THE first worship leader at Soul Survivor, Matt Redman, has described how Mike Pilavachi would wrestle him, directly after counselling him in regards to the sexual abuse that he had experienced as a baby.
He has previously described enduring “harmful behaviours” from Mr Pilavachi, the founding father of Soul Survivor who was found by the National Safeguarding Team to have exhibited “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).
In a video, “Let there be light”, published on his own Youtube account on Tuesday, Mr Redman provides more detail about his experience. He also answers questions on his reasons for remaining at Soul Survivor for thus long, and the way Mr Pilavachi’s behaviour was allowed to proceed. Last yr, he described being “ignored, patronised or gaslit by those in leadership” (News, 14 July 2023).
Now aged 50, and a Grammy-award-winning songwriter (News, 12 August 2016), Mr Redman was 13 when he first Mr Pilavachi, the youth leader at St Andrew’s, Chorleywood. In the video, Mr Redman recalls how, during a youth weekend away, he told Mr Pilavachi that he was being sexually abused. Mr Pilavachi helped him to go to the authorities.
Mr Redman was seven when his father took his own life. His stepfather was imprisoned for sexual abuse.
“It’s an interesting thing for me, because, I believe, due to that, I had an undying loyalty to him,” Mr Redman reflects, concerning Mr Pilavachi’s response to his disclosure. “He began to counsel me about my sexual abuse, which, looking back, I don’t feel awesome about, because he wasn’t a trained counsellor. . . I used to be telling the deepest, darkest things, and he was asking me for the main points of what happened.
“The real problematic thing to me about that’s he would often wrestle me afterwards. Wrestling was definitely his thing. I do know lots of individuals who were physically wrestled by Mike. Honestly, it was very often in a hidden room within the church, or it will be round his house, away from everyone. Looking back, I don’t feel great about that. It didn’t feel good on the time. I didn’t really like physical touch that much, due to what had happened to me.”
The video includes contributions from Mr Redman’s wife, Beth Redman. The two met on the Soul Survivor church in Watford. Mrs Redman can also be a songwriter, and led Soul Sista, a ministry affiliated to Soul Survivor and geared toward teenage girls. She is the creator of several books, including Soul Sista: How to be a woman of God (Hodder & Stoughton, 2000). The couple now live in California.
In the video, Mrs Redman describes a pattern of behaviour that has been reported by others who worked for Mr Pilavachi at Soul Survivor, including “ghosting” (News, 9 February 2024). After an initial warm relationship, she was ignored for months: “I felt like I used to be shrinking as an individual.” After coming to the conclusion that her “boss” and “spiritual leader” was “effectively bullying me”, she went to her GP for help. When she told Mr Pilavachi that she could now not work for him, his reply was: “I’m Greek.”
She describes how each she and Mr Redman were “frozen out” after occurring a date, during which Mr Pilavachi had been unable to contact Mr Redman on the phone. The “silent treatment” had lasted for months after their engagement, until the night before their wedding.
“At first, it seems like, he would bring you in,” Mr Redman recalls. “But then, it will go to the exact opposite, where you’d be completely shut out and silent treatment, stonewalled.” On one occasion, this response had been triggered by Mr Redman’s adding a worship song to a set without first checking with Mr Pilavachi. He describes how, during one trip with Mr Pilavachi, during which they shared a ferry cabin, Mr Pilavachi had spoken to him only to reply yes or no questions on the songs, or other practical matters.
Among Mr Redman’s songs is “The Heart of Worship”, a song about Soul Survivor’s emphasis on worship directed towards God somewhat than performance (News, 9 June 2023). Earlier this yr, a former Soul Survivor intern told the Soul Survivors podcast that Mr Pilavachi had demanded “humility” from those looking for to guide worship. The intern recalled spending “ten years just attempting to train myself to be smaller” (News, 9 February).
Over the years, celebrated worship leaders have emerged from Soul Survivor, including Tim Hughes, now Priest-in-Charge of St Luke’s, Birmingham (News, 5 May 2023).
The Redmans stayed at Soul Survivor until 2002. In the years after, they joined church-plants, including The Point, in West Sussex, and Passion City Church, in Atlanta, Georgia. They returned to the UK to hitch St Peter’s, Brighton, a church-plant of Holy Trinity, Brompton, in 2010.
In the brand new video, Mr Redman says that “the toughest query to reply is why I stayed around so long — and it’s actually very complicated and nuanced. I’m this 13-year-old boy who’s been rescued out of being sexually abused; so I had this undying loyalty to him, needless to say. And also you’re keen on what God’s doing through this ministry. You’ve got this amazing groundswell, this momentum, at a time after they say young individuals are leaving the Church. We had tens of hundreds of young people journey with us, and it was just very evident God was respiratory on this. It didn’t feel like human momentum: it felt like something beyond that. . . I truthfully wish I had left lots sooner than I did. I don’t feel I protected my wife thoroughly.”
Mrs Redman says: “You tried to remain since you were keen about the people, and the mission and the ministry. We loved Mike, and desired to be in ministry with him.”
During their time at Soul Survivor, young men who worked for Mr Pilavachi sought help from the Redmans. Mrs Redman recalls: “There was a cycle: there was a pattern of those precious people coming and going, these young guys coming to live with Mike. They would come to be his intern, they might live in his house, and so they were beginning to have this same experience. . .
“We desired to help them, and they’d come to us. The chaps went to the chair of the trustees, just said, ‘This is what is occurring,’ and described these patterns of behaviour that had been occurring, at this point, for quite a number of years, and mainly, in summary, [he] just said ‘You are silly boys. You have to grow up.’
“It was completely shut down. It wasn’t validated, wasn’t concerning; it was a maturity issue. That was really brutal. And the very last thing you would like is for somebody to suggest you might be causing trouble, or being disruptive, or it’s on you. It’s a really shaming, confusing moment. . . So off all of us went.”
She goes on to explain how, years later, after the Soul Survivor festivals resulted in 2019, and within the wake of the pandemic, someone got here to Mr Redman with “a extremely horrifying story that took it to a unique level”. The person was speaking on behalf of ten interns who had been massaged of their underwear on Mr Pilavachi’s bed. At this point, the couple had approached a “senior leader” at a church in London. The person had said: “That’s just Mike: nothing will likely be done.” This was a phrase used again and again, Mr Redman says.
Eventually, Dr Amy Orr-Ewing, a former President of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics (OCCA), helped the couple to report Mr Pilavachi’s abuse. In the video, Mrs Redman says that she had been unaware of the existence of the National Safeguarding Team. “I’d have definitely gone to them earlier, had I known.”
In 2022, Dr Orr-Ewing said that she regretted not “pushing harder” when sexual-abuse allegations against Ravi Zacharias, the founding father of OCCA, first emerged (News, 15 February 2021). In the video, she says that “misuses of power” are “endemic within the Church”, and describes how a few of the survivors of Mr Pilavachi’s abuse have lost their faith in God.
Both Mr and Mrs Redman speak positively in regards to the Soul Survivor movement. Mr Redman describes himself as being “privileged” to have been a worship leader in the beginning. “Those years were very, very special. It just felt like God was respiratory on something. It was amazing seeing tens of hundreds of young people come together, often over a thousand people on the summer festivals becoming Christians. No doubt, to me this was something God was doing, and it was an absolute thrill and a joy to be a part of it.”
But, he also suggests, Mr Pilavachi “got away with lots greater than he would have” in consequence of the apparent success of the movement. He describes as a “huge lesson” that “for those who hear about abuse, you’ve got to report it: it doesn’t matter who the person is.”
Mrs Redman says: “There’s been a lot windfall and so many precious people connected to Soul Survivor that we have now got to do life with, and be friends with. So much good has come from it, but there was a lot pain and a lot damage.”
She explains that the title of the video is a prayer that she has repeated over time: “God, I don’t know what to do. There are all these people going to the festivals. This is wonderful. There are all these people coming to faith. Nobody desires to tear that down; no person desires to hurt the Church. I don’t event wish to hurt Mike. I just want this to stop.”
Mr Redman says: “Jesus is an authority on bringing things to the sunshine, and I believe that’s what’s happening on this whole process. I don’t think it’s because ‘Oh, finally this thing got here out.’ I believe Jesus is doing this. I believe that is Jesus cleansing up his Church, and bringing something into the sunshine that needed to be in the sunshine. . . This isn’t about forgiveness. I’ve forgiven Mike. This is about accountability.”
The video accommodates quotations from survivors of Mr Pilavachi’s abuse. They include one from a former intern who, on disclosing past sexual abuse trauma to Mr Pilavachi, was met with “anger that I hadn’t told him sooner”. They had been kept “at arm’s length” until they apologised, and had subsequently undergone years of psychotherapy.
The video ends with a notice reporting that “near 150 people have identified themselves as victims,” and that Mr Pilavachi “has not been subject to significant sanctions by the Church”. Earlier this yr, it was announced that he had received a “written warning” under the Clergy Discipline Measure (News, 26 January).
