Is Soul Survivor Watford being unfairly rewarded after the Pilavachi scandal?

As an exuberantly Spirit-filled church plant worshipping out of a gigantic warehouse, Soul Survivor Watford has never been a shy and effacing church. But it was never truly famous beyond its charismatic evangelical niche until 2023, when its founder and lead pastor, Mike Pilavachi, was accused of years of abuse, bullying and inappropriate behaviour towards young interns and others.

After the media broke the story, the Church of England’s national safeguarding team investigated and largely substantiated the allegations, forcing Pilavachi into an early retirement. Most of the rest of the leadership of Soul Survivor Watford (SSW) has also changed since then, following a critical report into how its culture allowed Pilavachi to cause so much harm for so long.

But while the national media spotlight has moved on to other abuse scandals and church crises, SSW has not gone away. It remains, with over 1,700 in its congregation, one of the largest Anglican churches in the country. And it’s come under renewed fire in recent weeks after it emerged it would be involved in an ambitious multi-million pound renewal programme for the Diocese of St Albans, in which it sits.

Funded by £2.3m from the national CofE, the diocese plans to plant new churches and revitalise stagnant existing ones in three strategic locations across Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. And SSW’s expertise and church-planting model would be enthusiastically utilised, according to the diocese’s original bid for the cash. Indeed, SSW was described as one of the “missional engines” driving St Albans’s renewal programme and will lead efforts to turnaround another church in Watford (a third church planted by SSW in Hatfield in 2015 is another core pillar of the project).

Rewarding failure?

This news has outraged some, including other clergy in the diocese, who believe it is wrong to ‘reward’ SSW with this key role so soon after it was humbled by the Pilavachi scandal.

One priest in Luton told the Church Times he was “staggered” SSW had been included in the plans without any reference to their troubled history. A lawyer who represented some of Pilavachi’s victims also condemned the proposals, telling the Daily Telegraph SSW’s failings were too “recent”: 

“Given the seriousness of those failings I would have expected the diocese to wait until a lengthy period of time had passed so that everyone can be satisfied that Soul Survivor’s culture has genuinely changed.”

Another activist who has advocated on behalf of victims, Natalie Collins, told the same newspaper, “It is absolutely unacceptable for the Church of England to be rewarding Soul Survivor and holding them up as pioneers and leaders in engaging young people.”

In the face of the anger, the diocese and SSW have clarified that none of the £2.3m will go directly to the church, which is instead acting in a consultancy role, lending its volunteers and experience to help other churches kickstart growth.

A spokesperson for SSW said: “Our involvement is at the request of the diocese, within clear diocesan oversight and safeguarding structures. We recognise the seriousness of past failings and are committed to the work of ongoing cultural change and the vital importance of sustained external accountability.” 

In an effort to calm tempers, the bishops of the diocese have emailed all their clergy to underline this, writing that while SSW had gone a long way to “restore trust” and “rebuild credibility”, this work would always be ongoing. The oversight structures between the diocese and SSW, a non-parish church plant which had long been somewhat distant from the rest of the church, had recently been toughened up in the light of the CofE’s review, the diocese has also said. 

Punishment or restoration

This story raises difficult questions about collective responsibility for past sin. Clearly Soul Survivor people beyond Pilavachi bear some culpability for what he did, in failing over many years to properly restrain him and in allowing an unhealthy culture of unaccountability to fester at SSW. But most of these people have also left the church since the scandal erupted. To what extent should we continue to punish the current incarnation of SSW for their predecessors’ failings? Does there not come a time when we seek to reintegrate a damaged church trying to rebuild, rather than ostracise them forever?

I’m unconvinced there is much to be gained by holding Soul Survivor in some kind of ecclesiastical purgatory for years more.   

Others will argue that what is at stake here is about reward, not punishment. Nobody is calling for SSW to be forcibly shut down (although that has at times happened in other churches struck by major scandal or a founding pastor exposed as an abuser).

But is it right that a church which messed up so badly and hurt so many people should – just a few years later – get a privileged role in the diocese’s core renewal strategy? Should they instead spend a few more years in humble penitence, getting on with their own local mission and keeping their heads down? I understand where those making that call come from, and the ongoing anger and hurt felt by victims and survivors of Pilavachi. But it is clear, even from the outside (and has been confirmed by those responsible for checking directly), that SSW is trying to do the work to fix what was broken.

What Soul Survivor still offers

After a shaky start when the Pilavachi news first broke, SSW has acted generally with humility not defensiveness. They have ushered in new leadership, embraced tougher accountability to the diocese and wider CofE, and are talking openly about how to shape a healthier, less top-down culture in which a rogue leader cannot cause so much harm. This is not a church sulkily sitting on its hands and refusing to change despite being caught red-handed. There is not much to be gained by holding them in some kind of ecclesiastical purgatory for years more.

And that’s before we wrestle with what SSW still has to positively offer. Just because their founding pastor was an abuser and a bully does not mean the entire church is toxic from top to bottom. Quite the opposite. SSW was several things at once: a broken and unsafe community, and also a thriving, worshipful, and Jesus-focused engine of church growth.

In the 30 years since it started it has grown to become probably the largest church in the Diocese of St Albans, churned out future leaders who are now blessing other churches, led thousands in conversion to Christ, planted new movements elsewhere, produced resources which uplift the global church, and much more. It would be, frankly, perverse for a diocese which is struggling with decline and casting around for ways to kickstart renewal to ignore the most successful church it has, regardless of its history. 

Yes, they don’t need any of that £2.3m, but that was never the plan anyway. Why not – within careful accountability and mutual trust – draw on freely given wisdom and dynamism from SSW to try and build God’s Kingdom elsewhere? After all, didn’t Jesus have something to say about the party in heaven when one sinner repents and returns to the Lord to offer themselves in service once more?