Speakers
Mike Bickle
Director, International House of Prayer
Mike Bickle is the director of the International House of Prayer Missions Base in Kansas City (IHOP–KC), an evangelical missions organization based on 24/7 prayer with worship that is engaged in evangelism, healing the sick, inner city outreach, multiple justice initiatives, planting houses of prayer, and training missionaries. IHOP–KC has continued in 24/7 prayer led by worship teams since September 19, 1999, and is committed to combining 24/7 prayers for justice with 24/7 works of justice. IHOP–KC offers full-time training in Bible, music, and media schools. Mike’s teaching emphasizes growing in passion for Jesus through intimacy with God, doing evangelism and missions work from the place of night and day prayer, and the end times.
Bill Wilson
Founder and Pastor, Metro Ministries
Metro Ministries, founded by Bill Wilson in 1980, is the world’s largest Sunday school and an international Christian humanitarian organization with headquarters in Brooklyn, NY. Based on his principle that “it is easier to build boys and girls than to repair men and women,” this successful, relationship-centered pattern is recognized as one of the top ten influential missions organizations in the world today and is best known for reaching over 40,000 inner city children and their families every week in New York City and around the world.
Bill Wilson’s compassion and determination are rooted in a childhood filled with poverty and pain. Abandoned at twelve years old by his alcoholic mother, his body still bears the signs of several childhood disorders. This painful story is the same one he hears from the children he is reaching out to; they have been abandoned by their families, and even by the society that is supposed to care for them. Pastor Bill has taken his life experience and is using it to show others like him that there is hope. This undertaking has come at a high personal price, with Bill having been attacked and hospitalized numerous times.
The success of Bill’s extensive training programs can be seen in the numerous staff and volunteers who were once children in the Sunday school. It begins with the weekly lessons teaching the children that they are special, that God loves them, and that they can make a difference in the world around them. This continues on to teenagers and adults, putting into action his belief that “it’s about prevention, not intervention.”
Today, Bill travels widely, speaking in churches nationally and internationally. His programs, curriculum, and techniques are being duplicated in cities all over the world. And every Saturday, Bill is there in the heart of the urban jungle in Brooklyn, driving the school bus to pick up boys and girls for Sunday school.
Jane Mackie
Founder and Coordinator, Children’s Prayer Network
Jane Mackie is Founder and Coordinator of the Children’s Prayer Network in Australia and is married with two children and two grandchildren. Jane entered children’s ministry in 1988 while attending St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Wahroonga, Sydney, where she coordinated the children’s ministry for many years. Subsequently Jane was invited by the Australian AD2000 Movement to set up and coordinate a Children’s Prayer Network in Australia. The vision of the Children’s Prayer Network is to mobilize and network praying Christian children; to support and encourage the nurturing, discipling, training, and equipping of these children, and to enable them to take their place in God’s family.
Jane has traveled to more than 30 nations since 1995, usually accompanied by a team of children and young people, to share the vision the Lord has given her and to educate the church on the role of children in ministry. Thousands of children worldwide have heard the message that children can pray and children can minister; that they don’t have to wait until they are grown up to have a meaningful relationship with the Lord, and that He wants them to use the gifts He has given them to pray, worship, and serve Him. Today, all around the world, children are praying in their own prayer groups, in churches, in schools, in orphanages, even on the streets.
Scott Sells
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Parenting with Love and Limits
Dr. Scott Sells, of Parenting with Love and Limits, has gained national recognition as an expert in the treatment of difficult teenagers. He has been a practicing therapist for over fifteen years, also reaching professionals and parents through lectures and workshops.
Dr. Sells holds a doctorate in both marriage and family therapy and social work from Florida State University. He has over twenty publications and has authored two books, Treating the Tough Adolescent: A Family-Based, Step-by-Step Guide (Guilford Press, 1998) and Parenting Your Out-of-Control Teenager: 7 Steps to Reestablish Authority and Reclaim Love (St. Martin’s Press, 2001). Dr. Sells is a retired professor of social work at Savannah State University in Savannah, GA, and associate professor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV.
Lenny and Tracy LaGuardia
Executive Director and Associate Director, IHOP–KC Children’s Equipping Center
For almost three decades, Lenny and Tracy LaGuardia have devoted their lives to equipping, empowering, and mobilizing young people, parents, and leaders with kingdom of God truths and relevant strategies for ministry to children today. Lenny and Tracy serve on the leadership team at the International House of Prayer Missions Base in Kansas City, where, under the leadership of Mike Bickle, they direct and oversee all local, national, and international ministries relating to children ages 1–12. They have been married over 25 years and have five children: Lenny, Leatha, Andrea, Adrienne, and Shontavion.
Allen Hood
President, IHOPU; Associate Director, IHOP–KC
Allen Hood serves as president of the International House of Prayer University (IHOPU) and as associate director of IHOP–KC. Allen holds an M.Div. from Asbury Theological Seminary. His calling is to intercede for the fullness of God to be released in the Church and to labor for the strengthening of the global prayer and missions movement. Proclaiming the glorious splendor of Christ Jesus is his joy, and preparing the Bride for the glorious return of Jesus is his burden. To this end, Allen is deeply committed to seeing unceasing corporate worship and intercession established in every tribe, tongue, and nation. Allen resides in Kansas City with his wife, Rachel, and their three sons.
