NEW WINE should “exercise discernment in promoting new 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 of Soul Survivor (News, 4 October 2024), it repeats the warning that “people were often willing to overlook issues with Mr Pilavachi and his ministry because it appeared to be fruitful.”
The review, also carried out by Fiona Scolding KC, was commissioned by the trustees of New Wine last February (News, 1 March 2024). It considers the extent to which New Wine knew of the allegations against Mr Pilavachi and whether the conduct specified in those allegations was “condoned or exacerbated by deficiencies in 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 founder 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 he led the youth work at the early New Wine festivals. The success of this gathering inspired the launch of the Soul Survivor festival in 1993. He continued to lead the youth work at New Wine for years, and to serve on the leadership team.
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 came to be overseen by its own trust — Soul Survivor Ministries — chaired by the Rt Revd Graham Cray, then the Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge, and subsequently the Bishop of Maidstone. Several trustees of New Wine were also trustees of Soul Survivor Ministries, while various Soul Survivor staff continued to be paid (at least in part) by New Wine and the Kingdom Power Trust. New Wine openly promoted Soul Survivor.
The review describes the relationship between New Wine and Soul Survivor as that of a “parent and child”. “Soul Survivor was quite clearly born out of New Wine, both in terms of its personnel and finances but also in terms of its philosophy and theology. As Soul Survivor grew, it became more independent from New Wine, but the two organisations clearly retained a relationship and we would go as far as to suggest that New Wine continued for a long time to feel a degree of obligation to ensure the success of Soul Survivor, particularly as far as its finances and operations were concerned.”
It concludes that New Wine had “a responsibility to ensure that Mr Pilavachi was fit for the role which he was being sent to do”, and that senior people in New Wine “may have demonstrated some failings in this regard”.
It continues: “Mr Pilavachi might have been (and by most accounts was) highly gifted in his ability to communicate with young people about Christianity and to minister to them in the Holy Spirit. However, this does not necessarily mean that he was the right person to lead Soul Survivor. We feel that Mr Pilavachi was empowered to lead an organisation with limited oversight and that this was a role 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 referred to as “nagging doubts” — which people confessed to having had about Mr Pilavachi.
“Had there been appropriate systems in place to log these concerns, it is possible that they could have been acted upon. It is also the case that Mr Pilavachi’s close relationships with young men were remarked upon at New Wine conferences by some of those who attended.” This, the review suggests, is “likely to have been excused or overlooked on the basis that Mr Pilavachi’s ministry appeared 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 easily accessible complaints policy.
In an interview with the magazine Premier Christianity, the Bishop of Lancaster, Dr Jill Duff, who chairs New Wine, said that the recommendations were “exactly the sort of things we need to put in place . . . If we are in a posture where we easily hear feedback, rather 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.
