“Amateurs seek the sun… get eaten. Power stays in the shadows.”

I recently heard this line in a film, and it landed like a punch to the chest. Not because it was clever, but because it felt brutally accurate. Almost instantly, my thoughts returned, again, to the Soul Survivor and the Mike Pilavachi scandal, and to the dangerous place we find ourselves when time dulls outrage and silence begins to feel acceptable.

Because that is exactly what is happening now.

As months pass, many of us have become Soul Survivor News and Mike Pilavachi News weary. The clatter and the noise, so justified and so necessary when the truth first began to surface, has started to fade. And when the noise dies down, something deeply unjust happens: the hundreds, if not thousands, of victims begin to disappear from view. Not healed. Not vindicated. Just forgotten.

This is how institutions survive scandal - by outlasting attention.

Yes, Mike Pilavachi has had his OBE stripped from him. That is a gesture, not accountability. What we still do not have is a single, coherent statement from him addressing the allegations against him, neither the substantiated ones nor those still under investigation. No ownership. No public reckoning. No humanity offered to those whose lives were profoundly damaged.

And just as damning is what we do not hear from Soul Survivor.

Where is the sustained, public conversation about how victims are being supported now? Not vague assurances. Not safeguarding buzzwords. Not forward-facing optimism. Actual, transparent, ongoing accountability. You do not get to “move forward” without first turning around. You do not get to “do better” while stepping over the people left crushed in your wake.

Mike Pilavachi did not simply work for Soul Survivor, he created it. He shaped it. He embodied it. His tenure left a trail of destruction, and that trail is still full of real people living with real consequences. You cannot amputate that history because it is inconvenient.

I find it truly astonishing - disgraceful, though entirely predictable - that a man who lived for the pulpit, the stage, and the audience, who “preached” to packed crowds, has now retreated into the shadows. A man who thrived on visibility has chosen invisibility. A man who demanded attention now refuses to face it.

And that is where the quote becomes chilling.

”Power stays in the shadows.”

So we must ask the question many would rather avoid: was this really a man who was naïve, careless, or overwhelmed? Or was he a consummate professional who knew exactly what he was doing from the very beginning, right back to his time as a youth leader at St Andrew’s Chorleywood?

If it’s the latter, then this isn’t confusion or tragedy. It’s calculation.

And if that is the case, is it acceptable -morally, ethically, spiritually - to allow someone to run away, hide behind borders, and evade responsibility for what they did?

Because allowing that is spineless.

It is thoughtless.

It is immoral.

Everything Mike Pilavachi ever claimed to stand for is utterly meaningless unless he returns and faces the music. Silence is not repentance. Absence is not humility. Accountability is not optional, it is the bare minimum.

Which brings us back to Soul Survivor.

Why are they not demanding his return?

Why are they not insisting on public accountability?

Why does it feel as though there is an attempt to smudge out this stain on their history rather than confront it honestly?

You cannot rebrand your way out of harm.

You cannot safeguard your future by abandoning your past.

And you cannot claim moral leadership while protecting silence.

So let the questions remain sharp and uncomfortable:

• Who is speaking for the survivors now that the headlines have faded?

• Why is silence being allowed to masquerade as closure?

• What does “doing better” actually mean if victims are still sidelined?

• And why is a movement built on public faith content to let power hide in the shadows?

Because if amateurs seek the sun and get eaten, then what does it say about leaders who vanish when the light finally turns on?

And who, yet again, is paying the price for that disappearance

______________________

I want to be very clear. When I write these articles, this is not a witch hunt. It is a desperate yearning for frank honesty and basic humanity. It is a longing to believe that we are better than where we are right now. And it is a very, very fragile hope that Soul Survivor has a shred of integrity left - that amidst the safeguarding jargon, the new appointments, the restructured leadership teams, and the machine slowly starting to move again with workshops and courses, something has actually been learned. That maybe, finally, victims might come first.