International House of Prayer

Preaching last month at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Missouri Lou Engle declared that the massive tornado that had devestated Joplin, MO in May and killed more than one hundred people was "a sign that God's redemptive judgment" was falling upon America for the sin of abortion:

You should actually watch this whole thing because Engle goes on to relate a series of dreams about how President Obama is being called to bring an end to abortion as he praises Gov. Sam Brownback for taking steps to make it impossible to ever obtain on in Kansas:

When Texas governor and potential presidential candidate Rick Perry announced that he was holding a prayer rally called The Response, co-hosted by the American Family Association, Right Wing Watch flagged the immense influence of another group, the International House of Prayer (IHOP), in organizing the event. Members of the IHOP leadership hold high-ranking positions in The Response’s leadership team, including Director of The Response Luis Cataldo, National Student Mobilization coordinator Dave Sliker, and program coordinators Jill Cataldo and Randy and Kelsey Bohlender. Mike Bickle, the director of IHOP, is also an official endorser of the event. IHOP is closely tied to a similar prayer rally known as The Call, whose head Lou Engle has used The Call to strongly denounce reproductive rights and homosexuality, support Uganda’s “kill-the-gays” bill among other anti-gay legislation, and engage in “spiritual warfare” against the Supreme Court.

IHOP also propagates an extreme but common view held in many Religious Right circles: that the Jewish people must convert to Christianity in order to bring about the return of Jesus Christ to Earth and the End Times. Many Religious Right groups and activists, including John Hagee, another endorser of The Response, believe that the End Times will only be fulfilled once enough Jews leave their faith and become Christians.

In fact, IHOP made a video that asked people to prayer for Jews to convert to Christianity, because “He will return only when Israel is ready and willing to receive Him as their savior and king. When He returns, the entire nation of Israel will be saved.” Much like the spokesman for The Response who said that he wants members of all faiths to “seek out the living Christ” at Perry’s rally, IHOP urges members to pray for Jews to accept the Gospel:

The nation of Israel – God’s chosen people. Believers are commanded in the Bible to pray for this nation, but why? It’s true that God wants to bring forth a people from every tribe, tongue, and nation, neither Jew nor Gentile to worship before his throne, but when it comes to Israel, is there something more? Yes. God has not finished with Israel. The eternal covenant promises of God to Israel still stand.

It is through Israel that God will establish His kingdom on the Earth in fullness, and through whom, He will bring blessing to every nation. Jesus is returning to the Earth to rule as the Jewish king from Jerusalem on the throne of David.

He will return only when Israel is ready and willing to receive Him as their savior and king. When He returns, the entire nation of Israel will be saved.

The attack against Israel will escalate as we approach the End Times, with an increase in global anti-Semitism, culminating in a united political and military assault against the city of Jerusalem. For this reason, it is critical that the people of God come into agreement with God’s purpose for Israel, and take their stand in the place of prayer.

So, how should we pray? Scripture tells us to pray for two cities: our own city, and for the peace of Jerusalem. We must pray, first and foremost, for spiritual peace, that the Gospel would go forth with power among the Jewish people both globally and in the land.

We must pray for the Lord to raise up anointed, prophetic witnesses to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for it will be through the Gentiles, Paul says, that Israel will be provoked to jealousy. We must also join our prayers with those of believers in the land, praying that God would raise up an anointed witness to Yeshua in the land of Israel. We must pray for social peace in the land of Israel, both relationally and economically.

Finally, we must pray for political peace. There can be no true political peace until Jesus rules as king from Jerusalem, but until that time, we must pray for the safety of believers, the safety of the land from every demonic attack, that the Gospel might go forth with power.

Right Wing Watch has looked into organizers of Gov. Rick Perry's The Response from Cindy Jacobs, who blamed the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell for mass bird deaths in Arkansas, to televangelist John Hagee, who claimed God sent Hitler to be a “hunter” of Jews, and the rabidly anti-gay International House of Prayer. The Response's National Church and Ministry Mobilization Coordinator Doug Stringer, a Texas ‘Apostle’ who believes that the America only had it self to blame for the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 because the country rejected God and His protection:

In our gathering in Dallas, we realized there are three primary things in Scripture that are so disheartening to God that they cause Him to be ill, and they ultimately cause His presence to depart from His people:

1. Ritual or temple prostitution

2. The shedding of innocent blood on the altar

3. Licentiousness or moral looseness to the degree that it is “in your face,” including homosexuality

…

Immediately after the tragedy of 9/11, I was contacted by national media who asked me if I thought this was a judgment of God. Along with Anne Graham Lotz, I stated:

“WE ASKED GOD NOT TO BE IN OUR SCHOOLS, NOT TO BE IN OUR PUBLIC VENUES, NOT TO BE THE LORD OF OUR LIVES ANY MORE EXCEPT IN IMAGE. YET WE WANT TO BLAME GOD WHEN THINGS LIKE THIS HAPPEN?

“IT REALLY DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU MEAN BY ‘JUDGMENT’ OF GOD. IF YOU’RE SAYING GOD’S NOT PRESENT SO JUDGMENT COMES, THEN THE ANSWER IS YES. BUT THE BIBLE SAYS SIN PRODUCES DEATH. IT WAS OUR CHOICE TO ASK GOD NOT TO BE IN OUR EVERY DAY LIVES AND NOT TO BE PRESENT IN OUR LAND. THIS IS NOT AN ACT OF JUDGMENT, IT’S A WAKE-UP CALL. GOD IS LONGING TO BE IN THE MIDST OF HIS PEOPLE AGAIN.”

When I asked my friend David Ravenhill to address a gathering of pastors in Houston, he challenged us with this question: “Are you asking God to come as invited guest or as an inhabitant?”

I have many close friends who will invite me into their houses and tell me to make myself at home. While there, I know I can help myself to the kitchen, get up or go to bed when I want to, borrow a book from a bookshelf. But what would my friends think if I began painting the walls, changing out the furniture, or redecorating the living room to fit my own tastes?

This is, sadly, what we do with God. We want Him around, but only as our invited guest rather than One who has the right to create an atmosphere or an environment in which He wants to dwell.

My spiritual grandfather, Leonard Ravenhill, used to say, “Is the life you’re living worth Christ dying for?” We cannot live the kind of life worth the price our Savior paid unless we allow God in, not as a guest but as an inhabitant. We must open our hearts, our churches, and our public venues as dwelling places and allow Him to conform them to fit His preferences instead of our own. That is the difference between institutional Christianity and impartational relationship with the person of Jesus Christ.

Reuters reports that Texas Governor Rick Perry has teamed up with the American Family Association to launch his own Lou Engle-like all day prayer rally:

Saying "there is hope for America, and we will find it on our knees," Texas Governor Rick Perry has invited other governors to join him in a "solemn gathering of prayer and fasting" in August in Houston, according to the event's website.

Perry, who said recently he is considering a run for the Republican nomination to contest the presidency in 2012 against Barack Obama, has frequently made calls for prayer while governor.

"I sincerely hope you'll join me in Houston on August 6th and take your place in Reliant Stadium with praying people asking for God's forgiveness, wisdom and provision," Perry wrote in materials promoting the event, called "The Response, a Call to Prayer for a Nation in Crisis."

A message on the event's website says it is in response to a historic crisis and calls it "a non-denominational, apolitical Christian prayer meeting," with the goal "to rise up and make a sound that will be heard in heaven."

The site says Perry "has invited all US governors as well as many other national and Christian political leaders."

"Right now, America is in crisis," Perry says in a message on the site. "We have been besieged by financial debt, terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters. As a nation, we must come together, and call upon Jesus to guide us..."

Perry's spokeswoman could not be reached for comment on the August event on Sunday.

Eric Bearse, a spokesman for The Response, said on Sunday: "The governor told the American Family Association about a month ago that we need to call Americans together for a time of prayer."

Bearse said the Mississippi-based American Family Association, a conservative Christian activist group, is paying for the event, and admission will not be charged.

According to the event website, the prayer rally will take place at Reliant Stadium in Houston and last from 10 am to 5 pm and will feature Don Wildmon and Buddy Smith of the American Family Association, Jim Garlow of Renewing American Leadership, David Lane, who was involved in the effort to remove the Supreme Court Justices in Iowa and is behind the various "Restoration Project" events across America, former Congressmen Bob McEwen, as well as several leaders associated with Lou Engle and/or the International House of Prayer in Kansas City.

In September, the International House of Pancakes sued Kansas City's International House of Prayer for trademark dilution and infringement.

But last week, the pancake chain decided to drop its suit and attempt to resolve the conflict out of court:

The International House of Pancakes has dropped its trademark infringement lawsuit against a church, agreeing to resolve its dispute with the International House of Prayer out of court.

On Dec. 21, the restaurant chain dismissed its case against the church, with its lawyers citing "ongoing mediation with the defendants," according to documents filed in federal court in Los Angeles.

The restaurant chain sued the church in September, alleging it misappropriated IHOP trademarks with its website, ihop.org, and in signs and events at its headquarters in Kansas City, Mo., and California ministries. The church also has affiliates in San Jose, Santa Maria, Calif., and Dublin, Calif.

When the lawsuit was filed, restaurant spokesman Patrick Lenow said the church's use of IHOP and related phrases confused customers, undermined trademarked uses and risked publicly linking the chain of 1,500 restaurants with a particular faith or church.

...

Lenow, a spokesman with IHOP parent company DineEquity Inc., declined to discuss the company's expected remedies for the six claims of trademark infringement, or a timeline, for the matter to be resolved.

"We have agreed with House of Prayer not to publicly discuss the case," Lenow said in an e-mail.

We've written about the International House of Prayer a few times before, noting that it is the center of what amounts to a 24/7 Call-type rally where prayer and music and worship are underway, literally, at all times.

We knew that IHOP was founded and is overseen by Mike Bickle, and that Lou Engle has close ties to both Bickle and the institution he started, but we didn't realize until reading this profile in Charisma was just how large the organization had become and that it was expanding at an astonishing pace: 

As regimented as that structure may sound to those who thrive on spontaneous worship and prayer, it’s integral to what happens in the prayer room—which, in turn, is the heart of everything IHOP is and does. The ministry includes 1,000 full-time staff and 1,000 full-time students at the university, IHOPU, yet each person’s role, function and purpose at IHOP begins entirely in the prayer room, where adoring Jesus is blended with rending the heavens on behalf of everything from abortion to Israel to revival on college campuses.

...

Such a prayer-saturated climate undoubtedly factored into the student “awakening” that erupted out of a 9 a.m. Bible class last November and continued first as nightly, then weekend meetings through early October. The move of the Holy Spirit drew thousands, many of whom reported physical and emotional healings. Broadcast globally on God TV, the awakening not only introduced IHOPU to a new audience, but also played a part in a surge of incoming students that includes those from abroad. This fall the university began accepting overseas applications for the first time, and leaders say they have more than 5,000 international students waiting to enroll.

The article also notes that one of Bickle's main areas of concern is the End Times and that, to some extent, the purpose of IHOP's prayer and activism is to prepare the world for that event:

One of those messages has actually become Bickle’s calling card in recent years and furthered the controversy that, for reasons beyond his control, surrounds him. Mention Mike Bickle’s name to most charismatic believers and, aside from prayer or passion for Jesus, they’ll automatically think of the end times. Indeed, Bickle has developed a unique twofold emphasis of the praying church’s call to deeply love Jesus as “friends of the bridegroom” and its role in the end times as forerunners.

As was the case with the Song of Solomon, the latter wasn’t a message he’d planned to give. Bickle calls his end-times thrust a “sovereign accident” that began with a challenge from his staff to do a 10-week series on the book of Revelation. That series turned into a seven-year sermon during which he would preach on Saturday nights and meet with a group of 20 leaders the following day to poke holes in his teaching.

“It ended up becoming a laboratory for understanding,” he says, adding that often the greatest course-changers would come from young students who were out to “prove the old man wrong.” Through this process, Bickle has landed upon teaching historic premillennialism with the added dimension of a victorious church walking in New Testament power, purity and unity.

For all Bickle’s passion to unlock in others the revelation of a loving God, he is equally as zealous to stir up a sense of immediacy and understanding among those who disregard the Bible’s specific, copious directions for the end times, which he personally believes will be seen by a generation already born.

“My generation is profoundly ignorant of what the Bible says about the end times,” he admits. “How can we go decade after decade and continue to be ignorant? Somewhere we’ve got to get intentional about getting somebody understanding it so that in the future they’ll be ready to train the kids who are currently 10 and 20. Who I’m aiming for is my children and their children—and even their children.”

That long-term generational target is also one of the driving forces behind IHOP’s recently expanded vision to combine 24/7 prayers for justice with 24/7 works of justice until Christ’s return. Of the 75 departments that make up IHOP, more than three-fourths are dedicated to action outside the prayer room—everything from orphan care to crisis response to inner-city ministry to training marketplace leaders. This is in addition to a thriving worship label, music school, conference ministry, media institute, Israel initiative, children’s and high school ministries, and an ever-increasing list of other ministries making their mark.

I guess that helps to explain why Bickle is hosting a "Korean Pastors End Times Conference" in February and an "Israel and the Church in the End Times" conference in May.

We have written about the International House of Prayer, the campus in Kansas City, MO where Lou Engle's Call-like prayer sessions go on 24/7 and which, last year, had to cancel classes because the Holy Spirit had invaded, several times before.

And now we are wrtiing about them again because this IHOP is being sued by the more famous IHOP - the International House of Pancakes:

IHOP (pancake), based in Glendale, Calif., has sued IHOP (prayer), based in Kansas City, for trademark dilution and infringement. The lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, essentially said there was room for only one IHOP and that would be the restaurant chain that has been using the initials since 1973.

The religious group drawing thousands from around the world to south Kansas City to prepare for “end times” was started just 10 years ago.

...

[T]the chain, which has 1,476 restaurants across the country, claims it has six registered trademarks with the IHOP acronym and that the religious group’s use of the same four-letter logo causes, according to the lawsuit, “great and irreparable injury and confuses the public.”

The lawsuit further accuses the church mission of adopting the name International House of Prayer knowing it would be abbreviated IHOP — the intent being to misappropriate fame and notoriety of the food chain.

On Tuesday, IHOP (pancake) spokesman Patrick Lenow said the suit was filed only after the church mission refused repeated requests to stop using the trademark.

Lou Engle recently spoke at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City about the importance of the upcoming 10th anniversary TheCall rally to be held in Sacramento, CA over Labor Day weekend to fight, in part, the "Antichrist ideologies [that are] pervading our universities and campuses":

Christians must stand on the truth of God's Word and not bow down to intimidating forces that would cause them to compromise for the sake of political and cultural expediency. We believe that this ruling is an invitation for true believers to stand for truth, pray like never before, and proclaim boldly the name of Jesus on their campuses. To simply wilt in the face of this ruling or to surrender when campuses try to misuse it to take away your rights is to give away more ground to the Antichrist ideologies pervading our universities and campuses.

When judicial and governmental rulings threaten to silence the voice of the Church, she only has one great recourse; united fasting and prayer as an appeal to heaven. ... The stakes are higher now than they were ten years ago. It is time for a spiritual revolution on the campuses of America.

But it not just about universities, it is about America ... and most importantly, political action:

I still believe in the greater revival for America. I still believe that abortion can end in America. I still believe that our education systems won't have to be taught homosexual ideologies and little Hispanic kids who can't afford to go to private education will not have to be taught the sexual immorality of the so-called false prophets of our education systems. I've got to believe that sex trafficking back be driven back and drug lords can be arrested because the praying church bound principalities and powers.

I still believe that righteous men and woman can arise in places like Hollywood and tell the stories of the fame of God. I still believe that men and women can arise into the high places of government in our nation, like Daniel.

I don't know what's going to happen, but I do know this: I've been called to stand in such a time as this. And if The Call was raised up with hundreds of thousands over the last ten years, I've still got to believe the promise He gave to me ten years ago when He spoke to me that what I am pouring out is stronger than the rebellion. This Sixties forty-year cycle is up and the Seventies forty-year cycle is ready to release another Jesus Movement. Can you believe with me for that.

Just begin to pray right now, pray for America. Pray. Just begin to pray for America. Pray God, in our darkest hour, when we don't even know right from wrong any more, nobody can even say a word publicly without being vilified, political correctness is killing our prophets, silencing the voice of truth. We have to have miracles again. Who will live for the miracle-working power of God to be displayed? I believe the days of solemn assembly are just ready to break out, that stadiums will be filled in the days of Obama.

Following my post yesterday on GOD TV's announcement that it would be airing Lou Engle's Houston prayer rally, I was searching around its website for info on how to watch it when I came across episodes from their second season of "Apocalypse and the End Times."

The series consists of lengthy interviews with people like Tim LaHaye and Mike Bickle of the International House of Prayer explaining the signs that the End Times are coming and offering advice on how to prepare.

I was particularly impressed with the episode featuring Paul McGuire, in which he explained that we are living in the End Times right now as proven by the fact that the economic crisis was entirely manufactured by international bankers as part of a plot hatched in the 1870s by socialists and intellectuals who eventually partnered with the Council on Foreign Relations.

McGuire also worked in the fringe right-wing claim about the DHS report and plans to round-up Bible-believing Christian conservatives and place them all in concentration camps:

And remember, the key is "that you have to establish your credibility, otherwise [you are] just spouting horror stories." Right "Professor" McGuire?