Mike Bickle and His Team v. John Wimber and His Team

Yes, it really did boil down to a power struggle. It should be clear that Bickle really did try to manipulate Wimber. And the interview transcribed here is deadly serious. File this article under American Church History.

First, I have to admit up front that I used to attend the Vineyard churches for about twenty-eight years (I left in 2018) But I was never on staff at any of them; I was just a guy in the audience, observing. I was never part of any staff meetings, nor did they consult with me for advice or asked my opinion. Why would they?

Looking back now, I believe God spared me from being in leadership, not because I did not appreciate Wimber and his team. I did. But had I been in leadership, I may not have contributed much. And I also see that God protected me from the chaos throughout the late 1980s and mid-1990s. I don’t think I could have handled it. I may have been entangled in the hyper-charisma. I am grateful for God’s mercy to keep me off to the side.

So call me an insider, but not part of the core, thankfully.

I write this post because I did see, as an eyewitness in the audience, the onslaught of the Kansas City prophets and Mike Bickle from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s. Let’s say I have an emotional interest in coming to terms with the chaos and ordeal, as I perceived them.

I base most of this analysis on Sam Storms’ book The Rise and Fall of the Kansas City Prophets (Cascade Books, 2026). See Appendix A, pp. 257-80, for a long and deep look into Kansas City Fellowship’s (later Metro Vineyard Fellowship and then back again and later Forerunner church) and Vineyard’s complicated relationship. Several important and primary documents are in his book. But a very revealing interview makes up the third section of my post here.

This will be the last post about his book.

Here is the companion piece:

Review of Sam Storms’ Book ‘The Rise and Fall of the Kansas City Prophets’

Now let’s begin the analysis of the disputes and eventual breakup with the documents available to us.

Fourteen-Page Letter and Some Follow ups

The first sign of confusion and chaos is a strange, but well-written fourteen-page letter from Mike Bickle (and Michael Sullivant and Sam Storms) to John Wimber. It is dated July 4, 1996 and found on pages 257-74.

I read the long letter twice and some sections several times, and the style was excellent for someone writing in the 1890s (yes, the 1890s. And by the way I like the writing style of the 1800s). It was very flowery and respectful, but It also oozed with saccharin. Much too sweet. A lot of flattery. It is also filled with hyper-charismatic, overly complicated nonsense.

Evidently, Bickle was saying how the two visions of their churches lined up under the “banner” of “Worship, Compassion, Prophetic, and Intercession.” I heard John say the Vineyard is a compassionate and worshipping church. That’s true. And I suppose churches need identifying features like those four things. But the letter was so long I could not understand clearly what Bickle wanted from Wimber..

I see on pp. 272-74 four requests, but they are still difficult to pin down:

(1) A Meeting, but Metro Vineyard Fellowship (MVF) will never compromise on its mandate;

(2) Assurance of full participation (God’s purpose is for both MVF and the Association of Vineyard Churches (AVC);

(3) Blessing on a personal letter (MVFwill apologize to John Arnott for AVC doing what exactly? dissing him? Cutting him loose?);

(4) A unified communication between MVF and AVC. If AVC were to issue a statement, let it be done with the cooperation of MVF, together. If AVC does not comply, MVF will have to withdraw and go its own way.

The real problem, as I see things, is the second request. MVF was just one Vineyard church among hundreds. How could they make such a request? Bickle and his team are imposing God’s purpose on the entire Vineyard movement. Surely this is presumptuous (in my opinion). They thought very highly of themselves. It’s their so-called prophetic history that clouds their judgment.

They held the meeting on July 31, 1996. And here is a short summary of the follow up letter from Bickle and his team, undated. It must have been a mere few days after the meeting, because Bickle and Storms will withdraw from the AVC through a letter composed on August 6, 1996 (see below). The undated follow-up letter finally names three men of the executive council: Rick Olmstead, Bert Waggoner, and Bob Fulton. Then John Wimber asked Bob Fulton to ask Bickle if Bickle had a hidden agenda and was manipulative. Bickle assured them that he had none and was not. What else would he say? (But the interview section, below, says otherwise).

Once again this follow-up letter is very flowery and uses superlatives. Here’s a sample: “We continue to maintain that Vineyard pastors are among God’s choice men in the earth. We sincerely enjoy them and feel significant unity of vision and values with many of them” (p. 274). This seems very calculated and designed to flatter. Or Bickle has an agenda to promote the KC prophetic history and wants written documentation to show how pure he is in relation to the Vineyard. If there are any disagreements, Vineyard must take most of the blame. Specifically, the three named men must be blamed for any discord.

I don’t exactly know what happened during the “arbitration” (Bickle’s word, p. 274)) on July 31, 1996, because I was not there, but I can play a little Sherlock Homes and make reasonable deductions.

(1) Bickle has an extremely high view of himself and his prophetic history. Dr. Storms’ book is mostly, but not entirely, a defense of it, with some criticisms thrown in, long after the events. I can easily imagine Bickle going on and on about the prophetic history at various meetings. Or he could quickly mention some miraculous prophecy or coincidence to dazzle them all.

(2) Olmstead, Waggoner, and Fulton–and perhaps Wimber himself– must have challenged MVC’s (or KCF’s) prophetic history and its attempted supremacy and surge towards global leadership and fame. In contrast, I don’t recall that the Vineyard leaders constantly appealed to miraculous events and revelations to jumpstart and sustain their new movement. They just used church growth principles.

Bickle’s Letter of Withdrawal

So it seems that AVC did not comply with the vision that Bickle, Storms, and Sullivant asked of it.

In Sam Storm’s book he writes that he and Mike Bickle were visiting Anaheim Vineyard for a pastors conference in 1995 (they were part of the Vineyard at this time), Wimber said that he regretted leading the Vineyard towards the prophetic movement. It was not healthy. Bickle and Storms were disappointed and concluded that this was Wimber’s board and his recent cancer diagnosis speaking, not Wimber himself. Wimber and other Vineyard leaders repeated similar things at another annual leaders conference, in 1996, and Bickle and Storms drew similar conclusions (pp. 177-79).

In reply, Bickle and Storms, with soul searching and repentance, hid themselves away in Bickle’s (infamous) office, a little tidbit Storms includes, apparently designed to impress us. Deep men of prayer. What happened next? They composed a letter withdrawing from the Vineyard, on August 7, 1996. (Storms reproduced the transcript of the letter, pp.178-79). I had thought Wimber kicked Bickle out, but Bickle and Storms kicked themselves out. Glad to know the other side.

Or maybe the feelings were mutual, and both broke up with each other.

Interview with Wimber’s Daughter and Son-in-Law

The relations between MVF and AVC were not always so flowery and respectful as the letters from MVF imply.

This is an interview recorded by the podcast Minor Prophets on April 10, 2025. Stephanie is John Wimber’s daughter and Danny Ruppe is married to Stephanie, making him Wimber’s son-in law. The interview is time stamped, and this part of the long conversation begins at 1:26. FF to there if you don’t have time to listen to the whole thing (see the link below). For the record, I never met them.

The Ruppes don’t have kind words about Bickle or MVF or the whole Kansas City church thing and prophetic movement. The leaders of the movement were too aggressive, like the mafia, trying to take over. Bickle comes across as a heavy-handed manipulator, just like his fourteen-page letter. Wimber and his son Chris have cancer because of the separation between Metro Vineyard Fellowship (Kansas City) and the Vineyard denomination. Stephanie says there are notes, written by Wimber, about his phone conversations with Bickle. Those notes are primary sources.

John Wimber died November 17, 1997, and his son Chris Wimber died February 6, 1998. The Ruppes allege that the KC movement and prophets and Bickle “kicked” John Wimber into an early grave.

Let’s begin.

Stephanie:

Yeah. So, you know, at the end of my dad’s life, I’ll just say this first. At the end of my dad’s life, my brother witnessed it. I witnessed some of it. And then of course since then I know that there’s documented my dad’s notes and stuff. Uh Danny has said often these guys put my dad in the grave–

Danny:

–They they literally well they kicked him–

Stephanie:

They kicked him into the grave. I mean they really did.

Danny:

It was painful–

Stephanie:

–It was painful to watch. It was horrific how aggressive they were. And I’ve had first first like know hand knowledge of having conversations with people that were there that were from from uh Bickle’s church at the time who loved the Vineyard and they love my dad and all that and they they’ve told me uh they were like mob bosses. He goes, “Man, they wanted they wanted your that platform. They wanted the Vineyard platform.” And he goes, “They were so aggressive.” So my dad to the very end–

–Danny:

wolves

Stephanie:

Yeah. to the very end of my dad’s life there’s notes of my dad you know writing call Bickle I mean like big you know very large letters and he’s very upset and my brother overhearing conversations and then my dad hanging up the phone and my brother’s saying what happened and he said you know Bickle, man, he just keeps pushing us and pushing us and trying and trying and so aggressive he never lets up and he’s still say they’re still saying that you know that that because I didn’t embrace what if because I separated from them that I have cancer, that Chris is dying of cancer, my brother. Um, they’re still saying that. And he said, “It’s just–

Danny:

–separated from Toronto, too. I mean, the whole thing–

Stephanie:

–all of it.” So, he said, “I’m just so tired of this.” And he, you know, he died a month later. And so, so my point is they they did they they they kicked him into the grave. They just were relentless. and Jack Dear has been really really pretty good about walking some of that back and saying, “Yeah, I was right in there with them.” And I do appreciate that.

Source: Minor Prophets, “John Wimber’s Daughter: Early Vineyard, Mike Bickle, Kansas City Prophets & Alan Scott.” April 10, 2025. Youtube video.

Anyone who says two men are dying of cancer because they no longer belong to the Kansas City movement is evil. What a manipulator! His tone in the letters, though pushy, is very respectful. But this interview is a testimony from a couple who lived through it. It seems the pushy aspects in the Bickle letters prevailed in the phone calls between Bickle and Wimber.

An unrecorded phone call cannot go into the historical records as easily as written correspondences can. Another manipulative stance to make Bickle seem awesome and flatter Wimber and the AVC. But the phone conversations tells the opposite story. Bickle really was manipulative. Bob Fulton’s and Wimber’s perceptions of this were right.

Conclusion

Bickle is a manipulator of the worst kind. I believe there is something demonic about that man, as if a principality was guiding him. A report says that throughout the 1980s and up until his exposure in October 2023, he seduced or attempted to seduce seventeen (or more) women, two of whom were minors. In one case he committed child abuse from 1980 to 1984 or 1985, when she turned 18 (no longer a minor), but the clergy sexual abuse continued with her until she got married in July of 1988.

Diabolical. Criminal.

Review of Sam Storms’ Book ‘The Rise and Fall of the Kansas City Prophets’

At that link, I describe just some of Bickle’s self-serving visions and revelations and other misconduct. This pollutes the “awesome” prophetic history.

I believe that God allows, in his judgment, lying spirits to infiltrate churches that are led by men who displease him (see 1 Kings 22 and 2 Chron.18; 1 Tim. 4:1). First Timothy 4:2 says those who listen to deceitful spirits have a seared conscience. Bickle seems to have a seared conscience. His constant grooming of seventeen+ young women over the years proves it.

Bickle writes flowery prose in his letters, which provide a written record for a later history that must be written about the “magnificence” of the whole KC movement. The whole KC thing will soon outshine the Vineyard denomination, Bickle and the KC leaders seem to believe. The AVC must eventually submit to Bickle and his God-ordained movement, backed up by all sorts of miraculous words and dreams and visions and coincidences. But this love for his “prophetic history” (what a phrase!), while he was seducing or attempting to seduce seventeen or more women, shows his arrogance and self-deception in the extreme.

So it seems Bickle did not like it when Wimber and others tampered with or even hinted at questioning Bickle’s prophetic history and movement. Therefore Bickle withdrew from the AVC.

Any team member of Bickle should have been discerning and should have withdrawn from Bickle’s church, not write a letter cutting himself off from a small amount of light filtering through the darkness. But instead Bickle’s team attached themselves to an independent operator (Bickle), when they should have placed themselves under the protection of many leaders at the Vineyard (regardless of the three leaders Bickle did not like). But team Bickle chose him over Wimber.

Maybe all the KC leaders became enamored (and entangled) with the prophetic movement and history. They would be the center of a global revival! Imagine that! 24/7, 365 intercession! Church leaders from all over the world will come (and did come) and check out what was happening in the Big KC! They will model their ministries after the KC Movement.

Heady stuff.

Let me conclude with something personal. While at Anaheim Vineyard, I heard one “pilgrim” say in the early 1990s he was going to Kansas City to join the movement and the exciting times. I thought about it, but never felt led to become a pilgrim to the “holy place.” Just the opposite. I was still working on my doctorate (though I could have gone rogue and hyper-charismatic and irresponsibly dropped out), but I still had no desire to go there. And I now recall that God clearly directed me to stay away. So it seems this was, once again, God’s protection and mercy on me. I’m grateful.

Review of Sam Storms’ Book ‘The Rise and Fall of the Kansas City Prophets’

Observations on the Early Vineyard Movement

The New Apostolic Reformation

Observations on New Apostolic Reformation and Christian Nationalism

Calling Leaders by Name to Repent

True Church Leaders Do Not Lord It over God’s People

True Church Leaders Do Not Weaponize Matthew 18 against Victims of Abuse

Mature Disciples Do Not Make Excuses for Unsound Christian Leaders

10 Apostleship

11 Two Genuine Apostles

12 Prophets and Prophecy

New Testament Restricts Authority of Modern Prophets