Little ditty 'bout Mike and Diane: A new LLC, old teachings, not-so-old dates

Diane Bickle creates new LLC, evoking images from her husband's end-time teachings; Mike slips in life of David teachings posted after his abuse accusations

“The golden altar is the place of worship and incense. It’s right next to the throne of God. It’s somewhere on that sapphire sea with the river of fire flowing. It’s right there.” -Mike Bickle July 1, 2000

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This time it’s the prettiest Bickle who signed her name to the newest LLC, but it’s still a Bickle, and this LLC seems to say Mike is directing every turn down the infamous “Highway of Holiness,” heading on a collision course toward the alleged everlasting covenant of the “Sapphire Sea.”

In this case, it’s actually “SAPPHIRESEA L.L.C.,” one word in all caps with the periods places exactly as indicated, and filed with the state of Missouri only two weeks ago, by Diane Bickle.

In truth, while Dr. Dénouement would love to share all the detailed news behind the meaning of this new venture, even the freedom of speech and a free press do not grant the right to make up imaginary stories (not even a prophetic one). Thus, we have only what can be called “educated guesses,” based on what we know about the Bickle family and its hopeful legacy of end-time eschatology (versus the one currently in the running of accusations of pedophilia, adultery, and victimization). And while Mrs. Bickle was starting a new LLC and securing her own business in real estate continued in another company (more power to her for working an honest job, frankly), Mr. Bickle managed to slip some teachings on his website—teachings which include those he made after the accusations against him were made public and he was asked to step away.

The SAPPHIRESEA-shore

Since it’s not possible to know what either Bickle is thinking or planning, let’s simply examine what we know and what we can surmise. Factually, Dr. Dénouement has either confirmed with her own eyes or verified directly with a reliable source:

• Diane Bickle and Mike Bickle remain together, having been seen taking walks, having family gatherings, and hosting company at their duplex.

• Diane’s new LLC filing in the state of Missouri on Nov. 1, 2024, included only her name only, using the Bickle’s home address. She lists SAPPHIRESEA as a “Home based family business.” She elects to list it as a member-managed LLC structure, which is certainly the most common, so we can probably expect that whatever she launched is only the positioning for what is to come.

• Mrs. Bickle also founded her own realty company, Glad Heart Realty, fictitious name (DBA) of Glad Heart Properties, Inc. registered in Missouri (and Kansas) in 2000. From 2000-2008, every registration report listed only the Bickles, Mike and Diane, as the officers and directors, with Diane as president. In fact, early on, the state notified them of dissolution for failure to pay taxes, but they picked right up, paid the late fees, and kept on.

Until last year’s voluntary filing for dissolution, the only other change was a modification of the Articles of Amendment in 2017, signed by wayward son Luke, also in the family real estate business. By all accounts, Glad Heart Realty, was a success. It sold a number of houses in the greater KC area, and sometimes was credited with improving the neighborhood around south Kansas City and Grandview—and sometimes of asserting a cultish religious dominance and attempting to take over.

Glad Heart agents also had required prayer room hours and donated a portion of their commission to the ministry, but the agency announced late in 2023 that it would cease operations. At the time, it was not clear what, if any, plans were ahead. The initial closure announcement was more a whisper and came prior to the most scandalous news, as well as The Whippersnapper’s quietly dramatic announcement (while wearing a Blue Shirt) ¹that IHOPKC was “immediately, formally and permanently” separating from Mike Bickle—which, to this day, few believe was even possible, due to Bickle’s ties to the organization and the multiple many-mini ministries associated with it.

Glad Heart Properties, Inc., however, did file its voluntary dissolution papers in both MO and KS. The last biennial report it was required to file, however, shows that some familiar names were connected with it to the end: both of them end with LaGuardia. Tracy LaGuardia, Lenny’s wife, appeared first in 2009 on Glad Heart’s documents, and, like all things in IHOPKC leadership, connections forge bonds not easily broken.

2022 required registration report, 2023 voluntary dissolution

And finally, we know one more thing factually: We know that Diane, along with former real estate colleague at Glad Heart, Esther Greaves, who is the wife fellow IHOPKC resigned-but-still-around leader Stuart Greaves, is still working in real estate. In fact, so is Bickle son, Luke. The Bickle’s other son, Paul, has been in real estate, insurance, and several other business ventures consistently, apart from these.

Mrs. Bickle, Mrs. Greaves, and Luke, along with other Glad Heart alumni, recently joined another local metro KC real estate agency. In other words, Mrs. Bickle still has a job doing what she did. Few would debate her success at it, either. Here’s her bio, which is fairly recent, from that site:

“Diane believes that each one’s journey through life is unique and personal, therefore [sic] the home in which her clients live must be just as unique and personal.

“Since 1997 Diane has succeeded in helping people to buy and sell real estate in up and down markets. Her knowledge and understanding of the current market, together with her skill and experience in negotiation, makes her clients insist on working with her again and again.

“Diane is practiced in the art of focused listening and clear communication. She knows how to make her clients feel like they are her only client. She listens attentively to each one and helps them clarify their real estate goals and desires. She is intentional about stewarding her client’s real estate goals and desires as her own.

“Faith is a part of the fabric of Diane’s everyday life. She has been married to her best friend, Mike, since 1977. Hanging out with family and playing with her grandkids is her favorite pastime. Her family is her greatest treasure on this earth.” - Diane Bickle Profile in metro KC realty office

The recency of the profile, and the fact that fellow Glad Heart-ers have joined her at the new office, mimics the ways in which people craft patterns in their lives. Nothing is inherently wrong with this, of course. Patterns, routines, habits all can help us function, even feel safe—within reason. We create routines and lifestyles to keep our lives in check and—dare I say it?—focused. But, since I did say it, let’s go there.

The dangerous power of a focused life

Diane Bickle continuing to sell houses, whether prayer room hours are required and portions of commissions go to build IHOPKC or not, is not a bad “habit,” per se. Mrs. Bickle’s real estate license is legitimate, and her skills are too. Dr. Dénouement has never had even a rumor come her way indicating that Mrs. Bickle was not doing what she said she was when it came to real estate. (After all, someone needed to make some legitimate cash without making up a prophetic history).

Mr. Bickle, on the other hand, took focus to a whole other level. His teaching series The Power of a Focused Life was OCD meets Reform School 101. Look, Dr. Dénouement doesn’t have OCD, but she has been to reform school—way back when she was a wee little (not yet) Dr. Dénouement—and she can swear under oath that scheduling like that is for reformatories, not humane living. In Bickle’s teaching [notes here], while he sounds rational, emphasizing planning one’s schedule so as to not fall into idle time, devil’s workshop, and all that troubled jazz which precedes the blues, the reality was a far darker result.

Bickle’s dogma encouraged schedules built on 15-minutes blocks for all 24 hours a day, 168 hours a week. He could recite the hours, and the allotment of them. He downplayed this, saying keeping the schedule most of the time was what mattered. It was from this standpoint he justified the excessive unpaid workweeks of 18-year olds. He almost made it sound loving, a structure to “keep young people busy so they would keep out of trouble.” But there’s little love left now when myriad young people who are 30, 40, or even 50, and look back at the 24 hours a week of prayer meetings (minimum), 12, 2-hour sets, and 24 hours of “service” a week. The service was a job, real work. This work would be anything from administrative and clerical work to cleaning work to transcribing a speaker’s notes.

Note that if you were some of the actual speakers whose notes were “worthy” of being transcribed, you might get the privilege of sitting at the special RESERVED seats in the prayer room on Tuesday, the day we actually saw you, and while someone else transcribed the words you uttered sounding oh-so-holy, we watched you on your laptop scrolling Facebook mostly. We saw that. We knew that. And we knew which of the few leaders were not playing versus which ones could not sit still long enough to say a prayer or sing a song.

Anyway, the point of all that is to say that it was real work, work which someone could have gone to the liquor store next door or the apartment complex across the street and be paid a fair wage to do—for eight fewer hours a week. Honestly, many could have been janitors cleaning an office and thrown headphones on and worshiped and prayed and had a better experience than being used and abused in some—not all—situations. Many people look back and wish they could have tossed some of those experiences into… well, maybe the Sapphire Sea?

A return to prophetic history?

“There’s a second way that we behold the Lord: through the eternal gazing upon the throne, the song about the sapphire sea.”- Mike Bickle July 22, 2001

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The truth, again, is that even with inside experiences, inside sources, and inside information, Dr. Dénouement is neither a psychic nor a prophet. And neither of those “giftings” would be able to explain the reason, motives, and plans behind Diane Bickle filing the SAPPHIRESEA L.L.C. on Nov. 1.

The fact is that when yours truly sniffed out this news bite, she was with another former IHOP-er, and both of us had the same immediate thoughts: Revelation imagery and Mike Bickle. You see, when you have been there once, you have been stuck there on repeat.

A 2018 piece from ChurchWatch Central rightfully criticizes the nonsense of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and its goofy claims like Interstate 35 being the “Highway of Holiness.” It gets worse. Have a read if you dare. In the article, it cites several areas of the false IHOPKC “Prophetic History” from Mike Bickle and Bob Jones. (Do note that while the 2018 links are not working now for the most part, a simple web search will still bring up the sources quoted.)

The mention of Sapphire Sea and references to “vast expanse of blue” and “sapphire blue” are frequent not only in this arena, but are implied references through the prophetic teachings of Bickle. He’s really into vast expanses of blue and sapphire stuff, so whether that is related to Mrs. Bickle’s newest filing we cannot know. Sometimes things appear connected and happen to be similar because our brains pick ideas we subconsciously connect.

Transcript of a long prophetic history message, which includes Bob Jones, lots of sapphire, an unhealthy dose of fake humility, and a load of crock.

These excerpts from some of Bickle’s teachings, which you can read if you so desire; some mention the Sapphire and Sapphire Sea quite specifically (also linked above)—sometimes not in context, unsurprisingly.

Remember last year? Who could forget? The revelation that the guy teaching Revelation was really a cult leader who was actually allegedly (Dr. Dénouement would once again like to point out that she is legally required to use the word allegedly, and it does not reflect her personal opinion, okay?) sexually abusing women, and had been for probably decades. Mr. Greaves, along with Circuitous David Sliker and others stood onstage at Forerunner Church on Friday night, Oct. 27, 2023 and tried to explain that they had asked Bickle to step away and not engage even on his social media for a time. Blah. Blah. Blah.

I mean, I guess it counts that he waited to post his malarkey from that time until later? Are you flipping kidding me, Bickle? Perhaps the dates are off? Again, Dr. Dénouement is only able to work with the information available to her; however, when the dates under Bickle’s Studio Content on his own site are clearly labeled October 2023, and a number of videos are included, it’s clear they are intended to be shown from those dates. Due to Mr. Bickle being unaware of accessibility issues, whether he may or may not be legally required to provide captions, Dr. Dénouement has assisted the best she can by providing (not excellently done) auto-generated YouTube links. Included in these are the links to the actual video site from Bickle, as well as the link to Rebecca Hopkins story on The Roys Report where she embeds numerous emails from Jane Doe’s husband and Bickle, dated on some of the identical dates of these videos.

The last video upload is below, and it should link you to the one previous.

‘Little ditty ‘bout [Mike] & Diane: two American kids doing the best they can’

Writing this post took little old Dr. Dénouement back to her teen years in 19[cough cough] in Santa Maria, CA where we all knew every John Cougar Mellencamp, Journey, and REO Speedwagon song by heart—or, more properly, by a “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Now, this “little ditty ‘bout ‘Jack and Diane,’ by Mellencamp almost seems “prophetic,” (though it wasn’t quite rated G—but the music video was surprisingly cleaner than the imagery, so there’s that) about Mike and Diane, since the core of so many of these cultic issues with IHOPKC is the fake prophecy being used to manipulate and control everything. The song, from Mellencamp’s American Fool album, released in 1982 (look, it was a hit throughout the 1980s, so don’t assume things like that Dr. Dénouement remembers the release date), actually was supposed to be about an interracial couple, the artist revealed later. Instead, when the record company said, no way, the song became about the middle America white high school sweethearts in what is basically the “prime” of their lives. ²

The Bickles via two public pictures from Facebook (see footnote for link)

Keep in mind, Dr. Dénouement may be an IHOPKC alumni and dropout, and smart enough for both of those categories, but she cannot claim to know with any certainty what this newest LLC was created to do. Most of the LLCs with any relation to IHOPKC seem to have sprouted like incubated bunnies in a springtime festival, including generic and vague descriptors of their purposes, such as “for any lawful purpose permitted” or “to invest and manage assets.” The last one could be talking about anything from retirement portfolios to human trafficking (note that Dr. Dénouement is not accusing IHOPKC of creating any LLCs to run human trafficking. She thinks they are more concerned with keeping their money safe. However, she suspects as simple as it is in Missouri to create random LLCs for you, your BFF, and your BFF’s 222 other BFFs, that one of those 23847373 businesses probably is doing that as well.)

While it seems likely that Mrs. Bickle’s new “SAPPHIRESEA” LLC is related to end times eschatology and her honey bun’s vision of grandeur as “David Part Deux,” other possibilities exist for the references apart from the Bible and stuff.

I mean…. there’s Sonic the Hedgehog.

Oh yeah, life goes on 
Long after the thrill of livin' is gone 
Oh yeah, they say, life goes on 
Long after the thrill of livin' is gone 
(bridge)
So let it rock, let it roll 
Let the Bible Belt come and save my soul 
Hold on to 16 as long as you can 
Changes come around real soon 
Make us women and men  - John Cougar Mellencamp, "Jack and Diane" 

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Please note that unlike the Republican National Convention official party platform of 2024, which appears to haphazardly distribute capital letters as if it were being allotted one Bitcoin per made up fake proper noun, Blue Shirt has indeed morphed into a proper noun, as regular readers of this publication are acutely aware.

The Bickle pictures are from these Facebook pages. Diane still, with track, here, and Mike and Diane, here.

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