For years, Justin Werner says, he kept silent about the sexual abuse he endured at the hands of his volunteer youth group leader at the International House of Prayer-Kansas City.

The man nearly twice his age whom he and his siblings looked to for guidance. The man they played video games with, who babysat them when their parents went out of town. And the man his parents sent him to for private counseling when he was going through puberty and struggling with sexuality issues.

“I have been on a yearslong journey of recognizing the past sexual abuse committed against me,” Werner, now 31, wrote in a note he shared with The Star as part of a series of interviews. “This journey has been fraught with deep emotions that would have me swing like a pendulum between wanting to keep silent and wanting to speak up.”

In July 2022, he went to Kansas City police and filed a report, alleging that Lawrence Lucky, who he said led his small youth group within IHOPKC Student Ministries, raped him in 2010 during private counseling sessions when he was 16. After being told last year that the case had been closed, Werner said, police told him in late April that it had been sent to the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office for review.

The Star spoke to former IHOPKC Student Ministries leaders who said that Lucky had been removed after concerns were raised but that the allegations weren’t reported and parents weren’t told. And two other former IHOPKC youth described personal incidents involving Lucky that were similar to some of Werner’s allegations.

The issue underscores what many say is a long-standing culture of systemic abuse and cover-up that thrived within the 24/7 global prayer movement. Those problems, they say, weren’t just limited to founder Mike Bickle, who was accused last fall of sexually abusing multiple women over several decades, two of them minors, but included other leaders and staffers whose predatory — and possibly criminal — actions were ignored, downplayed or kept secret.

“The culture of secrecy and covering it, looking back on it now is very alarming,” said Josh Thompson, a former youth pastor who left IHOPKC in the aftermath of the Bickle allegations.

“I want justice for Justin, I want justice for the other boys.

“It’s clear to me now, though it wouldn’t have been clear to me then, that IHOP’s mode of operation is to cover their own interests as the priority. It goes back to the whole value system of mandate and mission over everything else. Yeah, what we’re doing is so important, some people get kind of lost or trampled along the way. Collateral damage is worth it as long as we do what the Lord’s commanded us to do.”

Allegations are ‘fabrications,’ Lucky says

Lucky, who still lives in the area and is a production sound designer, responded in an email to questions from The Star, referring to the allegations as “fabrications” and sending documents he said showed that Werner was not 16, but 18, when their meetings took place.

He included notes he said were from four voice-recorded meetings he had with Werner in 2011. In those meetings, Lucky said, Werner talked about his sexual feelings and other issues. Lucky also noted that Werner later invited him to his wedding in 2014.

“Much of this was submitted to the KCMO police prior to them dismissing this case, having been convinced to close the file with no charges being pursued,” Lucky said, though police say the case is still open.

In his response, Lucky made no mention of any contact with Werner in 2010.

The Star sent follow-up questions asking Lucky about that, as well as why he recorded meetings with Werner and kept them for years and whether he thought it was appropriate for a youth group leader to have teens come to his home for private counseling sessions.

Lucky responded that he would not comment further, but said, “I am willing to answer those questions and more once a proper Third Party Investigation happens.” He was referring to an ongoing effort by former IHOPKC leaders, known as the Advocate Group, to hire an outside firm to conduct an independent investigation into the allegations against Bickle and others and whether the cases were mishandled or covered up.

Werner provided The Star with a screenshot of Facebook messages between the two that indicated they were to start meeting weekly at Lucky’s home in February 2010. He also acknowledged inviting Lucky to his wedding, saying he had tried to block out the abuse and move on with his life in as normal a way as possible, which for a while included maintaining contact with Lucky.

A Kansas City police spokesman confirmed in a recent email to The Star that Werner’s case had been sent to the prosecutor’s office.

“Detectives have provided their investigative findings to prosecutors for their review and determination of applicable charges,” said Sgt. Phil DiMartino.

Mike Mansur, spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, said Monday that “KCPD has forwarded a case, and it’s under review.”

In hours of interviews with The Star and the note he wrote about the alleged abuse, Werner said that having been involved with IHOPKC since he was a preteen, he’s “had an affinity towards it and have only wished to defend it.”

“I have believed, over the years, that going public with my story would cast a long, dark shadow over IHOPKC and my family,” he said, “and I did not have a desire for either.”

But since seeing the fallout from the Bickle scandal that exploded last October, Werner said, “I have found myself reconsidering my views and my affinity.”

“Before, I had considered IHOPKC a place worth defending because it was righteous and doing the will of the Lord,” he said. “Now, I see IHOPKC as a place built on years of lies and careful manipulation.

“A place like this does not deserve my defense and I believe my story of abuse, as a teenage boy, can add further weight to the overall narrative of IHOPKC being a staging ground for perpetrators of abuse that were allowed to operate unchecked until abuse had occurred — regardless if their abusive behavior had been known beforehand or not.”

Thompson said he had “zero” doubt that Werner was telling the truth.

“That dude was as honest as the day is long,” the former IHOPKC youth pastor said. “I mean, he was just a good kid. It seemed like he came in with a lot of hurt and brokenness, but had found a place where he belonged, a place where he could feel valued and appreciated and be a part of something.

“To hear Justin’s story today, to find out that he was being abused behind the scenes, guts me in a way that is just unbelievable.”

IHOPKC: ‘We are heartbroken by these allegations’

The Star contacted IHOPKC Executive Director Joseph Taylor last week, seeking comment on the allegations of Werner and George Abuhl, a former teen whose mother reported in 2009 that Lucky had asked her son to shower naked with him at the gym.

IHOPKC responded to The Star multiple times in the past week from the ministry’s media email address. It declined to provide the name of the person responding, saying the response should be attributed to “a spokesperson for IHOPKC.”

“We are heartbroken by these allegations, which we have learned of for the first time as a result of your inquiries,” it said. “All efforts are being extended to uncover details.

“We are reaching out to the Werner and Abuhl families to offer our full support. This includes supporting the involvement of law enforcement. We have also opened an internal review to understand how the leadership at the time handled the allegations, identify lapses, and create a summary report with recommendations to ensure that training and processes are in place going forward so that this cannot happen again.”

IHOPKC said Lucky had no leadership position in Student Ministries — a point some former students and staffers dispute.

“IHOPKC records show, and former employees have confirmed, that Larry Lucky was not an employee of and did not hold a formal role with Student Ministries,” it said. Lucky volunteered “3-4 hours per week for approximately six weeks in January and February of 2010,” IHOPKC said.

Lucky played bass guitar on a worship team in the 24/7 Prayer Room and also worked in the IT department for approximately four months, IHOPKC said.

“Mr. Lucky was terminated from these roles after a parent reported inappropriate contact, alleging that he met up with teen boys at a local community center where they showered together,” it said. The termination, IHOPKC said, was Feb. 28, 2010.

IHOPKC said that “although the alleged showering incidents occurred off IHOPKC property and outside of Student Ministries programming, they were completely inappropriate and should have never happened.”

As for Werner’s allegations, IHOPKC said, “this was completely inappropriate and should have never happened. Although we have not been contacted by law enforcement, we are offering our assistance in pursuing justice.”

Emails and other documents, along with interviews with former staff, show that Lucky had a bigger role and much longer involvement with IHOPKC than officials describe.

His signature on a June 2008 email to an IHOPKC leader described him as a trumpet and bass guitar instructor for the ministry’s Forerunner Music Academy. Former worship leaders told The Star that he regularly played on worship teams for the Children’s Equipping Center in 2008 and 2009. And the Sept. 22, 2011, minutes from the Children’s Equipping Center weekly Worship Department meeting say that Lucky was scheduled to teach bass guitar at an Oct. 1, 2011, music clinic for children.

In its response to The Star, IHOPKC pointed out that those who were involved in Student Ministries and leadership in 2010 were no longer employed by the organization. During that time, it said, the allegations would have been handled by Bickle, then-IHOPKC associate director Allen Hood and then-CEO Daniel Lim.

“An initial search through old records has not uncovered any documentation of an incident report or response,” IHOPKC said. “As stated, we are planning an internal review of leadership response.

“IHOPKC has a strict protocol which requires at least two adults be present and doors remain open in the company of minors. Under no circumstances are a minor and adult to be alone behind a closed door or in an isolated location and all staff that work with youth or children are required to agree to abide by these policies.”

Lim told The Star he’d never heard of Lucky or any allegations against him.

“During my tenure of service at IHOPKC, I had at times received notices of staff/volunteers who had been terminated by their supervisors within our ranks and files, but I have no recollection of an individual with this name (either his volunteer, staff or termination activities),” Lim said in an email. “2009-2010 marked a period of heightened spiritual awakening in our church where staff/volunteers/students grew exponentially before a quieter period from 2013 onwards.”

Hood said he was never made aware of any concerns about Lucky.

“I had nothing to do with it,” he told The Star. He said he had no idea about the issue until Werner recently sent him a copy of the note he wrote about his alleged abuse. “And I was just — ‘Oh, my God.’ That just broke my heart.”

Hood left IHOPKC staff in 2020 over “very different approaches to leadership” between him and Bickle, he said. The final straw, he said, was what he described as the mishandling of the case of Brad Tebbutt, a staffer who in 2018 was accused by a Washington woman of sexually abusing her for 2 ½ years in the 1980s starting when she was 14 and he was a 27-year-old youth pastor at a Baptist church in California. Hood said he pushed for Tebbutt to be fired for refusing to speak to those conducting a third-party investigation into the case, but instead he was promoted to a position that allowed him to be in contact with minors.

IHOPKC leaders told The Star last week that the organization has hired Theresa Sidebotham of the Colorado-based Telios Law firm “to help us build a culture which prevents sexual harassment and child endangerment.” They said the hiring came after a nationwide search and weeks prior to learning of the Lucky allegations.

“In September, Ms. Sidebotham will lead the first in an ongoing series of training required for all staff,” the email said. “Part of the focus of this first training will be on learning how to identify individuals with predation in mind, safeguard vulnerable children, and empower our staff and community to proactively serve as capable guardians.

“IHOPKC is investing heavily in designing a healthy and resilient culture which enables our community to flourish in its mission to partner in the great commission by advancing 24/7 prayer with worship and proclaiming the beauty of Jesus and His glorious return.”

‘A corrupted view of love’

Werner was born in Minnesota, where he said he and his five older siblings were subjected to physical, sexual and emotional abuse. When he was 4, the children were all placed in foster care, and after about four years he was adopted into a loving family, he said. But even with extensive therapy, he said, the abuse he had suffered had left him with “a corrupted view of love” and later “made my years of puberty difficult.”

Werner said he began to feel attracted to both boys and girls. He didn’t understand those dual feelings, he said, and it scared him.

“All I knew is that I was wrong to like boys,” he said. “I grew up in a very conservative Christian home, and I was afraid to talk to anyone about it, and so I didn’t.

“This confusion left me in a vulnerable position that led to a series of mistakes with one of my peers that I was wholly unprepared for,” he said, noting he was 11 at the time. “My adoptive parents became aware and my life was turned upside down.”

His parents soon decided to move the family to Kansas City to make a fresh start and become a part of the IHOPKC community.

“My goal in Kansas City was to start anew,” Werner said. “I was going to be this great, perfect young man.” At the same time, however, he also was aware of the confusing feelings about sexuality that he still harbored.

His father, who had been an Assemblies of God pastor, and his mother both got jobs working for IHOPKC. Werner, then 12, quickly got involved in IHOPKC’s Student Ministries, making friends and feeling more comfortable and confident. Over the next few years, he said, he “lived a normal teenage life.”

Werner said Lucky became an important person in the family’s life. He and his siblings would play video games with Lucky, go fishing and have battles with airsoft guns, he said.

“My parents would go out of town, and he would come and babysit us at our house,” he said.

‘I did not see a way out’

In 2008, Werner said, he became part of a small group of boys with Lucky as the leader.

“It was a way to encourage camaraderie, as well as getting peers outside of the normal weekly meetings to get into the Bible, you know, things like that,” he said. “And that’s the first point that I started to recognize that things were going strange. He had asked us individually, as well as in groups, to go out to the gym with him in Overland Park.

“And he put a lot of pressure on us to get changed with him, right there in the locker room, to get fully undressed with him. And then when he was with us individually, he put a lot of pressure on us to shower with him, like within the showers that were in the locker rooms there.”

The students were “extremely shy” and vulnerable at the time, Werner said, and those moments were “extremely awkward.”

“I would just keep my mouth shut,” he said. “None of us were like the stand-up type, you know, or were to cause conflict in some way. That just wasn’t who we were. And the way it was expressed to me was that this was all normal. To others, it was expressed more from a spiritual tone, like he was going to be washing impurities off of them, or away from them, in terms of the shower.”

On several occasions, Werner said, Lucky took him to the gym alone.

“And he pressured me to get naked with him in the locker room, the sauna, and in a shower in the locker room,” he said. “I went along with it, unsure of what to do.”

The gym incidents continued into early 2009, Werner said.

Werner said Lucky also would have sleepovers for the boys, either at his place or the boys’ homes. A Facebook message between Werner and Lucky showed that Lucky had a sleepover at his duplex in south Kansas City on Jan. 16, 2009. Several teen boys attended, Werner said.

In early 2009, the family moved to Oregon for several months to be part of Youth With a Mission, an interdenominational Christian mission organization, Werner said. They returned to IHOPKC that fall.

At the start of 2010, he said, his parents decided it would be good for the 16-year-old to get counseling for his past abuse issues. They thought Larry Lucky would be an excellent choice, Werner said, because they knew he had counseled other boys as well.

Werner told The Star that he was afraid if he didn’t agree to go see Lucky, his parents would pick someone he didn’t know and would be even more uncomfortable dealing with.

Werner sent Lucky a Facebook message at 9:40 a.m. on Jan. 29, 2010, asking when they could meet, screenshots he provided to The Star show. Lucky responded at 6:17 p.m. on Jan. 31: “Hey brah, how about Wednesdays 5pm-6pm my place? We can start this wednesday.”

The two began meeting weekly at Lucky’s house, which was close to the IHOPKC prayer room in south Kansas City, Werner said. Lucky’s mother lived in the upper level of the duplex; he was single at the time and lived in the lower part.

During the first few sessions, Werner said he opened up to Lucky about his past abuse and his feelings for both males and females. He said Lucky focused on the same-sex attraction issue.

“I didn’t really know much about it, and he was very interested to teach me all about it, share with me anything and everything I would ever want to know,” Werner said. “And then from there, it kind of twisted to what did I want from my same-sex peers, specifically, like, on the sexual part?

“That’s when things really started to transition. Lots of long hugs, inappropriate touching, things of that nature.

“Larry also told me about taking some of the other teen boys in Student Ministries to the gym and having them change in front of him,” he said, “and at times go into the sauna with him naked or take showers with him naked — just like he did with me.”

During one session, Werner said, Lucky directed him to undress so he could show him how to check himself for testicular cancer — an action Lucky told him was something all fathers teach their sons.

“I was very confused,” Werner said. “I wasn’t sure how to take everything that was happening. This all made me uncomfortable, but I did not see a way out.”

Agreed to remain silent

Over the course of five or six more counseling sessions, Werner said, Lucky sexually abused him, including rape. Werner said he “shut down” during the abuse.

Afterward, he said, “I would just get dressed and leave.”

“The only way I knew to survive was to completely remove myself from reality,” he said. “It’s like I was looking in and watching it occur outside of my body. And I would just run home, spend the rest of the day to myself.”

He told his parents he didn’t want to keep going to counseling, but didn’t tell them why.

“But they kind of were like, ‘OK, I get it. You don’t want to go see a therapist or a counselor. What teenager does? You still have to go back.’

“I didn’t want that precious life that I worked so hard to build in Kansas City to be taken away. And that’s kind of how I saw things. It’s like, if I say anything, he’s going to share my full story with everyone. … My life will come crumbling down.”

He said Lucky would film their time together on a video recorder set up in his bedroom. Eventually, Werner said, the physical pain became too great.

“The last time I met with him as an official therapy session, he took me back into his room, and I got pretty physically hurt,” he said. “I decided, when walking out, that it was better to be dead than to go back ever again to him. And so I texted him, and I said, ‘I can’t continue meeting with you. I just can’t.’ And he said, ‘OK, well, I want to see you one last time.’

“I went back and he told me, ‘Just keep it between us, and life will just move on.’ And so I committed myself at the time to do just that. I was gonna never look back. I was never gonna think about it.

“And I think my actions proved that. I maintained my friendship with Larry. The next year, for the company he was working with, they needed a website done. I was interested in that type of stuff, and so I built them their website, and worked directly with Larry to get that done.”

Werner said he buried the abuse “as deeply as I could.”

Lucky eventually faded from his life. Werner went to college, got married, started a career as a software engineer and had four children, now ages 5 to 9. But the abuse, he said, “was not OK living deeply hidden.” And in 2021, the dam broke.

“It ruptured out in a night full of weeping,” he said. He told his wife everything — the first time he’d told anyone.

“She comforted me and worked with me to find a professionally licensed therapist so that I could begin processing the pain.”

Filing a police report

On July 28, 2022, Werner went to the Kansas City Police Department and filed a report. Having to describe the abuse in detail, he said, was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. The “incident type” on the report says “Sodomy - Juvenile.”

An investigator was assigned to the case, Werner said, and he had to go back to the police station to meet with him.

“The investigator followed up with the prosecutor’s office about the statute of limitations just to see if it was going to be an issue and they responded to him and said, no, in this case, it’s not an issue,” Werner said. In Missouri, there is no statute of limitations for criminal prosecution of statutory sodomy.

“Larry got a lawyer and made the claim that we were in a consensual relationship and that I was 17 (the age of consent for Missouri),” Werner said, “his proof being that he had some messages being sent back and forth between me and him showing that we met together during that time.”

But that information was misleading, Werner said. He didn’t learn of it, however, until he called police several months later to find out what was going on with the investigation.

“The first investigator had moved to a different department,” Werner said. “I talked to some new investigator and he was like, ‘Oh, well, your case is pretty much closed, and here’s why.’ That’s when he told me about what Larry had provided.”

Werner said he then gave police the Facebook messages between the two in which they set up the times for his counseling sessions at his mother’s request. The dates on the messages proved he was 16, he said.

“I then provided further messages from when I was 17, showing that Larry and I did get together during that time, but it was about the work that we were doing together at his job,” Werner said.

“I sent this all to the detective on Dec. 7,” he said. “I talked with him, and he confirmed that he had received them. It was the investigator before him who had made the call that the case was going to be pretty much closed, but now this new investigator with that information was going to look into it himself.”

Werner followed up in April to check on the status of the case.

“And they said that it was in the prosecutor’s office. They were wanting them to give a comment on it and look at it.”

Others speak out

George Abuhl’s family moved to Kansas City and became involved in IHOPKC in 2006, when he was 11.

“I come from a broken family,” Abuhl told The Star. “I didn’t have a dad for a long time. So Larry tried to, he kind of put himself in that position where he’s like a father figure. And he’s like, you know, ‘I’m just looking out for you and trying to help you in your Christian faith.’”

Lucky met with Abuhl’s mother on several occasions, he said.

“I wasn’t part of the conversation,” Abuhl said, “but he was more or less recommending that he and I spend time alone, maybe have some one-on-one counseling.”

In 2008, when Abuhl was 13, Lucky started taking him to the gym, sometimes with other boys and other times alone. Abuhl said it was common to see naked people in the men’s locker room.

“That’s just the way it is,” he said. “It’s totally normal. I didn’t really think anything of it.”

But in 2009, after going there four or five times, he said, Lucky dropped a bombshell on him when they were at the gym alone.

“He said, ‘I feel like we need to shower together, you and I, just like as a father figure, you know, I’ll wash you, and I’ll take care of you. I’m going to wash you free of your sin.’

“And I was just like, ‘Oh no, no, no, no. Absolutely not.’”

The gym had separate showers with doors, Abuhl said.

“He had previously done playful things, like he had taken my towel, and so I had to come out and walk a great distance to go to the towel area, you know, to get another one,” he said. “That made me uncomfortable.”

Abuhl said Lucky immediately backed off when he refused to shower with him.

“And so I then showered, and I got dressed, and we left the gym, and he’s taking me home, and he just kept asking me, you know, ‘What’s wrong? Did I go too far? Are you OK?’ And I kept saying, ‘I’m just not comfortable with showering with you.’

“He dropped me off, and I went inside, and my mom was right in there folding laundry. And I go, ‘Mom, I need to talk to you. Something really crazy just happened.’ I started off by telling her that he had, like, stolen my towel, and it made me uncomfortable, and this and that, and she’s like, ‘That’s absolutely not OK.’”

But he didn’t tell her the rest of the story.

Mother reports allegations to IHOPKC

Abuhl said he continued to hang out with Lucky after that incident, including a sleepover involving eight to 10 boys at one of the boy’s homes.

“We would play video games and we would have one-on-one, talking time and, like, praying time,” he said. “And he would even take me fishing, and then we would go back to his place, and we would cook our fish that we caught.”

Then came an even more disturbing incident.

“He coerced me into exposing myself to him at his home,” Abuhl said. “He told me again, as like a father figure, ‘We need to check for testicular cancer. Your dad would do this with you if he was around.’ And he made a big deal out of it, like, so many men suffer from this, and we just need to check for early signs.

“It was the hardest thing to deal with. I felt really, really shameful, like I can’t believe I did that. I felt so stupid to let somebody convince me to do that.”

In his response to The Star, Lucky did not address Abuhl’s allegations other than to say: “The George foot washing situation at the gym was simply a misunderstanding that, I was under the impression, had been worked through. And I can’t help but wonder if Justin’s fabrications are contributing to George’s current reframing of events.”

Abuhl said he had no idea what Lucky was referring to.

“That is just beyond weird,” he said. “There is no possible way that you could mix up trying to shower with someone and washing feet. Those are two completely different situations.”

Around the time the gym incidents were going on, Abuhl said, his older brother brought up Lucky during a conversation and noted “how weird he was being.”

“He was like, ‘He won’t stop trying to get me to confess my sins to him. It’s really disturbing, you know, it’s none of his business.’ And I just blurted out, ‘Yeah, he tried to get me to shower with him.’ And everyone in the room just froze. They were like, ‘What?’”

His brother then told their mom that George should not be hanging out with Lucky anymore, calling him a “creep.”

“And so she kept pressing me about it, and so I told her basically the full extent of what happened,” Abuhl said, except the part about checking for cancer. “She flipped out. And that’s when she reported it to the IHOP leadership.”

His mother had been on staff at IHOPKC, he said, and she emailed Dave Sliker, who oversaw Student Ministries. After receiving no response, Abuhl said, she sent another email, but again heard nothing.

“So she sent three emails and heard nothing, and then about two or three months later, they finally responded,” he said, referring to Sliker and his wife. “What I remember is they apologized for how long it took to respond. And I just remember this huge, long email my mom read to me, and it was very disappointing. They said, basically, ‘We really don’t know what to do about this. Like, it’s out of our hands.’”

Jono Pollard, who was on the Student Ministries staff at the time, said he heard about allegations involving Lucky and that the Abuhls had contacted Sliker.

“I’m in the prayer room the next day, and I’m sitting literally beside Dave, and he has the emails open, and he’s frustrated,” Pollard said. “And I go, ‘Hey, is this the parents?’ And Dave snapped at me, you know, telling me it’s none of my business, stay out of it for my own good. His exact words were, ‘She’s making a big deal out of nothing. Larry wouldn’t do this.’

“He was super dismissive, and I didn’t really know what to do at that point. I was really young, and I’m an autistic ADHD person. And so it was super confusing. But I was commanded to stay out of it.”

Sliker, who resigned in January as president of IHOP University, responded in an email to The Star but did not address the scenario Pollard described.

“I first heard about the horrendous allegations against Larry Lucky in an email in January 2010,” Sliker said. “However, I had already stepped down from leadership at IHOPKC in September 2009 to engage in ministry opportunities elsewhere. (I did not serve in IHOPKC leadership again until Summer 2013.) Therefore, I was not involved in the handling of the situation. In fact, I delayed in responding to George Abuhl’s mother because I had no information to provide to her and was working to find answers before responding.”

He said Allen Hood and Tom Cole, who was then director of the Pastoral Care Department, were likely involved in handling the situation. Lucky was in Cole’s department, Sliker said.

Sliker also noted that “I have not been involved with IHOPKC since my resignation in January, beyond attending the prayer meetings on a few occasions.”

He said he wasn’t aware of Werner’s “devastating story” until The Star contacted him last week.

“I cannot speak for anyone else at IHOPKC, but I have never been contacted by law enforcement regarding Larry, likely due to my lack of involvement at the time,” he said. “Nevertheless, I hope that KCPD takes Justin’s allegations very seriously and conducts a thorough investigation that results in justice for the victims.”

In a follow-up response, Sliker said he went back and reviewed the Jan. 10, 2010, email from Abuhl’s mother and that it appeared to have been a forward of an email she sent him on Dec. 29, 2009. He said he never saw the email in December.

“In the email, she stated that her family had just moved to Iowa and she just learned that the prior summer, Larry had asked to ‘wash’ George in the shower to ‘baptize’ him, but George declined,” Sliker said. “It was not until a later email that she stated more serious allegations.”

Sliker said Lucky “was not formally a part of Student Ministries, he just hung out on the fringes, so he was not removed ‘from’ Student Ministries. Instead, he was removed from the entire IHOPKC Missions Base.”

Former leaders insist — and staff emails provided to The Star indicate — that Sliker still played an active role at IHOPKC during that time.

“He was over the youth group, which is why (George’s) mom wrote him first,” Cole said, also denying that Lucky was involved with his Pastoral Care Department.

Cole said Abuhl’s mother contacted him about Lucky in early 2010 because Sliker hadn’t gotten back to her.

“She told me that she had gone to Dave Sliker, sent him two emails,” Cole said. “Never got a response, so she shared the story with me. And I said, ‘He (Lucky) is a predator, and you need to call the police.’”

Cole said he then went to Lenny La Guardia, an IHOPKC leader and head of its recently closed Children’s Equipping Center.

“I said, ‘This is what happened. He’s a predator. He needs to be taken out of youth ministry and banned from the base,’” Cole said. “And they told me that would happen, but he was never banned.” Cole said he left his position in pastoral care in mid-2010. In early 2011, he said, “somebody told me that they saw Larry hanging around at youth group.”

La Guardia denied ever being told about the allegations against Lucky back then. He said this week that he was hearing about them “for the first time.”

“I was never informed nor consulted with in regards to a mother bringing concerns about Larry Lucky in 2009-2010 to a Department Head or director to handle,” he told The Star in an email. “I learned of Larry Lucky’s dismissal back then but did not know of the particular allegations.

“After becoming aware of Larry Lucky being dismissed/banned from IHOPKC facilities and programs, I then informed all tiers of leadership and parent volunteers within the children’s area that he was dismissed and to report any sighting of Larry Lucky immediately to IHOPKC Security, 911 (to be trespassed), and to a supervisor.”

La Guardia, who said he stepped down from his leadership role at IHOPKC at the end of May, said he assumed that key IHOPKC leaders would have “walked out the banning/dismissal and necessary communications” involving Lucky.

‘Looking back now, it’s such a red flag’

Another former Student Ministries participant at the time, Josiah Thill, said Lucky “was a big part of my life” during his teen years.

“He was honestly one of the bright spots of IHOP for me,” Thill told The Star. “He was there for me, came to football practices of mine and came to play airsoft with us. So he was, like, involved in my life. He was a mentor.”

Thill said when he was around 13, he went to Lucky and told him he’d been watching porn.

“And he sat me down with my parents and made me confess everything to them,” he said.

Around 2009, Thill said, Lucky invited him and two buddies to go to the gym to work out with him late one night. The boys were about 14 at the time, Thill said, and Lucky was his small youth group leader.

Thill said after working out, they all sat naked in the sauna with Lucky. When they got home, he said, one of the friends was unnerved.

“He had been really uncomfortable, and he was like, ‘Dude, that was weird. I didn’t like that.’

“Looking back now, it’s such a red flag,” Thill said. “We were big in sports. And I played on sports teams at Christian schools and was used to being in locker rooms and being naked with other dudes. And he probably brought kids like us that weren’t weirded out by it to make it seem normal, you know.”

Thill said an investigator with the Kansas City Police Department contacted him about a year ago to talk about Lucky.

“He had left a message on my phone, and I returned his phone call,” Thill said. “But no one ever got back to me.”

‘There were no safety nets’

Thompson became involved with IHOPKC in 2006, attending IHOP University and holding positions including youth pastor and associate pastor. In 2009, he said, stories began circulating about Lucky.

“I did hear a story that Larry was in the shower room with some of these young guys, but I wasn’t in any way aware that they were nude … most everyone takes their showers with their swimming trunks on,” he said. “The shower thing was just kind of like whispered about.”

Then, suddenly, Lucky was gone. Thompson said staffers weren’t given any details as to why Lucky left.

“He just stopped showing up,” Thompson said. “What we were told was Larry is just kind of weird. It’s just not a good fit.’

“The weirdness was the overarching theme — ‘We just don’t want weird people around the kids.’ I’m 23 maybe at that point, and I’m just like, ‘Yeah, we don’t want weird people around our kids. That makes all the sense in the world.’

“It almost felt like, ‘Oh, wow, we dodged a bullet. Oh, thank God he got out of here.’ And who knows if he’d have actually done something if he’d been given a chance? That was kind of like the feeling around it.”

Thompson said he talked to Sliker about Lucky.

“Dave did say — it was very, I wouldn’t say nonchalant, but it was just like, ‘Yeah, Larry was being weird … he’s not a good fit to be a youth leader, and we don’t want to have to deal with that.’”

But IHOPKC leaders didn’t alert students or parents, Thompson and others said. And around that time, Werner’s unsuspecting parents sent their son to Lucky for counseling.

“They don’t tell the parents, and they don’t tell the youth, and they don’t even tell all the staff,” said Samuel Hood, who was in Student Ministries at the time and is the son of Allen Hood. “And his parents were not warned by any of the leadership that Larry had done inappropriate things and had been kicked out. And that led to Larry not only grooming Justin more, but literally assaulting him.”

Thompson said hearing Werner’s story “just hits you like a ton of bricks.”

“And it’s just like, ‘How did we allow that?’ And it really puts a lot of introspection on me. Like, what was I witnessing and not knowing? And just like, ‘God, do I have any discernment whatsoever?’ It’s just heartbreaking.”

Samuel Hood said 2009 was a monumental year for IHOPKC that culminated that November with a massive event called the IHOPU Student Awakening.

“IHOP was like this crazy rocket ship that was just building momentum,” he said. “And after that summer we hit our mass velocity as a ministry, and the whole world’s eyes were on us.

“There were no safety nets, and people fell through the cracks. And Justin was one of those people. And we’re on the rocket ship, and we’re looking back, and we’re like, ‘How did I not see the bodies falling out?’ And there’s no nets to catch them.”

Abuhl didn’t learn of Werner’s story until June.

“I met with him, and we had dinner, and he told me in person,” he said. “And I was like, ‘Man, I am so sorry.’

“I hate to say it, but the way the timeline goes is that when Larry kind of turned his attention away from me, Justin’s abuse really took off.”

Abuhl said he decided to come forward because “hearing about all of the suffering that he’s caused, I feel like I do have a responsibility to try and put forth what happened to me, because for all I know, he could be doing it still.

“If I can help at all to try and heal the suffering that’s already been done, that’s like the very least that I can do.”

‘The power of truth is not found in darkness’

Werner wants people to know that he doesn‘t blame his parents for what happened to him.

“They really had the best intentions,” he said. “I don’t hold them responsible for anything. My dad has been distraught ever since I told him.”

His mother died of cancer in March 2022, and he and his father decided not to tell her about the abuse because her health was in serious decline at that time.

Werner said it grieves him that some abuse survivors fear what will happen if they share their stories.

“The Jane Does who have come together against Mike Bickle to collectively share their story, like me coming out about my abuser now, have had so much to lose by coming forward publicly,” he said. “The harsh truth is that all other avenues have been lost for finding justice and the last resemblance of such can only be found in knowing that with the story being public, somewhere, somehow others can be helped.”

He said he has come to realize “that the power of truth is not found in darkness.”

“Even if it may cause pain and discomfort, sharing the truth is worth it.”

Werner said he hopes his story “can be a shining light to other young men that have been abused in some capacity at IHOPKC and elsewhere.”

“They, like me, have a voice.”

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