Mike Pilavachi - The Story of Soul Survivor (N34)

Nomad Podcast

Tim Nash

Christianity, Faithshift, Deconstruction, Christianmysticism, Religion & Spirituality, Christianspirituality, Progressivechristian, Christian, Religion, Emergingchurch

4.7 • 658 Ratings

🗓️ 10 April 2011

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Back in 2011 we interviewed Mike Pilavachi, the co-founder and leader of the Soul Survivor charity and Soul Survivor festival.

In 2023 stories about his abusive behaviour began to emerge. After an investigation the allegations were substantiated with the report concluding "that he used his spiritual authority to control people and that his coercive and controlling behaviour led to inappropriate relationships, the physical wrestling of youths and massaging of young male interns.”

The report also specifically identifies spiritually abusive behaviour, defined as 'a form of emotional and psychological abuse characterised by a systematic pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour in a religious context’.

These revelations have had a profound impact on those directly affected, and also on the thousands of people who attended Soul Survivor and regarded Mike as a spiritual leader.

We hope Nomad can be a safe space for people to process their faith journey, and so we have considered deleting this interview. On reflection, whilst we're not advising anyone to listen to this episode, we have decided to leave it in the Nomad archive as part of an honest record of our faith journey, with all it’s messiness.

Details of the investigation and how to report any further concerns can be found here.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Nomad, Christian community, mission and the future of the church.
0:16.0	On this month's show, I'll be speaking to author, speaker, founder of the Soul Survivor Church
0:22.2	and Soul Survivor Conference, Mr Mike Pelovacci. And then, as usual, we will chew the
0:28.4	cud about what he has had to say.
0:44.3	It is a real pleasure this month on Nomad podcast to welcome Mike Pillavachi. He is an international speaker and author in the 90s.
0:48.2	He planted a church called Soul Survivor in Watford.
0:51.3	He established Soul Survivor, the conference, which over the last 20 years or so,
0:56.8	has become one of the biggest youth festivals, Christian youth festivals in the whole world. And on a very
1:03.2	personal note, I've always appreciated the extent to which humor and humility have played a part
1:09.6	in Mike's ministry, as he has led many thousands
1:12.9	of young people to Jesus, inspired them in their discipleship and released them in leadership
1:18.8	and mission. And again, on a personal note, had a very significant impact in my own Christian journey.
1:24.7	So Mike, it's a real pleasure to have you on the podcast. Welcome to the show.
1:28.0	It's great to be here and be with you. And that was, yeah, yeah, great. And just incidentally,
1:35.8	you have been the most difficult person to track down for an interview, even more challenging
1:40.4	than Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Are you serious? It's true.
1:44.6	It's true.
1:45.5	Is that right?
1:46.6	I spent half my year in other countries that might have something to do with it.
1:50.6	Yeah, sure.
1:51.4	We chat to people on the podcast a lot about church and community and mission and things
1:55.7	like that.
	...

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