You Know a Tree By Its Fruit - Mike Bickle, IHOPKC, and the Prophetic Prayer Movement

The prophetic prayer movement is a bad tree with bad fruit

Context 

Before I start this series on the prophetic prayer movement, let me give a little context. 

A significant shift happened in evangelicalism from 1978-1989 via the Vineyard association of churches. People who called themselves evangelical were primarily cessationists and believed that the gifts of the Holy Spirit like healing and prophecy had ceased being present in the church. These cessationist churches included baptists, fundamentalists, and all mainstream churches like Presbeterians and Lutherans. Today, almost none of these churches are still cessationists. John Wimber and the Vineyard played a pivotal role by being evangelical in theology but charismatic in practice. 

Vineyard church services always included extended times of worship and an open ministry time which included the laying on of hands. Both practices, extended worship and the ministry time, gave space for congregants to experience the Holy Spirit. 

Vineyard church services were simple, somewhat clumsy, filled with compassion, and were almost always … a beautiful thing. 

But all that changed in 1989 with the introduction of the prophetic prayer movement. 

Unfortunately, thirty some-odd years later, this prophetic prayer movement is far more influential than the Vineyard ever was.

Recently, it has come to the surface that the leaders of the prophetic prayer movement including Mike Bickle are charlatans. The influence of Mike Bickle and the prophetic prayer movement cannot be overstated. The prophetic prayer movement and its restorationist theology have greatly influenced men like Mike Johnson and Lou Engle, and institutions like YWAM and Bethel church.  

My Experience

In 2004, I wrote a piece critical of the Kansas City Prophets and their negative impact on my home church, the Anaheim Vineyard, and the Vineyard movement. That piece, Weird or Winsome: My Experience with the Kansas City Prophets, was critical of the content of the “words” given by Paul Cain and Bob Jones. I focused on two “words” that I thought were quite destructive to the ministry work I was doing at the time. The first word was something Mike Bickle used to say and became part of the Vineyard culture at the time. The saying was that  “God offends the mind to reveal the heart.” In practice this saying communicates the following: “I know what I am doing or saying seems super creepy and sounds super megalomaniacal but that's because you just don’t get it. You are resisting the work of the spirit.” What this mantra resulted in was it became very difficult to hold anyone accountable. Weird and maniacal behavior often mixed with mental illness became a means of self promotion. 

At the time, I was leading a recovery home where we ministered to men with a history of addiction or who were marginally employable. Chaos and weirdness for these guys feels too much like their past or their family of origin. I stopped taking a lot of these guys to church. Church just wasn’t helpful for their transformation. Addicts don’t need weird; they need winsome. 

The second word which had a negative impact on Vineyard culture back in the early 1990’s came from Paul Cain. Paul Cain was the “super prophet” per Mike Bickle’s telling. The word Paul gave that did so much damage was that “there will be a wind of holiness followed by a wind of power.” Just repeating this word makes me angry. This theological nonsense makes me want to cuss. The entire vibe of the early Vineyard was that God, our Father, embraces really messed up people. It was from this basis of humility that John Wimber used to say, “I am just a fat man going to heaven.” The Vineyard vibe, the heart of what the place felt like, was often summed up by the saying “everyone gets to play.” The gospel creates an egalitarian community, a liminal space where all come to the table as sinners saved by grace. 

We are all just clowns on the bus. 

Paul Cain’s word is entirely counter to what I just described. The Paul Cain word says, “No, what you have now is not the big thing, the historic thing, the heroic thing. Stop what you are doing. Pray. And wait for the BIG thing, the end-time revival” and to make this megalomaniac poison go down a little easier it adds ah little…”Oh, and God told me.”  

Via this word, this theology, and the practice of endless prayer meetings, the prophetic prayer movement replaces the cross and resurrection of Jesus, the doorway into the kingdom of God, with corporate prayer. 

The result of Paul Cain’s false word about holiness preceding power was that the Vineyard, spiritual speaking, shut down. People stopped doing the stuff.  It was almost immediate. John Wimber knew something had changed, but he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what was the theological or sociological reason for the change. 

It just felt different. 

The best John could do was say, “dance with who brung ya.” Sadly, John’s “dance with who brung ya” saying was not clarifying enough to rid the Vineyard of the poison of the restorationist, revivalistic, end-times church, hierarchical theology that is the “prophetic prayer movement.” 

It is All About Theology

Here is my reason for writing this series. The gospel. 

The gospel is the good news that the kingdom of God is available now. As Jesus said, “the kingdom of God is within reach.” There is nothing you need to do to enter it other than faith. Just face it and walk into it, or again, as Jesus said, “repent and believe.” (Mark 1:15)

Paul Cain’s word and the prophetic prayer movement's word about an end time revival is antithetical to the gospel of the already present kingdom. The prophetic prayer movement in practice says,  “No!! The presence of God you are experiencing and the ministry of compassion you are extending is not the big thing. There is something bigger and more historic and heroic in the future and your prayers are the key to unlocking this historic revival.” 

Let me say this again. The prophetic prayer movement is a bad tree with bad fruit. The theology that some great revival event is going to happen in the future and we need to pray for it and wait for it is an anti-gospel theology. The theology is the bad tree and it always will bear bad fruit. 

Currently, those who are admitting that they played the fool in trusting Mike Bickle and Paul Cain and who, quite frankly, came to prominence on Mike Bickle’s coat tails or via the prophetic era of the Vineyard need to renounce the entire theology (the tree) that is foundational to what I am calling “the prophetic prayer movement.” The tree, the theology, of an end time revival is poison and undermines the gospel of grace. 

Pardon my redundancy.  

The idea that the church is going to pray in some historical revival that will restore the church to its former glory or into some future glory is poison. This theology caters to the worst in all of us. This theology of a great historic end-time revival that you can usher in plays to the ego. It is manipulative. It is anti-intellectual. It attracts narcissists. The problem is the theology, not the people. Mike Bickle or Paul Cain or Rick Joyner or Alan Scott are not the problem. The idea that our “holiness”, “piety”, or prayer is the secret sauce to shift history plays to the human tendency to make ourselves or some leader the hero of some great cosmic drama. 

We all long for meaning. 

We all long desperately for meaning. 

We all long for transformation, for holiness. But, it is only the gospel of an already present kingdom that gives our lives purpose and meaning. The promise of a revival in the future is NOT the gospel. The gospel is much simpler than that. 

Here is the gospel, the good news. The great historic event that will change the world has already happened. We call it Easter. 

You and I do not need to add anything to the work Jesus did to bring heaven on earth other than the faith to walk into it. 

You can not add anything to what is already complete. 

The future is here if we embrace it. 

Rest in it. Work into it. The great cosmic event already happened. 

You are not the hero. Some leader is not the hero. 

You do not have to wait. 

The presence is already present. 

Piety does not precede power. Jesus precedes power. Jesus precedes piety. Jesus precedes transformation, and He is risen; He is risen indeed. 

Let me end this part one of this series with this. 

There is work to be done. Faith without works is dead. But, all our works are works of grace and gratitude, justice and restoration, humility and unconditional love, community building and communion. 

Sure, bringing heaven to earth will take work and time and effort. But, you, my friend, are already fully qualified to walk into that work because, when all is said and done, we are all just clowns on the bus. 

God Bless and Happy Easter