Earlier this week there was a surprising announcement from Soul Survivor Watford of their new senior pastor. On X/Twitter, @needs_light tweeted that the person appointed is Simon Nicholls, a former Soul Survivor employee in a range of roles, and a former Soul 61 gap year student. What’s surprising about that? Simply this: that an earlier statement had been clear that they were ‘seeking to recruit somebody from outside of our church so as to bring in fresh perspectives’. Hmm. It’s an odd way of defining ‘outside’. Both the statement and the announcement were screenshot and shared by @needs_light, but neither of them now features on the Soul Survivor Watford website.

None of that is a good look.

I was interested in who Simon Nicholls is, not least because of a very positive comment on X/Twitter from a current member of his congregation, so did a quick search online. It took me only seconds to find the programme from a 2018 Soul Survivor festival on issuu, here. At that point, I lost all interest in Simon Nicholls, because in the brochure I found this on p.73:

WHY IS MIKE SO MEAN TO PEOPLE ON STAGE?

One of Mike’s quirks is that he likes to tease his friends and that means he often makes cheeky remarks about them on stage. Please don’t be offended! Mike’s being affectionate rather than mean; we promise you he only ever teases someone who knows that he loves them.

There’s quite a lot else in the brochure which I found bizarre; for example, the handy section on p.70 on ‘How to pray for physical healing’ which insists that you must address the organ (for an eye problem, ‘Speak to the eye’); tell the pain ‘very firmly to “Stop it,” in Jesus’ name (but remember you don’t need to shout!)’; repeat as necessary ‘as many times as you are both comfortable with’). I am not comfortable with any of this as something to encourage, but maybe I am just in the wrong tradition.

But nothing really beats that paragraph on Mike being ‘so mean’, but being mean is how you show you love someone – if you’re Mike.

In a blog post about celebrity culture in the church published on the Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence site this week, Laya Watters noted how she had ‘dismissed my fears, putting it down to the pantomime comedy and trusting those in power and proximity to hold [Mike Pilavachi] accountable’. Those commenting when I shared the ‘Why is Mike so mean?’ link on X/Twitter also talked about how they had tried to ignore their own reactions to his behaviour, but also noted that the way such behaviour had been presented in Soul Survivor as a model of leadership had affected them in their later experience of churches; the toxicity lingered, distorting their perceptions. Others observed that the presence of this paragraph in the brochure suggested that there must have been complaints – but that those who could have acted on them had chosen instead to sweep them under the carpet. The option of telling him to stop doing it? Was that even considered?

The list of business to be considered at the next meeting of General Synod, in July, at last has this item on its agenda:

The Revd Robert Thompson (London) to move:

‘That this Synod, being deeply disquieted at the continued controversies over the actual independence of Safeguarding structures within the Church of England, does not accept that an internal Church inquiry into the allegations of abuse and cover-up within the Soul Survivor network is either sufficient or right in principle. It accordingly calls upon the Archbishop’s Council to commission, on agreed terms of reference with survivors, a report into those allegations from an independent King’s Counsel without delay.’

I was one of those who signed the motion, moving it up the list of those submitted. It was first available for signatures in September 2023. A year after that, the initial internal inquiry reported, its conclusion being that the safeguarding concerns were ‘substantiated’; Pilavachi’s abusive behaviour was recognised as ‘an embedded pattern’. Since then, Soul Survivor have set up an independent review being led by the excellent Fiona Scolding. Questions remain: when Pilavachi’s behaviour was so well-known that a jolly little dismissal of it was appearing in the festival brochures, why wasn’t it called out earlier?

Augustine Tanner-Ihm and Jonny Masters wrote a powerful piece about the theologies of sexuality that enabled Pilavachi to flourish: you can read it here. Jonny Masters commented at the beginning of this, ‘When I think back and remember laughing at Mike’s insults to other leaders on stage at Soul Survivor my soul curdles a little inside. Was I complicit in long-lasting abusive behaviour?’

Maybe the best place to hide really is in plain sight.