KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Roys Report [Chicago IL]
August 1, 2024
By Rebecca Hopkins
An executive of the embattled International House of Prayer-Kansas City (IHOPKC) is launching a new children’s ministry.
Lenny LaGuardia was IHOPKC’s executive director of the Children’s Equipping Center, one of several ministries IHOPKC has cut as they’ve faced financial and potentially legal troubles. IHOPKC’s founder Mike Bickle is accused of both child sexual abuse and adult clergy sexual abuse.
LaGuardia condemned Bickle’s alleged child abuse in February in a since-deleted account on X, adding that IHOPKC has “always deployed and enforced strict policies and processes which ensure children are safe while in our programs.”
IHOPKC has posted its child protection policy online, in which allegations must be made to the children’s director, the pastor, and then to LaGuardia. But LaGuardia was also on the executive team that some former leaders believed didn’t handle adult clergy sexual abuse allegations against Bickle transparently.
IHOPKC sent out an email yesterday to the “IHOPKC family” stating that LaGuardia would be continuing the children’s ministry through M4 Initiatives.
“We look forward to collaborating and partnering with M4 Initiatives to continue to reach the next generation,” IHOPKC’s email states.
LaGuardia and his wife, Tracy, posted a video introducing M4 Initiatives and asking for funds. Tracy said they will continue to work with “houses of prayer.”
“This nonprofit will be the vehicle that will empower us to carry on equipping and impacting the smaller saints, their families, leaders, and community,” she said. “We will continue to partner with and train houses of prayer and other organizations throughout the earth.”
Lenny said that for 40 years, he and his wife have stayed faithful “through all the different seasons of ministry.”
“And even in this uncertain hour, we are not pulling back from equipping the smaller saints,” he said on his website.
Since the scandal, IHOPKC has been bleeding $500,000 a month due to plummeting donations, according to a leaked email and recording of an IHOPKC staff meeting in April. Isaac Bennett, former pastor of IHOPKC-associated Forerunner Church, said in the leaked recording that closing IHOPKC and relaunching under a new name could limit liability if alleged victims sued the organization.
The structure of M4 Initiatives
According to its articles of incorporation filed with the Missouri Secretary of State, LaGuardia listed the organization as a public benefit corporation in July 2023, months before the scandal related to IHOPKC erupted in public. The purpose of M4 is “religious education and training for children until the age of 18 through the avenues of camps, neighborhood outreach, conferences, and seminars.”
LaGuardia, listed as president of M4 Initiatives, was still leading IHOPKC’s children’s ministry when he filed the paperwork.
According to amended articles of incorporation filed Aug. 30, 2023, M4 Initiatives’ directors and incorporators won’t be personally liable for the “debts, liabilities, or obligations of the Corporation.” That language appears standard for Missouri nonprofits, and protects directors from having to foot a nonprofit’s unpaid bills themselves in most cases. M4 Initiatives’ assets will go to IHOPKC upon dissolution, the articles states.
As of publication, M4 Initiatives hasn’t listed board members with the Missouri Secretary of State. M4 Initiatives has until Aug. 31 of the year after its initial filing to list the names of the president, secretary, and a minimum of three directors, said JoDonn Chaney, director of communications for the Missouri Secretary of State. That would be the end of this month. These names would then be publicly available, Chaney said.
M4 Initiatives’ Aug. 30, 2023, filing referenced its board as having met on Aug. 23, 2023, to make several amendments to the articles of incorporation.
LaGuardia didn’t immediately respond to The Roys Report’s (TRR) request for more information about M4 Initiatives’ accountability structure, board members, and safeguarding for children.
M4 Initiatives is also registered with the Internal Revenue Service with tax exempt status.
LaGuardia’s role with IHOPKC and its scandal
LaGuardia has led IHOPKC’s children’s ministry and been a senior vice president of Ministries and Justice Divisions for IHOPKC since 2000, according to his LinkedIn page.
In 2018, LaGuardia wrote for IHOPKC’s website about the importance of screening ministry team members and setting up protocols and procedures to protect children.
That same year, IHOPKC hired Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE) to investigate staff member Brad Tebbutt. News media had contacted IHOPKC with allegations that Tebbutt had molested a teen girl at a different church in the 1980s, starting when she was 14.
The GRACE report found that IHOPKC had accepted Tebbutt as an intern in 2012 despite his admission on his application that that he had engaged in “inappropriate touch” with a 16-year-old in his previous youth ministry. It also reported that IHOPKC failed to “prioritize the wounded,” such as by allowing Tebbutt to stay in a position of responsibility after IHOPKC leaders knew a woman from his former church accused him of misconduct.
IHOPKC didn’t make the GRACE report public. In the last few months, others have come forward alleging that IHOPKC continued to mishandle allegations of abuse by various staff members.
Last October, LaGuardia was present as an IHOPKC executive at a meeting with the husband of Jane Doe, a woman who alleged Bickle used prophecy to sexually abuse her beginning when she was 19. Days later, former IHOPKC leaders who advocated for Doe made the allegations public over concerns that IHOPKC’s executive team wasn’t being transparent enough about the allegations.
IHOPKC hired an attorney to investigate allegations about Bickle, but advocates raised concerns about its independence, and the main Jane Doe didn’t participate.
Also last October, former IHOPKC staffer Gracia, who previously went by pseudonym “Veronica” with TRR, confronted former IHOPKC Executive Director Stuart Greaves after a service for the IHOPKC-related Forerunner Church. Gracia’s friend, Deborah Bryson, also a former IHOPKC staffer, recorded the conversation.
In the recording, a copy of which TRR obtained, Bryson said Gracia approached Greaves after the service because he’d invited people to share concerns with them. In the recording, Gracia told Greaves he’d mishandled Gracia’s report of alleged sexual assault by a different former IHOPKC staffer. In the recording,Greaves denied covering up her alleged assault. LaGuardia was also there for the confrontation and told them to delete the recording. Missouri is a one-party consent state for recordings, so recording is legal as long as at least one person being recorded consented to it.
“If you don’t delete that, I’m going to give your names—your name—to somebody and they’re going to contact you,” LaGuardia said. “It will cause trouble if she’s recording to trap somebody. It’s not going to be helpful for you.”
Bryson told TRR that LaGuardia’s words felt intimidating. Bryson said a church security guard then followed the two women out to their cars and took pictures of their license plates.
“We left sobbing and terrified,” Bryson said.
TRR tried to contact LaGuardia through M4 Initiatives for comment on this interaction, but he didn’t immediately respond.
LaGuardia also previously told TRR to “cease and desist” from reprinting “baseless allegations” by Gracia alleging that Greaves pressured her not to go to police with her rape allegation.TRR did not retract the story because email evidence LaGuardia provided didn’t disprove the woman’s claims.
The way LaGuardia handled Gracia’s situation, and IHOPKC’s history with victims has made Bryson concerned about this new ministry.
“It’s an injustice,” she said. “More people are in danger of being hurt.”