In the past few months I've been digging into the workings of Soul Survivor. By an accident of timing my social media feeds have been filling up with posts by another Christian leader: Pete Greig. The juxtaposition of these has been both jarring and thought-provoking.
Greig majors on prayer and on many of the ancient spiritual disciplines. It might be easy to grasp at these as a reaction to the Pilavachi investigation, and to scandals at churches like Mars Hill and Willow Creek.
But, I can see Greig using some of the same techniques and approaches Pilavachi uses in his ministry. And these approaches are part of what helped Pilavachi to get away with his behaviour for so long. They're almost like a weird sort of church-leader-playbook.
I am not suggesting the Pete Greig is guilty of any of the harmful behaviours that Pilavachi has been accused of.
Greig's face gets around, like Pilavachi's did. You come across it on conference programmes and on his social media posts. Do you see how in this post, the photo is Greig doing the discipline? Not just a photo of the labyrinth itself?
Speaking of conferences, like Pilavachi Greig has travelled internationally as a Christian speaker. Here's when he was in Hawaii. Other trips include California and Cape Town.
I have a concern about international speaking. As your teaching reaches people more geographically distant, the ability of your audience to check for hypocrisy grows smaller. It's like the further you project an image, the dimmer it gets. I bet Pilavachi's audiences in Toronto were less aware of his faults than those in Watford.
As the sentence 'international speaker' finds its way into your bio, people start to view you differently. You're seen as successful. You become more famous. That brings the odd fame-shield we see in other areas of culture.
I wonder if the challenges of individuals lose their potency. A person holding you to account publicly becomes 1 of 40,000 followers rather than 1 of 200. Maybe not.
Critically, you become too big to fail. If people have been damaged by your behaviour, they start to ask themselves "how will people believe me?" "Will I cause people to lose faith?". This can be the same with any church leader, but I think those internal doubts grow stronger in proportion to a leader's fame.
Like Pilavachi Greig is an author: 8 books so far. These books give his voice reach, and give him fame and earnings. I imagine a large number of Christians in the UK will recognise his name.
Greig's church is similar in scale than Soul Survivor Watford: £1.9 million income in 2021/2022, 38 staff members. They have a full-time head of communications, and a part-time broadcast technician.
Like Pilavachi he seems to be be split between two organisations: Emmaus Rd Church and the 24:7 Prayer charity. When he tweets about a life of simplicity, can we ask him about the simplicity of leading two organisation as once? Or leading a church so large there was 38 staff members (some part-time)?
This dual role creates complexities. I see money shifting between the two. Do they also borrow premises space from each other? Accountability gets harder here, at its does with the Soul Survivor group of charities
I notice both these organisations are heavily involved in the Wildfires festival that has run since 2018. Sounds like a familiar concept, albeit on a small scale.
I'm not say Greig had done anything wrong.
I am saying that behind his posts about retreats, and silence, and ancient practices, you find a familiar-looking church/charity/festival machine.
Questions for him - what measures are in place to hold you accountable? How are they better than those found in Soul Survivor?
