At IHOP one of the primary things you hear the most are the stories of the great revivals that have happened over the centuries like the Great Awakening, Azusa street, and the Welsh Revival. You hear the stories of how God used men and women like Jonathan Edwards, William Seymour, Leonard Ravenhill, and Jackie Pullinger. They're meant to inspire people to believe if God can use people like them, he can use you too, but are you willing to pay the price like these people did? And during my time at IHOPU I had many classes where these stories were the primary subject. These stories worked in filling me with this desire to truly give my life for revival like these other men and women had. And over the course of my first few months of IHOPU I felt the Lord had confirmed with extreme clarity the place that he wanted me to go too, to contend for revival. I quit IHOPU and began working to save up money so that I could travel there and support myself. During that time it was confirmed more and more that this was the place, and a few months later I bought a one-way ticket. After buying that ticket, a few weeks later one of the teachers I had announced he too would be moving to the same place I had already planned on going. My eyes filled with tears as I heard it, feeling full of faith that this is where the Lord was calling me. After the announcement, I emailed this leader over the course of 3 months to try setup a time to get coffee and share our stories of how the Lord had called us to this place but he never responded to my emails and even told one of my friends that him and his wife were "worried I'm expecting them take care of me and to house me". Also during that 3 months he would completely ignore me in person, if I passed by him he wouldn't say anything to me even though I knew he had seen my emails. After 3 months of no response, his comments to my friend, and him ignoring me I felt insecure with attempting to reach out to him again but I tried one more time. He finally responded and we set up a meeting. He shows up to the meeting 30min-1hr late which already feeds into my feeling of insecurity that I'm just this giant bother to him. So he begins by asking me about my story, so I share, and after I'm done sharing the first thing he says is "how much money do you have?" Thrown off, I respond and say I have around 10k, he says that's not enough they wont even let you in the country. He then asks "where are you going to stay?" I say I'm not sure yet but I have a couple options. He responds and says "You need a place to stay cause if you don't you're going to be a burden on the body of Christ". Completely shocked by his questions and how aggressive he's communicating with me I just ask him to share his story. He shares his story and the whole time he’s sharing, he would tell me how God hasn't called me but he has called him. After that I'm just feeling completely destroyed, being one of his former students who heard him teach on these stories of people like Jackie Pullinger who sold everything and moved to Hong Kong. And now here I am, a former student doing just that AND going to the same place as him but all he does is scold me and ridicule me and tell me I'm going to be a “burden on the body of Christ”. I expected him to be excited that one of his students is doing exactly what he taught them to do but not one time did he say anything of excitement or encouragement. Although I felt distraught from that meeting, I still had full confidence in what I felt the Lord had told me and 2 months later I sold everything I owned and moved to this other country. Within my first few days there I see him at church, and although I feel so ashamed being around him, I'm still in a brand new place not knowing a single person so I walk up to him and say hi. He just says hi and keeps on walking, again giving me the same feeling I've always had that I'm just this giant bother to him. The next week at church the same thing happens and after that I’m done initiating talking to him cause clearly he just doesn't like me. I felt so alone, not only do I not know a single person but everyone is speaking a foreign language. I had hoped that this teacher of mine would see his former student and encourage him and not make him make him feel even more alone but that didn't happen, it just added to my loneliness. So a couple months went by, and one of my roommates came home who worked at the church. We were talking and he said to me that this leader had come up to him and asked him about me. A bit shocked that he would ask him about me, I said jokingly “I'm sure he just asked about me to tell you how crazy I am” he laughingly responds and says “yeah he thinks you're absolutely crazy”. He then proceeds to tell me how this leader was essentially making fun of me for selling everything, moving here and not knowing the language well even though I was enrolled in language school. I try to play it off as no big deal but internally I'm just completely destroyed. I remember going to my room and just breaking down crying just feeling like an absolute failure. Of all the things this leader could do, he goes out of his way to completely destroy one his former students who had truly given their life for exactly what he taught me to live for. Before leaving IHOP I had set up everything perfectly for me to legally stay in this country long term. I had enough money and everything else I needed but after that leader's comments I couldn't handle it mentally anymore. And after a grueling decision, I decided I'm going to leave and go back to KC. This absolutely destroyed me. I believed I was going to live in this country for the rest of my life and now I feel like I'm giving up not only on myself but I'm disobeying the Lord. The shame I felt was immense. I remember just weeping every day just filled with immeasurable shame. So 2 weeks later I'm heading to the airport to fly back home. My flight was very early in the morning and as I'm entering the line for security I'm filled with shock as I see this leader in front of me going through security. I'm completely speechless and hoping to God he doesn't see me cause now I'm filled with too much shame to ever talk to him after what he said to my roommate and he also doesn't know going back. So as he finishes going through security, I go through and as I exit I make sure to stay as far enough distance behind him so that he wouldn't see me but I could see him. I see he goes the direction of domestic flights and I'm filled with relief because I'm going in the direction of international flights. As I'm walking down the hall I look up at a screen to double check my gate and in the corner of my eye I see that he is behind me and will be directly behind in the line for border control. My heart absolutely sinks. So I get to the line and in my head I'm debating whether I should talk to him or not. I decide you know what let's see if he talks to me first. So at this point he is directly behind me, less than an arm's length. So I looked side to side to know for sure that he could see me and recognize me but I would play off knowing he was there. He never says anything to me and after probably 10-15 min I see in the corner of my eye his hand and his phone facing me and I hear the photo noise, I'm in complete shock. A couple minutes later I go through border control and he would have for sure heard the border control agent say my name and still after all that, he never said a word to me. I can't put into words the level of shame and worthlessness I felt after he took that picture. I stayed on staff in IHOP for a few years after this experience. During those years I shared my story with probably 3-4 people, but the whole time those same feelings of shame and worthlessness affected me deeply. Even after a couple years, I remember that the leader was visiting, and he walked right past me and never said a word to me. To this day I still deeply feel the pain of that experience. My story highlights a huge problem at IHOP. They call young people to live these sold out lives for Christ, but there is almost little to no actual discipleship. It's like when Jesus calls out the Pharisees saying “But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them”.
- Full-Time Staff, Student2014-2019