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.
Read it all at God Loves Women
