Soul Survivor and Those Who Cannot Remember the Past

On 19th September, New Wine announced[i] they would be reviewing their relationship with Mike Pilavachi and Soul Survivor after releasing a rather ill-advised statement distancing themselves from the substantiated allegations that Mike Pilavachi abused his power and massaged young male interns in his bedroom.[ii]  Few Christian organisations have been honest or transparent about their relationship with Mike Pilavachi since the allegations first became public.  While a few have publicly lauded Mike Pilavachi (namely JJohn and Terry Virgo and some others on Pilavachi’s now deleted Facebook post about avoiding a “trial by media”),[iii]few have been willing to examine their culpability in the midst of what has emerged at Soul Survivor.

As a result of all this, I thought it would be prudent to examine some the many and varied links between Mike Pilavachi and various key organisations and individuals over the last forty years.  Given what is known about the harm Mike Pilavachi caused, I have been cautious to avoid focussing too much on those who were mentored by him, to avoid causing further distress.  The familiar meme of Homer Simpson backing away slowly into a bush has come to mind repeatedly as I have watched the silence amongst UK Charismatic Christian leaders.

This blog is written as an attempt to stop more people hiding in that bush by rewriting their past relationship with Mike Pilavachi and Soul Survivor. All that remains to be said before getting into the past is a big thank you to all those who have been in touch to share parts of the story that has been told her.

Let’s start at the very beginning (well in the 1960s)

John Wimber became a Christian in the US in 1963 while he was working as a musician and music manager for the Righteous Brothers.  After enrolling in college, he majored in Biblical and although he was ordained as a Quaker minister, he soon left this behind when the Quakers sought to limit his charismatic ministry.  In 1974, he began working with Fuller Theological Seminary and by 1977, the house church Wimber had grown in Anaheim (a town about 30 minute’s drive from both Los Angeles and Fuller where he worked) eventually became named Vineyard Christian Fellowship as it joined the Vineyard network which had been founded by Kenn Gulliksen.  In the UK, Anglican priest David Watson planted St Michael le Belfrey church in York in 1973 with his wife Anne.[iv]  He held a visiting teaching role at Fuller Seminary where he met John Wimber.  In 1980, David Watson was one of the first people to bring John Wimber to the UK.[v]

After having served as the Anglican bishop for Chile, Bolivia and Peru, Rev David Pytches and his wife Mary, moved back to the UK and David became vicar of St Andrews, Chorleywood (a small town, an hour’s drive west of London). Four years into this role, in 1981, they invited John Wimber to visit the church.[vi]  This visit had a profound impact on the church as did many of John Wimber’s and his team’s visits to churches across the UK.  For instance, the following year, 1982, Wimber visited Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) under Sandy Millar’s leadership after an introduction from David Watson, which had a huge impact on the way HTB developed.[vii]

Just before this, John Mumford was working as a curate in the West Country and along with his wife Eleanor, they experienced God moving in a charismatic way.[viii]  In 1982, John Mumford was in the US at the invitation of David Watson, and after hearing from Watson about Wimber’s ministry, John Mumford uncharacteristically showed up unannounced in Anaheim and experienced the Vineyard church and Wimber for himself; soon after he became part of the Vineyard staff team in Anaheim.[ix]  By 1984, UK New Frontiers founder Terry Virgo had also connected with John Wimber, visiting him in Anaheim after being introduced by a mutual friend Geoff Shearn who worked at Kingsway music.[x]

Wimber visited St Andrews many times,[xi] with the church holding regular residential leaders’ gatherings for Christian ministers from across the UK.  Another St Andrews member, Barry Kissell led “faith sharing teams” that visited churches across the UK, teaching others how to do charismatic ministry.  Kissell went on to also have a leadership role in St Marys, Marylebone.  Although by this point David Watson had sadly died, John Wimber and his team began leading large UK charismatic conferences from 1984 onwards, organised by David Pytches.  These included events in Westminster Central Hall, Sheffield, Harrogate, Brighton and Wembley (the Brighton events were in partnership with New Frontiers).[xii] Through these events, John and Eleanor Mumford felt called to leave Anglican ministry and established Europe’s and the UK’s first Vineyard church plant in 1987, in Putney (South West London).  It was at this time that David Pytches’ daughter, Debby, began working as an intern at Anaheim Vineyard with John Wright (Debby and her husband John, would go on to take over UK Vineyard leadership from the Mumfords in 2015).  In this same year, 1987, an almost thirty-year-old Mike Pilavachi was now leading the youth work at St Andrews with 13-year-old Matt Redman in his youth group.[xiii]  

At the other end of England, around this time, in 1988, a young Andy Hawthorne and his brother Simon organised a large event, Message’88 in Manchester.  With 300 events run in advance of the event itself, thousands of young people heard about Jesus.  By the following year, this one off event had become a mission to take the Message to Schools, with a group of Christians setting up a band, the World Wide Message Tribe to do this work.  

The New Wine Years

Back in the south of England, a vision for a national gathering of Christians emerged out of the conferences John Wimber was leading, with Wimber himself donating £3000 as a “seed gift” to get this endeavour started.[xiv]  In 1989, the first New Wine event was held at the Royal Bath and West Showground with nearly 2,500 participants.[xv]  Mike Pilavachi headed up the youth work for the first and subsequent events.[xvi] By 1991 he had been joined in leading the youth work by Steve Chalke and David Westlake.  During this time, youth sessions included worship from Matt Redman and Cutting Edge, a music project set up by Martin Smith and Tim Jupp for running youth outreach events in West Sussex.  Cutting Edge went on to become much more famously known as the band Delirious?[xvii]

Within a couple of years of New Wine, the vision for a separate youth festival had emerged, with Barry Kissell telling Mike Pilavachi that he had “outgrown” the youth ministry at St Andrews.[xviii]   The first Soul Survivor festival was held in 1993 with the youth team from New Wine and JJohn (now a Canon) providing teaching.  There were around 2000 participants.  Soon after this, Mike Pilavachi and a team from St Andrews Chorleywood planted Soul Survivor Watford, a church primarily focussed on young people.  Soul Survivor festival was formally run under New Wine’s governance until 1999,[xix] when the limited company, Soul Survivor, was founded with six directors; David Westlake, Joyce Wills, John Price, Peter Maskrey, David Pytches and Graham Cray.[xx]  

While slightly off topic, given that JJohn was the main Bible teacher at Soul Survivor, JJohn was made a Lay Canon in 2003 by Coventry Cathedral, but has never been ordained in the Church of England. His Canon status was bolstered sometime after 2009, when David Carr, long-time leader of the Renewal Christian Centre in Solihull (near Birmingham),  established himself as Bishop Abbott of the Order of St Leonard and Bishop of Wroxhall Abbey, after convincing Wroxall Abbey Hotel, which is a “a luxurious and historic 72-bedroom hotel” and wedding venue, to let him.[xxii]  At some point since then, JJohn has been ordained as a Canon Missioner in the Order of St Leonard.[xxiii]

Another off topic incidental. As mentioned in THIS post, Mark Bailey was removed both from New Wine leadership and ordained ministry in the Church of England due to his behaviour being dishonouring of God. After a brief employment at Hope For Justice (I’ve extensively documented on this blog how their co-founder Ben Cooley was sacked for gross misconduct), Mark Bailey now leads Encounter Vineyard church in Cheltenham. Seems the shared rootedness in John Wimber does not lead Vineyard to avoid employing men sacked by New Wine.

I digress.  

Soul Survivor projects

Many projects either emerged from or were connected to the Soul Survivor festivals. 

Soul Action (Tearfund)

David Westlake began to work at Tearfund as Youth Director in 1996, [xxiv] and from there a strong partnership was built between Tearfund and Soul Survivor, through Soul Action which was incorporated as a company in 1994.[xxv]  Money raised at Soul Survivor festivals would be donated to Tearfund projects, Tearfund employees would deliver seminars on justice at Soul Survivor, and much of Soul Survivor’s commitment to justice was outworked through Tearfund projects and the ability for young people to support these projects with money and volunteering efforts. Some Soul61 young people and those who previously worked at Soul Survivor also went onto be employed by Teafund within David Westlake’s team.

Survivor Records (Kingsway Music/David C Cook)

Given the priority given to worship music at New Wine and then Soul Survivor, Survivor Records was established in 1997 by Les Moir as a subsidiary of Kingsway Music (whose parent company is David C Cook),[xxvi] to bring the new worship artists at these festivals to a new audience.  Artists represented by them included: Matt Redman, Tim Hughes, Vicky Beeching, Brenton Brown, Beth Croft, Phatfish, LZ7, YFriday and others.  It was also David C Cook who published a number of projects co-authored by Mike Pilavachi and Andy Croft, including Everyday Supernatural (2014), Lifelines (2018), and Storylines DVD and Small Group Guide (2019).  

Soul Survivor Mini Mag

From 1995, the Soul Survivor Magazine was published every other month,[xxvii] in association with Tearfund, the magazine was published by New Wine and edited by Mike Pilavachi.  On occasion David Westlake and Liz Biddulph were Managing Editors on occasions, with both of these individuals and David and Jenny Rosser also acting as Consultants on some magazine issues.  Regular contributors to the magazine included Craig Borlase (who was also an occasional editor), Graham Cray and his daughter Catherine, Andy Hawthorne, JJohn, Mary Pytches, Beth and Matt Redman, Dawn Reynolds, David Westlake, and Steve Chalke. 

Hope Together (Youth for Christ and The Message Trust)

Roy Crowne began as Director of Youth for Christ in 1998.  He built a strong friendship with Mike Pilavachi and Andy Hawthorne at the Message Trust.  He sought to work with them both in collaboration, rather than competition, to enable more young people across the UK to come to know Jesus.  Roy Crowne explains that, “HOPE Together grew out of the friendship and trust that had grown between we three guys.”[xxviii]  Until 2018, both Mike Pilavachi and Andy Hawthorne were Directors of Hope (alongside Rachel Jordan and Laurence Singlehurst), with Roy Crowne as Executive Director.[xxix]  In the year 2000, the Message partnered with Soul Survivor to run Message 2000, an event across Manchester in which over 5000 young people participated.  This was followed up in 2004 with Soul in the City in London and Soul In The City Durban in 2009.  After Roy Crowne left Youth for Christ in 2010 to become Executive Director of Hope, Gav Calver (now CEO of the Evangelical Alliance) took over as CEO at Youth for Christ.[xxx] While we’re talking about the Evangelical Alliance, Steve Clifford (Gav Calver’s predecessor at Evangelical Alliance CEO) was the Soul Survivor leadership team Chair, the Chair of Hope ’08, and the Chair of Soul in the City (according to his LinkedIn).

Incidentally, David Westlake founded the Cinnamon Network with Matt Bird (they’ve recently rebranded as NAYBA) and Matt Bird describes himself as a “strategic adviser” to Soul In The City and Hope.[xxxi]  Another incidental is that Laurence Singlehurst’s daughter, Keira Phyo, previously worked for Tearfund alongside David Westlake and now works for Lambeth Palace.  Another link between Soul Survivor and Lambeth Palace is David Saunderson.  Saunderson was a Director of the Lambeth Trust from 2012 until July 2023,[xxxii] and was also a Director of Soul61 from 2013 until 31st March 2023,[xxxiii] two days before the Church of England and Soul Survivor issued statements about Mike Pilavachi stepping down.  The Lambeth Trust supports the work and mission of present and former Archbishops of Canterbury.  In 2020, Archbishop Justin Welby awarded Mike Pilavachi the Alphege Award for Evangelism and Witness.

LIV Village

While it is not entirely clear how Mike Pilavachi became involved with Tich and Joan Smith, they are the co-founders of LIV Village,[xxxiv] a set of projects in various places across South Africa which provide homes, love and faith to orphans and other vulnerable children and young people.  The UK branch of the charity exists to support their work.  David Westlake was a founding trustee of the charity and Mike Pilavachi resigning as a trustee only after allegations emerged in April 2023.[xxxv]  The LIV Village choir would perform at Soul Survivor festivals and Mike Pilavachi, his interns and others connected to Soul Survivor would visit their projects in South Africa.

Church of England ordinations

Each year Soul Survivor ran seminars to encourage participants to discern whether they were called to ordination in the Church of England.  From this, many younger, charismatic people ordained in the church of England discovered their calling, at least in part, due to Soul Survivor.[xxxvi]  This led Nicky Gumbel to state that almost every one of his 25 clergy at HTB testified that Mike Pilavachi was, “the main reason, humanly speaking, that they had been ordained.”[xxxvii]

Soul Edge Ministries

This is a leadership training resource with gap year locations in Canada and New Zealand and has run since 2007/08ish.[xxxviii]  It was set up by two of Mike Pilavachi’s interns and he supported the project and subsequently platformed the gap year at Soul Survivor festivals.  Until very recently, a lot of the publicity for the gap year came from their connection to Soul Survivor and Mike Pilavachi.  It is understood than most of their students will have signed up through seeing the stand at Soul Survivor festivals.

Co-authored books

The foreword of Mike Pilavachi’s book Soul Survivor (2004) was written by Nicky Gumbel, who until recently was the leader of HTB (a church deeply infused by John Wimber’s theology).[xxxix]  As an aside, long-time HTB staff member and friend of Nicky Gumbel, Mark Elsdon-Dew has apparently been supporting Mike Pilavachi since the allegations emerged in April.  I mean I guess that’s what one would do for one’s friend’s co-author…

Mike has also co-authored books with Craig Borlase (Live the Life, 2006. Afterlife, 2000. My First Trousers, 1999. For the Audience of One, 1999. Weeping Before An Empty Tomb, 2000. Life, Death and Everything In-Between, 2001).  Craig has also co-authored a book with Martin Smith of Delirious.  Liza Hoeksma is another of Mike Pilavachi’s co-authors (When Necessary Use Words, 2007. Soul Food for Youth Workers, 2009.)  Liza has also co-authored two books with Patrick Regan and other books with Ali Martin, and with Tich and Joan Smith.  The NIV Soul Survivor Journalling Bible was developed by Ali Martin, Andy Croft, Mike Pilavachi and team.[xl]

As Soul Survivor festival and church grew, both in influence and numbers, Mike Pilavachi became involved in various projects and initiatives.  From 1998 – 2000 he was a trustee of the Evangelical Alliance,[xli]  and was instrumental in the setting up of student organisation Fusion (which had a presence at all subsequent Soul Survivor festivals and ran their student content).[xlii] Mike Pilavachi was a Trustee for XLP in London (found by Patrick Regan) from 2007 – 2017, with XLP a regular presence at Soul Survivor.  In 2018 he joined the Council of Reference for Christ Church London[xliii] and in 2011 – 2012 trained for Anglican ordination in the HTB affiliated St Mellitus college.  Questions are now being raised as to if/how Pilavachi was fast tracked through the ordination process.

Other connections

Alongside sitting on various boards and lending his influence to different projects and initiatives, Mike Pilavachi was a regular contributor to many different events and training programmes.  These include:

  • Spring Harvest (speaker from 1990 onwards).
  • Imagine Festival, Inverurie (this Scottish festival was eventually taken over by Soul Survivor).
  • HTB Youth Alpha video series.
  • New Frontiers (leadership training and conferences).
  • Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge (annual speaker and friend of the church).
  • Kingsgate Community Church, Peterborough (speaker at the European Learning Community events, 2013 onwards).
  • Ichthus Revive (most recently 2022).
  • St Pauls, Hammersmith.
  • Hillsong Australia (spoke at their annual conference the same year as Michael Gugliemucci was sharing his made-up testimony).[xliv]
  • Church of Ireland (spoke at their youth festival, Summer Madness).
  • St John’s College, Nottingham (brought teams to lead chapel, worship and preach and was Honourary President).
  • Worship Central (regular speaker).
  • UCCF (spoke at their annual training event).
  • Trinity College, Bristol (lectured for them).
  • Care for the Family (contributed to their Getting Your Kids Through Church resource).[xlv]
  • Open Doors (contributed to their youth content).
  • YWAM (Soul Survivor started a church in YWAM’s Harpenden base, Holmsted Manor).
  • Scripture Union (partnered with Soul Survivor for the festival each year.[xlvi]
  • Woodlands Church, Bristol (hosted Naturally Supernatural events in 2022 and 2023).[xlvii]
  • Living Out (Mike endorsed their work).[xlviii]
  • St Peters High School, Gloucester (Spoke at a Friday night chaplaincy evening called Ignite – 2017).
  • Anaheim Vineyard (speaker, 2015/16).
  • Croydon Vineyard (pastors Tom and Lesley Thompson were at Soul Survivor Watford and Mike Pilavachi mentored Tom).
  • Trent Vineyard – Debby and John Wright’s church (preached numerous times at conferences and as a visiting speaker over many years and opened the church’s youth centre).
  • Causeway Coast Vineyard (speaker at events).
  • US – National Pastors Convention (2003 – 2005)
  • US – National Youth Workers Convention (2003 – 2005)
  • First Presbyterian Church of Honolulu (Speaking at the Hawaiian Islands Ministry (HIM) Conference). 
  • South West Youth Ministries (Mike Pilavachi was their Patron and spoke at many of the conference over the years).

Since Soul Survivor ended in 2019, there are three other significant connections that are worth mentioning.  As Mike Pilavachi closed down Soul Survivor, he did so having approached a few different organisations to pass on the “Christian youth festival” baton.  These were:

  • Youthscape, who used the baton (which included a significant donation from Soul Survivor) to set up their Satellites festival.
  • Vineyard, who used the baton with their Dream The Impossible (DTI) festival (which had previously taken place in May) by moving it to the summer.[xlix]
  • Elim’s Limitless festival.[l]

What now?

It struck me as I’ve been pulling all these threads together that we are sixty years on from when John Wimber became a Christian and God was revealed in fresh and exciting ways to Christians in the US and UK.  In tracing where Soul Survivor and Mike Pilavachi came from, I have seen the extraordinary ways God moved, ushering in new worship styles and breathing new life into the UK Church.  But I was struck by how the Spirit’s move was no protection from power abuse or misuse within those communities.


Vineyard Anaheim reckons with the damage wreaked by Alan Scott and others.  Hillsong clings on, even as the Houston’s stranglehold crushes out the Spirit.  Soul Survivor continues to establish just how badly their systems failed.  Many other unknown cases of abuse and mistreatment at the hands of Christian leaders rumble on, as those who have been trampled drag themselves onward, their faith only a smouldering wick, for some faith has been totally blown out.  As God moved through John Wimber and others, they saw the signs of the times.  They understood that God was calling them to a new expression of faithfulness; complete with electric guitars, wacky experiences and a sold-out love for Jesus.  They saw the way that other forms of faith had been corrupted or stripped of power and they sought, with great enthusiasm to follow where Jesus was leading.

Right now, we are in a reckoning.   God is shining a light on that which has remained in the darkness.  Those with the power (some of whom have been mentioned by name in this blog) are so settled in their places, so comfortable in their power, that they fail to see God moving this time round.  When John Wimber visited the UK back in the eighties, these people were young and idealistic, still relatively powerless in the grand scheme of things.  But now they are the elder statesmen of Christian culture.  They tell their stories of the Spirit moving and they convince themselves that this wave of abuse disclosures will disintegrate into nothingness.  Surely this generation is simply too fragile?  Of course Mike Pilavachi could be a bit difficult, but isn’t that always the way with gifted men?  Soon everything will calm down and we can get back to the way we built things to be? 

But they’ve forgotten who invited them to the party.  The Holy Spirit moved and they found themselves in the flow of what God was doing.  They build their big ships to travel on those waters more easily, and now they think their ships are where the Spirit is at.  They think their ships are what matter.  But as those who landed in Malta all of those years ago discovered, sometimes the ship will be smashed to pieces.[li]

For the sake of those most wounded I hope those with power, who felt that move of the Spirit all those years ago, will wake up to what that same Spirit is saying to us right now.  But regardless of whether they get onboard, I have every confidence that the same Spirit which changed the face of UK Christianity decades ago, will succeed in moving us to where we need to be.  Even if some ships have to be smashed in the process.

—————————–

So far, of those identified above as having a relationship with Mike Pilavachi,these organisations have offered transparent and helpful responses:

  • Youthscape made a statement HERE.
  • Croydon Vineyard wrote an article HERE.
  • South West London Vineyard published THIS on Spiritual Abuse and included acknoweldgement of their relationship with Mike Pilavachi in THIS September 2023 sermon (transcription of some of it HERE).

This blog was edited on 25th September 2023 as it had incorrectly stated that JJohn had never been made a Canon in the Church of England, when he is a Lay Canon.


[i] https://archive.ph/AJFKS

[ii] https://twitter.com/newwineengland/status/1702004212429992206?s=46

[iii] https://archive.ph/2023.07.17-212202/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/17/backlash-church-leaders-praise-soul-survivor-mike-pilavachi/

[iv] https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/14028354.york-church-celebrates-50th-anniversary-of-famous-vicars-arrival/

[v] https://yournameislikehoney.com/2021/11/12/part-ten-when-wimber-met-htb-part-1-of-2/

[vi] https://web.archive.org/web/20220116105241/https://www.vineyardchurches.org.uk/vineyard-vaults/real-not-religious/

[vii] https://www.vineyardchurches.org.uk/resources/remembering-john-wimber/

[viii] https://vineyardusa.org/library/the-global-vineyard-meet-john-mumford/

[ix] https://vineyardusa.org/library/the-global-vineyard-meet-john-mumford/

[x] http://www.nigelring.org/40-years-on-3-conferences-in-the-80s/

[xi] https://newwine.medium.com/from-power-house-to-kitchen-to-showground-d8ff1ec2a57d,https://yournameislikehoney.com/2021/11/12/part-ten-when-wimber-met-htb-part-1-of-2/

[xii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW5nAXCUA_Y

[xiii] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/13/christian-singer-matt-redman-healing-soul-survivor/

[xiv] https://newwine.medium.com/from-power-house-to-kitchen-to-showground-d8ff1ec2a57d

[xv]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Wine#:~:text=The%20first%20New%20Wine%20Christian,and%20attracted%20nearly%202%2C500%20people.

[xvi] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW5nAXCUA_Y (18:01)

[xvii]https://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/articles/music/Les_Moir_Survivor_Records_Visionary__And_A_Pretty_Funky_Bass_Player/25891/p1/

[xviii] https://archive.ph/w1ls0

[xix] https://x.com/needs_light/status/1702351254012272976?s=20

[xx] HERE

[xxi] http://hearthofmopsus.blogspot.com/2018/03/re-emergence.html

[xxii] https://wahotel.co.uk

[xxiii] http://www.orderofstleonard.org/team/

[xxiv] https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-westlake-b5435811/

[xxv] https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02917078/filing-history?page=4

[xxvi]https://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/articles/music/Les_Moir_Survivor_Records_Visionary__And_A_Pretty_Funky_Bass_Player/25891/p1/

[xxvii] https://issuu.com/soulsurvivoruk/2

[xxviii] https://www.revelationtrust.org/relationships-rule/

[xxix] HERE

[xxx] https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/gavin-calver-leaves-yfc-for-ea

[xxxi] https://www.matt-bird.com

[xxxii] https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07884895/officers

[xxxiii] https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07705162/filing-history?page=2

[xxxiv] https://www.liv-village.com/our-story/

[xxxv] https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search?p_p_id=uk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_CharityDetailsPortlet&p_p_lifecycle=2&p_p_state=maximized&p_p_mode=view&p_p_resource_id=%2Faccounts-resource&p_p_cacheability=cacheLevelPage&_uk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_CharityDetailsPortlet_objectiveId=A12261853&_uk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_CharityDetailsPortlet_priv_r_p_mvcRenderCommandName=%2Faccounts-and-annual-returns&_uk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_CharityDetailsPortlet_priv_r_p_organisationNumber=5009582

[xxxvi] https://livingchurch.org/2019/09/14/soul-survivor-festival-ends-26-year-run-in-church-of-england/

[xxxvii] https://x.com/God_loves_women/status/1658531348347342848?s=20

[xxxviii] https://www.souledge.org/team

[xxxix] https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334841524744

[xl] https://www.amazon.co.uk/NIV-Soul-Survivor-Journalling-Bible/dp/1473696739

[xli] https://www.eauk.org

[xlii] https://www.fusionmovement.org

[xliii] https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search?p_p_id=uk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_CharityDetailsPortlet&p_p_lifecycle=2&p_p_state=maximized&p_p_mode=view&p_p_resource_id=%2Faccounts-resource&p_p_cacheability=cacheLevelPage&_uk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_CharityDetailsPortlet_fileName=0001111950_AC_20180731_E_C.pdf&_uk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_CharityDetailsPortlet_objectiveId=A9232784&_uk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_CharityDetailsPortlet_priv_r_p_mvcRenderCommandName=%2Faccounts-and-annual-returns&_uk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_CharityDetailsPortlet_priv_r_p_organisationNumber=4019022

[xliv] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9422751/Aussie-Hillsong-pastor-faked-having-cancer-hide-porn-habit-starts-charity-homeless.html

[xlv] https://www.eauk.org/great-commission/resources/getting-your-kids-through-church

[xlvi] https://www.lendrickmuir.org.uk/events/creperie-soul-survivor/

[xlvii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=h7a0yIbs0XI

[xlviii] https://twitter.com/mattdrapps/status/1700860993633415381?s=46

[xlix] https://dreamingtheimpossible.org

[l] https://www.elim.org.uk/Groups/310950/LIMITLESS.aspx

[li] Acts 26 – 28.

Previous blogs:

  1. The Problem with Statements; Mike Pilavachi, Soul Survivor, and the importance of independence
  2. Firm Foundations: on statements, silencing and Soul Survivor
  3. Holy Saturday and Soul Survivor
  4. Guest Blog: Soul Survivor’s Elephant Navigating Service
  5. A Suggested Statement about Soul Survivor
  6. Silence, Soul Survivor and pushing things under the rug
  7. Soul Survivor and anything that needs to come into the light
  8. Guest Post: An Open Letter to Evangelical Leaders in the UK
  9. Soul Survivor and Those Who Are Late to the Conversation
  10. Soul Survivor and those who are late to the conversation
  11. The Soul Survivor Situation – A Timeline
  12. Guest Blog: Dear Pete Greig
  13. We are all implicated subjects
  14. Trampling on the Little Ones
  15. Woe to you, religious leaders
  16. Guest Post: New Frontiers and Mike Pilavachi

Guest Post: New Frontiers and Mike Pilavachi

Photo by Luis Quintero on Pexels.com

For those unfamiliar with New Frontiers (NF), they are a network of evangelical charismatic churches founded in 1979 by Terry Virgo. In 2011, Terry Virgo retired as the “apostolic leader” of New Frontiers, and at this point New Frontiers had 800 churches in 70 nations. As a result of this, New Frontiers reorganised itself into 8 “spheres”, where NF churches with similar theology and mission join together. The names of the spheres are: 1) Advance, 2) Catalyst, 3) ChristCentral, 4) Commission, 5) Confluence, 6) New Ground, 7) Regions Beyond, and 8) Relational Mission. “New Frontiers Together” is the name of organisation that oversees the spheres. New Frontiers is led by a group of male “apostolic leaders”. There isn’t much clarity externally as to what qualifies someone as an apostolic leader but from what I can establish from HERE, the Apostolic Leaders include: eight Sphere Leaders, five New Frontiers Together leaders (four of whom are also Sphere Leaders), three NF church leaders who also run NGOs, and two NF church leaders in specific countries (Ukraine and US).

While New Frontiers themselves would probably be quite uncomfortable with me paralleling their leadership structure with Anglican structures, for those more familiar with an Anglican structure, New Frontiers looks a bit like this:
– Church leader/Lead elder = parish priest and/or archdeacon.
– Church elders = PCC.
– Sphere leader = bishop
.
Apostolic Leader = a) bishop, b) NGO leader, c) national leader.
– New Frontiers Together Leader = archbishop.
– Sphere = non-geographic diocese.

Unlike in the Anglican tradition, the process to become a NF leader or elder is that the process does not take months or years long. As NF has no centralised safeguarding or leadership process, the length of time taken to choose/discern an elder as right for the role is decided locally. The decision is concluded with often a short meeting with the elders and an Apostolic Leader. Feedback from the congregation is often taken at some point in the process but the decision is really in the agreement of the elders, trustees, and apostolic lead. The process of becoming a leader seems to be quite opaque and so it is unclear how exactly men end up in leadership roles. One of New Frontiers’ core distinctives has been their commitment to complementarian theology. While more recently, some of the spheres allow women to preach and lead, all of the spheres only allow men to be elders.

All of this gives some context to the following guest post written by Phil Duncalfe. He was an elder in the Guildford New Frontiers church for 6 years and a member of the church since being a student at the University of Surrey. He is a staff worker for Friends International and Chaplain at the University of Surrey and you can find his story HERE.

New Frontiers and Mike Pilavachi

Who we align ourselves with as Christians is important. The collator of the Psalms thought this was so important he placed it right at the start.

“Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers,but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,and who meditates on his law day and night.” (Psalm 1:1)

We don’t expect churches and church movements to get who they platform right 100% of the time. Obviously they can’t know the hearts of people. However when things go wrong, communication and repentance is important to build trust. More on this point in a moment.

Discernment and New Frontiers’ Platforms

New Frontiers has repeatedly found themselves platforming people who turn out to not be who NF thought they were. Terry Virgo was connected with CJ Mahaney – until he wasn’t. Bill Hybels books were highly recommended – until they weren’t. Mark Driscoll was huge in New Frontiers in the early 2000s and was given the stage at Together on a Mission, their 2008 summer conference and Terry Virgo’s son, Joel, interviewed Driscoll that year, with the interview still on Terry’s website. Some things were said about Driscoll soon after his downfall; most notably by NF leaders Andrew Wilson and Matthew Hosier, with NF church leader Phil Whittall saying more about this after podcast series Rise and Fall of Mars Hill chronicled the history of New Frontiers and Mark Driscoll. Despite Andrew and Matthew being fairly well known leaders when they wrote the articles, I don’t fully recall much being said about it through official NF channels. They may have done. Those were the early days of my involvement with New Frontiers as a university student; no one reads emails as a student do they? 

New Frontiers’ response to the Mike Pilavachi allegations

My recollection generally (happy to be proven wrong) is that NF has rarely said anything about their past failings of giving a platform to men who went on to have high profile failings. With the knowledge that at least one sphere of New Frontiers platformed high profile Christian leader Mike Pilavachi a number of times, I decided to hunt down New Frontier responses to Mike Pilavachi’s resignation of the wider investigation into allegations of him being abusive. What I found was that Mike Pilavachi and New Frontiers were far more connected than I initially realised. Despite this deeper friendship at all levels of New Frontiers; there has been total silence bar three social media posts – two by Terry Virgo (one being a clarification/faux-apology for praising Mike in the first) and a third by Andrew Wilson which simply links to a statement by Matt Redman.

New Frontiers’ relationship with Mike Pilavachi

I found that Mike Pilavachi has been to at least two UK New Frontiers Leaders’ conferences (2019 and 2023) and one global New Frontiers Leaders’ conference in Cyprus (2019). These weren’t for all church elders, not even lead elders; but only for Apostolic Leaders. In addition to this, Mike was repeatedly booked by New Frontiers Spheres and Churches for the last 10 years or more. The most notable connections are collated below, but a full list can be found on THIS Twitter thread.

Relational Mission 2012: Early to get Mike Pilavachi involved was the Relational Mission Sphere; particularly Mike Betts, who recently shifted from being the sole Apostolic Lead of that sphere to a team model, with Mike Pilavachi speaking at their 2012 “Elders and Wives” event (each sphere would independently hold one of these annually). Mike Betts seems to be fairly close with Mike Pilavachi given there is a photo on Facebook of them together in 2021 where Mike Pilavachi states he “loved spending today with some of my favourite people”.

Relational Mission 2018: Pilavachi was also at the Relational Mission Sphere’s Sent Event 2018. Either advertising for this event on Twitter didn’t include Mike Pilavachi’s name or has since been deleted.

New Ground 2012: New Ground, led by David Holden (a Sphere Leader and New Frontiers Together leader) also hosted Pilavachi in 2012 for their “Empowered” summer festival. Later in 2016 Pilavachi was part of their leadership training programme (New Ground Academy).

Catalyst Network 2013 and 2019 and 2020: The Catalyst Sphere hosted Mike Pilavachi at their summer festival in 2013 and then booked him again at the renamed festival Multiply in 2019. In 2020, he spoke at a large Catalyst Church as part of their Sounds of Glory conference. 

Christ Cental 2020: Mike managed to also be at Christ Central’s Devoted Festival in January 2020 having just been at or going to the Sounds of Glory conference either that day or the day prior.  

Commission 2019: I was still an elder in a Commission church in 2019 and at our annual elders and wives retreat, which had been renamed Amplify, Mike was the speaker. He was booked in for the summer festival in 2020 which was delayed due to COVID. He remained booked in for the 2023 festival but was uninvited once the news broke. There was no public message regarding this removal but an internal email was sent to participants:

Commission 2022: In September 2022, Mike Pilavachi spoke at A Time of Refreshing, an event at Guy Miller’s Westminster Chapel. Guy is the Apostolic Leader of the Commission Sphere.

Confluence 2022: Mike spoke to the “Confluence Sphere Team” over 2 days in 2022. Upon Ian Ashby sending this tweet, David Holden (leader of New Ground) made the comment “Tell Mike I said his honorarium for endlessly imputing(sic.) Newfrontiers needs to go up !! [sic.]”.

Only two of the eight New Frontiers’ spheres do not seem to have had Mike Pilavachi speak at their events; Advance Movement and Regions Beyond

Even as a guest speaker, this is a lot of events! There are times where Mike Pilavachi spoke over multiple days for multiple sessions – which, for my experience of 16 years with New Frontiers, wasn’t the norm. They usually use leaders from within New Frontiers to speak at these events.

However, Mike Pilavachi wasn’t just a guest speaker. While further investigation and detail is needed; in the 2019/20 tax year, under Mike’s direction, £2,487 was paid to New Frontiers (p.29 HERE). Perhaps this was just payment for the trip out to Cyprus, but if it was it is curious that his expenses weren’t paid as part of his speaker honoararium.

Calling New Frontiers to account

In all my searches of each NF Sphere and NF leader’s feed, there is not a single post about the issues surrounding Mike Pilavachi stepping down. There is not a single post about care for victims or those affected by what Mike has done. Mike influenced thousands of young people over Soul Survivor’s decades of festivals and there are a many of us who are deeply impacted and working out what it means for our theology. For many, our very calling which we heard while at Soul Survivor camps, is now being questioned. There isn’t a single message from anyone within NF about how to parse that with Mike Pilavachi being platformed and praised in their churches. All we got was Terry Virgo publicly telling Mike Pilavachi via social media that he was a blessing to New Frontiers and then a second correctiv post admitting he didn’t know much about what was going on or why Pilavachi was standing down. 

The Psalmist calls us to be aware of who we stand with. When we get it wrong we should reflect and, if needed, repent. We should recognise those who have been hurt and we should help disciple those who are confused or distressed due to the failings of someone they thought they could trust; particularly if we have been the ones commending them as trustworthy. 

Some might say it is wise to remain silent while there is an active investigation. I think it is a misguided position, especially for New Frontiers Spheres that have so regularly platformed Mike Pilavachi, because silence makes it all about Mike Pilavachi. Those who are hurting or confused are left isolated as they waiting for their church/sphere/leaders to say the right thing about Mike Pilavachi. No matter if there is criminal behaviour or not, the allegations suggest Mike Pilavachi’s behaviour towards young people while he was speaking on NF platforms was deeply hurtful to them and that he is likely no longer fit for Christian leadership. We can all read the stories of those hurting people, many who have personally experienced the pain described in the allegations. Church leaders should be prioritising them!

What might it look like if leaders who had been influenced by Mike Pilavachi, loved his teaching, found their calling while under his guidance and encouraged others to learn from him were open and honest with their congregation? As I was keenly searching, and desperately hoping, for public acknowledgement of the hurting by at least one New Frontiers leader who had platformed Mike Pilavachi, I found an excellent example of what a good response looks like. Tom and Lesley who lead Croydon Vineyard, show HERE what it means to lead their congregation through a sensitive issue such as this. Take some time to read their repsonse and see what it looks like when leaders recognise they have platformed someone who they later learn has hurt so many.

I’ll finish with a quote from Tom and Lesley as to why New Frontiers’ leaders, of all Spheres and churches who platformed Mike Pilavachi, should take time for the sake of their congregations to communicate the issues and reflect on who they have platformed, not for the sake of Mike Pilavachi or their reputation, but for the sake of the hurting:

“This situation affects us and if we don’t talk about it we run the risk of suggesting some things are “off the table” of discussion due to their sensitivity or complexity. Jesus has asked us (Tom and Lesley) to lead and pastor you through life, to help you become all Jesus has called you to be. This means we must engage with topics even when they are sensitive, complex or where we have a possible vested interest. If we talk about these situations it should help us together work out how to navigate them with integrity and honour and how to learn lessons from them so we all grow as disciples of Jesus.”

  1. The Problem with Statements; Mike Pilavachi, Soul Survivor, and the importance of independence
  2. Firm Foundations; on statements, silencing and Soul Survivor
  3. Holy Saturday and Soul Survivor
  4. Guest Blog: Soul Survivor’s Elephant Navigating Service
  5. A Suggested Statement about Soul Survivor
  6. Silence, Soul Survivor and pushing things under the rug
  7. Soul Survivor and anything that needs to come into the light
  8. Scrutinising Soul Survivor
  9. Guest Post: An Open Letter to Evangelical Leaders in the UK
  10. Soul Survivor and those who are late to the conversation
  11. The Soul Survivor Situation – A Timeline
  12. Guest Blog: Dear Pete Greig
  13. We are all implicated subjects
  14. Trampling on the Little Ones
  15. Woe to you, religious leaders
  16. Guest Post: New Frontiers and Mike Pilavachi