NEW WINE should “exercise discernment in promoting recent leaders even where those leaders are obviously gifted in certain areas”, an independent review of its connections to Mike Pilavachi has concluded.
Published as an addendum to the Scolding Review into Soul Survivor (News, 27 September 2024), it repeats the warning that “people were often willing to overlook issues with Mr Pilavachi and his ministry since it seemed to be fruitful.”
The review, also carried out by Fiona Scolding KC, was commissioned by the trustees of New Wine last February (News, 28 February 2024). It considers the extent to which New Wine knew of the allegations against Mr Pilavachi and whether the conduct laid out in those allegations was “condoned or exacerbated by deficiencies within the governance, policies, practices, arrangements and oversight at New Wine”.
The Church of England’s National Safeguarding Team concluded in 2023 that Mr Pilavachi, the founding father of Soul Survivor, had demonstrated “coercive and controlling behaviour” that led to inappropriate relationships, the physical wrestling of youths, and the massaging of young male interns (News, 8 September 2023).
Soul Survivor emerged from New Wine, a charismatic Evangelical network launched at St Andrew’s, Chorleywood, in 1989. At the time, Mr Pilavachi was the youth leader of St Andrew’s, and led the youth work at the primary New Wine festivals. The success of this gathering inspired the launch of the Soul Survivor festival in 1993. He continued to guide the youth work at New Wine for a variety of years, and to serve on the leadership team.
Between between 1989 and 2000, Soul Survivor and Mr Pilavachi were “very close” to New Wine the review says. Soul Survivor continued to be run and overseen by the New Wine Trust until 1996, when it got here to be overseen by its own trust — Soul Survivor Ministries — chaired by the Rt Revd Graham Cray, who was then the Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge, and went on to be Bishop of Maidstone. For a variety of years, several trustees of New Wine were also trustees of Soul Survivor Ministries, while various Soul Survivor staff continued to be paid (not less than partially) by New Wine and the Kingdom Power Trust. New Wine openly promoted Soul Survivor.
The review describes the connection between New Wine and Soul Survivor as that of a “parent and child”. “Soul Survivor was quite clearly born out of New Wine, each when it comes to its personnel and funds but in addition when it comes to its philosophy and theology. As Soul Survivor grew, it became more independent from New Wine, however the two organisations clearly retained a relationship and we’d go so far as to suggest that New Wine continued for a very long time to feel a level of obligation to make sure the success of Soul Survivor, particularly so far as its funds and operations were concerned.”
It concludes that New Wine had “a responsibility to make sure that Mr Pilavachi was fit for the role which he was being sent to do”, and that senior people in New Wine “could have demonstrated some failings on this regard”.
It continues: “Mr Pilavachi might need been (and by most accounts was) highly gifted in his ability to speak with young people about Christianity and to minister to them within the Holy Spirit. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that he was the precise person to guide Soul Survivor. We feel that Mr Pilavachi was empowered to guide an organisation with limited oversight and that this was a job for which he was poorly equipped.”
The review concludes that, after 2000, those in positions of leadership and governance at New Wine were “unlikely to have known of the seriousness or extent of Mr Pilavachi’s behaviour” and were “entitled to assume that Soul Survivor’s trustees would do their job in holding him to account”.
The possible exception, it says, were “low-level concerns” — also known as “nagging doubts” — which individuals confessed to having had about Mr Pilavachi.
“Had there been appropriate systems in place to log these concerns, it is feasible that they might have been acted upon. It can be the case that Mr Pilavachi’s close relationships with young men were remarked upon at New Wine conferences by a few of those that attended.” This, the review suggests, is “more likely to have been excused or ignored on the idea that Mr Pilavachi’s ministry seemed to be bearing fruit”.
Besides the exercise of discernment, the review makes three recommendations: the vetting of speakers; a system for reporting, recording, and monitoring low-level concerns; and a more robust and simply accessible complaints policy.
In an interview with Premier Christianity magazine, the Bishop of Lancaster, Dr Jill Duff, who chairs New Wine, said that the recommendations were “precisely the form of things we want to place in place . . . If we’re in a posture where we easily hear feedback, moderately than being defensive towards it, that’s a way of us growing — and a way of darkness coming to light.”
She said that she was “really sad” that Mr Pilavachi had not issued an apology.
