If it talks like a cult, walks like a cult, barks like a cult....

[bliss]

Personal and Family Information (your application will not be reviewed without this information.)

1. Please briefly share how you came to give your life away to Jesus, including the highs and lows

of your life. You're encouraged to share both positive and negative things that are still affecting you today to help us understand you. This information will be used as we review your application.Please include one paragraph that accurately describes your present relationship with God. (1-2

pages typed on separate paper and stapled to application.)

2. Please write a summary of your relationship with your parents and siblings. Please be honest and seek to the best of your ability to give the reasons for the present circumstances. The truth no matter how difficult is not going to hinder you for being accepted into the apprenticeship.

(Please also attach to application.)

All applications are required to have these two biographical questions completed.

Yes, folks, this is an application to a thriving, hip, cool, spiritual, praying movement.

~IHOP ~

International House of Prayer- Kansas City ( they pray 24/7)

Seems these ''personal questions'' are really to be used AGAINST the student applicant at some other time......like prophesies directed toward them, weaknesses, they know exactly who is going to their schools and so they know how you think, what "Words from God" to give you, and how to manipulate you...

Sound familiar?

[JavaJane]

Bliss, this is crazy that you bring this up - it's one of the things that got me posting on GreaseSpot again... we live next to a couple who fellowship with IHOP. And even though I did not know about their religious affiliations, I kept getting this twi-kinda-vibe off of them. And then they started having meetings at their house - tons of cars parked out front. I came home, saw the cars, and had a momentary flashback to the twi days.

Lots of young people, and they all seem so niave and fakey-sweet-friendly- but-somehow-distant. It all came rushing back. They even FEEL the same way as twi!

[bliss]

Oh, they all act like I used to~when I was 20 and first got in TWI.....sickly sweet,hugging, helping everyone move...... all the while distancing myself from anyone who wasn't interested or wanted to be involved with it. (like my family!)

I have read many desperate mothers searching for answers to why their child WON'T leave this, and/or why these kids were told to NOT TALK to their parents for a year because they don't believe in or they ask too many questions.

Sad. Seems the vulnerability with this age range runs deep and these wolves know just how to stalk and attack the coup!

[waysider]

What was old is new again.

[excathedra]

i would like to resubmit my paper "from birth to the corps" thank you

[OldSkool]

WTF - do people who are intent on abusing well intentioned Christians share a common play book on how to run a multi-level-marketing cult? Is this Victor Paul Wierwille's legacy? or did he learn from someone else? Is the CIA involved? Illuminati? Da debil? Please explain. :unsure:

[JavaJane]

I did some digging a month or so ago, and it was like deja vu all over again.... These are quotes from a blog written by someone who was very involved with IHOP. Sounds like "Mike" could be VP reincarnated.

see if any of this sounds familiar...

As an intern at IHOP, our day to day lives were closely monitored and dictated. I was not allowed to go anywhere or leave IHOP premises without express verbal permission from a community leader except on our one day off. Our schedules started early in the morning with hours in the prayer room, then classes, then back to the prayer room. Our nights often ran late with required attendance at EGS (Encounter God Services) or any other special event Mike spoke at that we were required to attend. Sometimes we had to attend worship sets that ended at 10 pm or midnight. Sleep was minimal and was often un-restful when I did get it. Sleep deprivation is a commonly used tactic in many cult groups to weaken the mind and make a person more susceptible to the embracing of the doctrines taught by that cult. There are many biological and psychological effects of sleep deprivation on the mind.

or this?

Anyone who rebelled against IHOP’s rules went through a strict disciplinarian process. At its most minimal level of discipline, for an intern, this meant the loss of having a day off and having to do manual labor. Everyone was kept on a short leash. We also had weekly groups as interns that we were required to participate in where everyone was "interrogated" and pressured to open up and share their personal struggles, etc and answer personal questions about their lives, struggles, thoughts, fears, and walks with G-d. It often felt like going to some kind of confession (as in Catholocism) and some interns out and out refused to be so vulnerable and disclosing in front of people they did not know. We were all given journals and told that we had mandatory writing assignments to complete. We were to record details of our IHOP prayer room times, things God spoke to us, dreams, visions, or whatever else that happened in us spiritually and then had to turn in our journals weekly to have an internship leader review/read them. In the last month or so I was at IHOP I paid particularly close attention to the fact that internship leaders ironically prayed things over me in prayer times or at the altar in the prayer room that related directly to things I had put in my journals. So what often might have seemed prophetic was the result of the information about me they already had access to.

maybe this?

They were always an underlying pressure to bring people into IHOP. We were encouraged to invite others and get them to join what we were doing. IHOP campaigns big time to recruit new interns. At every conference, advertising and marketing videos are used to this day to promote the internships. They are played on large TV screens like presidential campaigns and are just part of the propaganda used to "sell" young people on this new version of what walking with God is supposed to look like.

Each intern paid $4,500 to attend a 6 month internship. This covered some books/teaching material we were given as well as food, lodging etc. Check this out though: Every intern lived in the Hernhutt apartments (located next door) which IHOP owned anyway so the only expense was utilities and general upkeep. There was no rent. Plus when there was a mandatory fasting day, weekend, week, etc. no meals were served. So those who didn’t choose to fast had to go out and buy food and no interns were not allowed to have jobs so this got to be a big expense since there wasn't extra money to live on.

I lived in a 2-bedroom apartment. It housed 6 girls from the ages of 20-23. 4 of us shared one room and 2 shared another. The prayer room costs nothing to attend and is free and open to the public. So hmmm….$4,500 for meals, my electric bill and some IHOP books. I currently live in my own apartment, pay all of my own bills including rent, food, gasoline, renter’s insurance, credit card bills, student loans, electric, cell phone, etc etc and ALL of that costs me approximately $1,500 a month. So basic math says that someone was getting a big paycheck because my expenses would have never cost that in an internship program where we were given so little.

hmmmm.........

n the time I was there Mike often used “them and us” types of statements when referring to “the church” or those outside of IHOP. We were given a sense of being on the “cutting edge” because we were ahead of the church and were doing something new & innovative that was going to sweep the world. It all sounded good so everyone wanted to be in on it as a “forerunner” and liked the label of being on the front lines. So no one dared questioned it.

Our family became friends with a Jewish couple who were in KC for a conference. They were part of the Ethiopian Jewish congregation in Israel and were missionaries in the US. They had some grave concerns and red flags (regarding IHOP’s theology, the model that is used with everything IHOP related, etc) that they attempted to meet with Mike and discuss. After being brushed off by Mike multiple times in his refusal to meet with him…even though they were Jewish leaders from Israel and Mike knew of them, he finally told these friends of ours that “This is how we do things here. This is just how IHOP is. It’s not for everyone.” If there was something you didn’t like or didn’t agree with, you were basically told “IHOP wasn’t for everyone so if you couldn’t handle it, maybe you shouldn’t be here.” There was no actual accountability for anything deemed wrong/un-Biblical. We were told that IHOP has its own “culture” and you must assimilate into that culture and language to really understand it. If you had a problem with something, you were told that you just had not been around long enough to understand how they did things OR that you just weren’t a good fit. These were the answers I was given when I met with internship leaders right before leaving. There was never actual admittance of wrong doing or hurting anyone who was caught in the crossfire.

Every intern was required to listen to the 12 hours of IHOP’s recorded history on CD footage. Much of this content was heavily edited before its publication. These tapes told of “prophetic words” and signs that were given to some of Mike’s mentors (Bob Jones, Paul Cain, etc)—who were all naming him as the leader of the next “big thing” God was doing. Over and over and over again I’ve heard it said (both directly by Mike as well as from others) that he (Mike) would be the leader of a movement that “changed the nature and expression of Christianity in the earth”. Every time, all recognition points to Mike. His “mission” to transform the church and capture the hearts of America’s youth has been his declared goal since the early 1980’s. One of the major dangers is that these grandious sounding claims and "prophetic" words are laden with flattery, narcissism, elitism and are a perfect guise under which anything Mike introduces through IHOP can fall under the heading of being a "new thing" God is doing.

This elitist teaching puts Mike on a pedestal and he has a Messianic-like devoted following of people who would do anything if he told them to without a moment of questioning or hesitation. From my observations and experiences on staff, IHOP members do not think for themselves or question Mike's interpretation of scripture or the slant in the way he teaches it. At any conference, one will easily observe that if Mike recommends a book or promotes a teaching, a t-shirt or a speaker, at the next break, ALL of that item will be sold out in their bookstore. When I was on staff, I heard people continually sing Mike’s praises around the clock and quote more of what Mike says or thinks or teaches than actual scripture.

Mike has an alluring charisma and many seem to be instantly drawn to his convincing appearance of direction and purpose. He teaches with passion and emotion rather than truth and it's that charisma that draws and hooks people causing many to blindly follow (and defend) his message.

I believe that the IHOP lifestyle by and large sets people up for disillusionment through the false hope that its deception provides. It is a pseudo, manufactured reality where people are told “you can live in Nirvana and enjoy the 'high' of being in God’s presence 24/7 and that can be ALL that you live for” so people sell all that they have, buy into a dream and move across the country to be a part of a ministry that makes captivating claims…and then their world often crumble to ashes when things aren’t as they seem once they arrive.

Mike's primary target and focus is on the young people. His appeals from the pulpit and his well-polished speeches aim at capturing the hearts of America’s youth. Children and youth are not told or encouraged to respect or honor the parents G-d gave them. Instead, wedges are driven between families and a seed of pride, rebellion and elitism gets planted into the hearts of youth when they are told things like the following…

This is a very close paraphrase of what I’ve heard many, many times at One Thing, IHOP conferences and in teachings by leaders:

“YOU are called to be on the cutting edge. Come here and join a community of other people who are like you, called to what you’re called to. We understand you. You’ve been mis-understood in the church. You’ve had your wings clipped, your gifts misunderstood. Here you can fulfill your forerunner calling that your family just hasn’t understood about you. You might feel like you don’t fit back home, you’re on the outside, no one understands the fire in you. Well we get it. You are the leaders that G-d is raising up in these end times and you will be kings and queens on the earth—reigning with Him. You were made for this place. IHOP is an incubator for people like you.”

Narcissistic speeches like this instill a sense of pride, arrogance and elitism in the hearts of youth who hear it and it feeds their need for validation and identity. They run to IHOP, leave their families, join internships…hoping that what they’ve heard is true. They go to IHOP looking for identity…instead of finding it in Jesus.

Once outside of the IHOP environment, they are terrified and overwhelmed by the “real” world and don’t know how to function in it when they’ve been in an intensive internship environment. There is a degree of re-acclimating to normal life that feels like an IHOP detox afterward. It’s a severe emotional drop because the hyped up services and conferences that were your manna are now gone and when there is no prayer room, your life in God feels empty and lifeless. Many simply don’t know how to engage with God in a real day-to-day basis once they’ve left. I experienced this and heard the exact same thing from a handful of my friends after they left IHOP and the internship. At that point when disillusionment sets in, I know many interns that walked away from God completely upon leaving the internship and went back into lifestyles worse than the ones they left when they came to IHOP originally.

from here

[waysider]

I'll just bet they had to "run to the big tree and back" and eat familia for breakfast every morning. (And never complain about it.)

[Watered Garden]

Probably give their babies fig pep soaked in beet juice. and have wilted mustard greens for dinner.

[Broken Arrow]

Soon, for no pay, they'll be operating machines that suck poo-poo out of latrines and say they've been blessed.

Edited May 13, 2010 by erkjohn

[chockfull]

Why would anyone be retarded enough to name a cult after the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) ???????????

[Twinky]

Ruuun!!!!!!

Quick, the door is over here!

The application form sounds, just as Excathedra says, like the From Birth to the Corps papers. If that's what they want at the beginning - maybe i's even worse than TWI?

Those poor kids. Preying on the very vulnerable.

[GrouchoMarxJr]

I'd like my eggs over easy and a side of bacon...

[outandabout]

What is IHOP? I worked at one serving pancakes. What is this thing? It is so much like TWI. I guess there's nothing new under the sun.

[JavaJane]

What is IHOP? I worked at one serving pancakes. What is this thing? It is so much like TWI. I guess there's nothing new under the sun.

International House of Prayer. I'm suprised International House of Pancakes hasn't sued them.

[JeffSjo]

Wow Bliss and Java!

This seems sooooo darn similar.

As concerning group dynamics as I can relate to from River Road Fellowship just a couple of observations and comments from me:

This group already has money making, outreach, a strict and controlling disciplinary structure, and it's own unique culture and language in place.

It also has a virtually identical method of finding out it's followers weaknesses and vulnerabilities as Wierwille did with some of you Corps folks.

And, it has a history of personal prophecy which IMO is a huge lever for manipulation.

__________________________________

I have to agree with Bliss's initial assessment...... If it talks like a cult, walks like a cult, barks like a cult.... then, IT'S A CULT!!!!!

As concerning the "IHOP" name:

They are already at the point where any legal pressure brought to bear on them would allow them to galvanize their followers' zeal and commitment.

Their name is a real attention getter, almost guaranteeing a certain measure of notoriety and/or attention.

And I'm guessing and even hoping that the good folks at The International House of Pancakes wouldn't touch this one with a ten foot pole.

[JavaJane]

I ran into some kids at a local Subway a couple months back who were involved with IHOP (we have a big group here) and they seemed just like I was when I was a WOW and a Way Disciple. It was so strange, and I knew they were involved in some kind of weird religious group as soon as they walked in the door. I guess it takes one to know one!! I can't even put my finger on WHAT it was exactly about them that led me to believe they were in a cult, but it just was SO APPARENT. Their demeanor, something...

I guess I have radar for this kind of thing... Let's call it "WAY-DAR"

I can spot them a mile away. At least I won't get fooled again!

[bulwinkl]

Is this what you mean?

http://www.ihop.org/

My great-nephew is involved with it.

[Twinky]

Definitely got their own cult-vocabulary... see Glossary on their front page.

[JavaJane]

Is this what you mean?

http://www.ihop.org/

My great-nephew is involved with it.

Yes. That is the same one. My husband has a cousin involved.

[bliss]

The main difference to me, which is kind of ironic too, is that anyone in TWI, would totally RUN from this group!

They would label them ''full of debil spurts, and opening up their mind, and making Jesus God'', so they would have no part of it.

They run more from emotions, where as in TWI, NONE!!

What makes them similar is the 'Modus Operandi" .....exactly what Jeff pointed out in their methods of recruitment, the figurative gun to their head if they leave, and the narcissistic attitude that permeates the followers.

They keep buying up more local property to house the students, they broadcast live on GodTV and folks from all over the world flock there.

((((((shudder)))))

[chockfull]

International House of Prayer. I'm suprised International House of Pancakes hasn't sued them.

The Pancakes group has much more substance. I remember eating there as a kid. Mmmmmmmm. Chocolate chip pancakes. Raspberry syrup. Mmmmmmmm.

[Gen-2]

Licks pencil tip and fills out application.....

Gee, I hope they accept my app!

[JavaJane]

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/11/14/3915020/suspect-appearing-in-court-in.html

Well, a little update on the cult.

Edited November 18, 2012 by JavaJane

[newlife]

Ex....You are too funny!!

"i would like to resubmit my paper "from birth to the corps" thank you"