Recently resigned International House of Prayer Kansas City worship leader Misty Edwards, who denied being an abuse victim of the ministry’s founder Mike Bickle in January, has been accused of engaging in a longstanding affair with fellow worship artist Kevin Prosch, who allegedly blackmailed her for a period in the relationship.
Edwards, known for her albums like “Relentless,” denied the allegations in The Roys Report, which first published them on Wednesday. She also stated that she resigned from her staff role at IHOPKC last week with plans to move to Israel and serve in prayer rooms there.
The allegations against Edwards come from Brent Steeno, a former staff member at IHOPKC and Bickle’s personal ministry, Friends of the Bridegroom. Steeno said Edwards was also serving as his supervisor when she told him in December 2021 about the relationship with Prosch, which reportedly began around 2014 before Prosch and his second wife divorced in 2016.
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During this time, Prosch and Edwards were said to have drank alcohol and consumed drugs. They allegedly once were charged together for public intoxication during a traffic stop in 2018.
Steeno provided TRR with evidence, including text messages backing up his claim that Edwards confessed to him that she had an ongoing affair with Prosch that began around 2014. He said Edwards told him her relationship with Prosch had become coercive over time after Prosch recorded her revealing a secret relationship with another man that she was “deathly scared” of becoming public.
The former IHOPKC employee shared his account of the confession in a timeline he wrote for attorney Boz Tchividjian, who is representing alleged victims of Bickle, according to TRR.
Steeno said at the time of his conversation with Edwards, he was expressing regret about a decade he spent in a backslidden state when he sold drugs and lived immorally. He said he was trying to turn his life around when Edwards told him that she, too, had a past and divulged her relationship with Prosch.
Prosch, who was restored to ministry in 2002 after confessing to adultery in 1999, reportedly confessed to the affair he had with Edwards in a three-way call last October with bestselling author and Bible teacher Joel Richardson and Jose Diaz, a pastor and former board member of FOTB.
When asked about the allegations, however, Prosch reportedly told TRR: “I did not tell anyone (the other secret) neither did I tell anyone that Misty and I had an affair I won’t (sic) nothing to do with your [expletive] narrative.”
A police report and video of a traffic stop in 2018, cited by Roys, shows that Prosch and Edwards were charged with driving under the influence and public intoxication, respectively. Prosch, who was shown shirtless and failing sobriety tests, was also charged with failing to stop at a stop sign and speeding.
Edwards, who was alone in the car with Prosch, was shown attempting one sobriety test but she almost fell into an officer. The police report said she was too inebriated to continue with field tests.
She initially told officers, “I’ve been drinking a little, yes,” but later stated that she drank “a lot of wine and a couple vodkas.”
Edwards received a deferred sentence for the charges, a court document shows. Prosch also received a deferred sentence, according to court records, but he also had to complete a DWI education program and paid more than $2,000 in fines and fees.
In the report, Steeno said he disclosed what Edwards shared with him to IHOPKC leaders in 2022, but Edwards continued serving on the Executive Leadership Team for 19 months. Steeno alleged leaders retaliated against him.
In a joint statement last October, Dwayne Roberts, an IHOPKC founding member, former IHOPKC Executive Leadership Team member Brian Kim and former Forerunner Church Pastor Wes Martin, who are now part of a collection of former IHOPKC leaders called the advocacy group, claimed that when they first confronted IHOPKC leaders about the allegations of abuse from multiple Jane Does against Bickle spanning “several decades,” they were not treated seriously.
They alleged that before meeting with IHOPKC’s leadership team, they attempted to discuss the allegations directly with Bickle “in the spirit of Matthew 18:15-17” but were rebuffed. They allege that Bickle also attempted to intimidate, isolate, manipulate and discredit his alleged victims.
On Jan. 16, Edwards released a joint statement on behalf of herself and four other women misidentified as Bickle’s victims, claiming that the advocacy group members bullied them and tried to get them to create a narrative against the ministry that isn’t true.
“Many of us alleged Jane Does have been silent throughout the months of the three IHOPKC investigations and difficult ordeal. While other voices have chosen to clamor loudly and insistently, we have maintained our silence, desiring to retain whatever measure of privacy of life we could that was left after our lives were invaded by the violating behavior of those involved in a calculated ‘Jane Doe’ campaign that is being done in the name of ‘love, transparency, justice, and advocacy,'” the statement noted, criticizing the advocate group.
“While a narrative has been presented of many female victims whom the ‘advocate’ group is representing, the true story that has not come out is how many of those victims were involuntarily labelled that and had narratives constructed by others forced upon our lives, that we have been forced to defend ourselves from. This has been painful, humiliating, and traumatizing to all of us.”
Some Christians reacting to the disclosure of Edwards’ complicated relationship with Prosch, such as All Henny, vice president of The Witness, a black Christian collective that “exists to address the core concerns of black Christians,” raised concern about how the relationship between Prosch and the singer was framed.
“I believe that the woman in the article should be held accountable for any abuses or wrongdoing that she has committed,” Henny wrote. “However, accountability should be viewed through the lens of the dynamics of clergy sexual abuse and the power of thought control in high control, high demand groups. We cannot adequately understand or frame her actions without taking these things into consideration.”
She argued that based on the evidence presented in the report, Edwards is “very likely a victim of sexual abuse” and should not have been named.
“We don’t tell victims’ stories without their consent. We don’t make victims the story while glossing over the actions of their abusers,” she added.
“The article presents this woman’s apparent abuse as if she was leading a ‘double life’ and not the victim of a serial philanderer who, by his own admission, is skilled at manipulating women into sexual relationships with him by abusing his position of influence and power over them,” she said.
“In 1999, Kevin Prosch admitted to using his ‘gifting’ to coerce women into sexual relationships with him. Those relationships amount to clergy abuse. How do we know that the woman mentioned in that article wasn’t also similarly manipulated? Especially when it seems that she was led to believe that she might possibly marry this individual.”
Henny pointed to Prosch’s alleged blackmailing of Edwards.
“Kevin Prosch blackmailed this woman for the past six years, if not longer. That woman, with whom he had a prior sexual relationship, moved in with him to recover the blackmail item. She ‘did whatever he [Prosch] wanted to gain his trust.’ It’s not stated explicitly, but this seems to heavily imply sexual favors,” Henny said. “I doubt she was washing his socks. This is abuse. Full stop. Even if nothing sexual ever happened.”
Roys reports that Edwards was desperate to delete the recordings off Prosch’s devices and moved in with Prosch for two years to gain his trust. Steeno claims Edwards told people she was moving to Israel as a “cover” for moving in with Prosch.
“[S]he was so desperate to delete the recording that she moved in with Kevin and did whatever he wanted to gain his trust,” Steeno was quoted as saying.
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