Mike Bickle is president and director of International House of Prayer (IHOP) as well as co-founder of The Joseph Company of Kansas City. Bickle is a frequent speaker at the Sunday services at Forerunner Christian Fellowship, a local Kansas City church associated with IHOP-KC. Bickle is also Head of Prayer/Prayer Director of the international GOD TV television network.

Bickle made a decision to follow Christ in 1971 at summer camp; in 1972 Billy Graham's preaching had a "powerful impact" on him. Within a month of beginning at University, he had to leave to care for his brother Pat, who had broken his neck in a football accident. After seven years of church planting and pastoring in St Louis, in 1982 he moved to Kansas City, where he planted and began to pastor what is now known as Metro Christian Fellowship.