Let the Silence Be Broken: Why the Soul Survivor Scandal Demands a Public Reckoning

When someone is convicted of a crime in a court of law, there comes a moment that is often more powerful than the sentencing itself. It is the moment when the victim or their loved one, stand up and read a victim impact statement.

These statements are not about justice in the legal sense. They are about truth. They are about confronting power with pain. They are about saying: this is what you did to me, and this is what I now have to live with.

But in the case of Mike Pilavachi and Soul Survivor, there has been no such moment.

There have been investigations. There have been apologies - of sorts. There have been statements from New Wine, from the Church of England, and from Soul Survivor Watford. But there has been no collective space where victims - survivors, can speak directly into the void that was once filled with the noise of worship music, stage lights, and charismatic showmanship. There has been no place where they have been truly heard by those who led them, those who ignored them, and those who enabled the abuse to fester for decades.

This is why the concept of an open forum, akin to a legal victim impact statement process, is not just desirable, it is essential.

What Is a Victim Impact Statement and Why Does It Matter?

A victim impact statement is a formal written or verbal statement made during sentencing in a criminal trial. It gives victims or friends / relatives of the victims, the opportunity to explain how a crime has affected them emotionally, physically, mentally, and financially. Often delivered in open court, these statements allow survivors to reclaim their voice in a system that too often renders them silent.

These statements don’t determine guilt or innocence. They don’t influence the verdict. But they influence understanding. They humanise trauma. They force everyone in the room - including the perpetrator - to confront the consequences of their actions. It is a sacred act of reclamation: of agency, of truth, of dignity.

And it is exactly what has been missing from the public response to the Soul Survivor scandal.

Why Soul Survivor Watford Needs to Be the Forum

Soul Survivor is not just a building. It is a brand. A machine. A movement that ran festivals, training schools, and discipleship courses. At its height, it reached tens of thousands of young people every summer, most of whom were looking for hope, connection, and spiritual safety.

Mike Pilavachi, the charismatic leader behind the movement, has now been found by the Church of England to have engaged in decades of coercive, inappropriate, and abusive behaviour. And yet, despite this, the church that birthed the movement, Soul Survivor Watford, continues to function.

Herein lies the paradox: the very institution that fostered this culture of silence, gaslighting, and complicity is still operating. Services still run. Money still comes in. The machine continues, largely uninterrupted.

Why?

Why has there been no complete organisational pause to reckon with the trauma?

Why have the resources of this influential and wealthy church not been redirected to provide therapy, legal support, housing assistance, and pastoral care for survivors?

Why has the church not held a single open forum where survivors could come and share their stories - not just privately to a safeguarding panel, but publicly, in a way that makes their pain visible?

If Soul Survivor Watford genuinely wishes to repent, to heal, to make amends then it must stop hiding behind procedure. It must invite the pain in. It must let the silence be broken.

Where Is Andy Croft? Why Is Mike Pilavachi Untouchable?

Perhaps no figure embodies the unfinished business of this scandal more than Andy Croft.

Croft was Pilavachi’s right-hand man. He co-led the church, stepping into lead when Mike was asked to step down, preached from the stage, and helped run the very ministry where many of the abuses took place. When accusations surfaced - he disappeared.

Gone.

He resigned, yes. But he did not stay to face the victims. He did not sit with their grief. He did not hear the stories. He did not bear witness to the lives shattered by the very ministry he helped lead. He did not offer his presence, he simply offered a short written apology, where was the accountability.

Croft’s silence is not neutrality. It is abandonment.

And Mike Pilavachi’s silence? It is something far darker.

Here is a man who commanded stadiums. Who built an empire on charisma and authority. Who told thousands that God spoke through him and demanded obedience. And yet now, when it is time to face what he has done, he disappears.

No public apology. No offer to listen. No ownership.

Is that justice? Is that repentance?

Or is it, once again, the weaponisation of power, the cowardice of a man who spent his life speaking but cannot stomach hearing what his actions have done?

Should Victims Be Allowed to Confront Their Abusers?

There are, of course, complexities here. Asking victims to face their abuser can be retraumatising. It must never be forced. And yet, we must ask: should survivors have the right to choose to confront?

Not in a room behind closed doors. Not mediated by church leadership. But publicly, in full daylight.

Should they have the right to say:

“You hurt me. And you will hear what you did.”

Should they have the right to ask questions, to shout, to weep, to rage - to finally speak the unspeakable, and see it land on the face of the man who caused it?

Yes.

Because the alternative is silence.

The alternative is exile - not for the abuser, but for the abused.

The alternative is letting Pilavachi and Croft fade quietly into other lives, other countries, other ministries, while the victims stay stuck, frozen in trauma that is never seen.

This is not about vengeance. This is about restoration.

If healing is ever to begin, it must begin with truth. And truth is most powerful when spoken to the one who tried to bury it.

Victims must be offered the choice, not obligation, to confront.

The choice to be seen.

The choice to reclaim what was taken.

And, perhaps, though it is a long shot, even the perpetrator may begin to understand the weight of their actions not through a letter, or a report, or a legal statement but through the eyes and voices of those they broke.

That is not cruelty. That is consequence.

What Real Repentance Looks Like

To date, most of the “responses” from Soul Survivor and its leaders have been curated, contained, and clinical. There is grief, yes - but it is sanitised. There is regret, yes - but it is corporate.

There is no sackcloth and ashes.

There is no crying aloud in the assembly.

Repentance is not damage control. It is not optics. It is not “learning and moving on.” Repentance looks like stepping into the fire with the people you’ve burned. It looks like listening. It looks like letting their pain change you.

Imagine what it would mean if Soul Survivor Watford hosted a public event - not a worship night, not a prayer gathering, not another conference but a forum where survivors could stand on the stage they were once silenced from, and speak.

Imagine if survivors were invited to give their own victim impact statements. Not to court, but to community. Imagine if the very platform that once empowered abusers was now handed over to the abused.

It would be uncomfortable. It would be raw. It would be devastating.

And it would be holy.

The Path Ahead

Justice cannot be outsourced. Healing cannot be fast-tracked. And truth cannot be buried beneath polite apologies and shallow reviews.

The Soul Survivor scandal has left a spiritual crater in the lives of thousands. Some will never set foot in a church again. Some still wake in the night with shame that was never theirs to carry. Some are battling anxiety, depression, or addiction. Some are just trying to survive.

They deserve better.

They deserve to be heard - not as a footnote to an investigation, but as the centre of the story. And until that happens, until Soul Survivor becomes a place where victims speak and leaders listen, no one can honestly say that healing has begun.

Let the silence be broken.

Let the voices rise.

Let the church become the forum.

Not for show.

But for truth.

And maybe, finally…

For justice.