sober and to not be judgmental.

34:52 Lord, help us not to be judgmental, help me not to be judgmental in my own attitude or how we cover things at Charisma Media. We just thank you and praise you, Lord, for answering this prayer. Amen. And I thank everyone who tuned in, who stayed with us this long, and once again, share this video and thank you to General Kurt Fuller for being my guest today on The Strang Report. God bless you.