SOUL SURVIVOR, WATFORD, will be one of three “missional engines” driving the church-planting and revitalisation strand of a programme in the diocese of St Albans which has been awarded £2.3 million by the Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment Board.
The bid for “Growing Younger and More Diverse”, shown to the diocesan synod in October, sets out plans to focus on three “young and diverse” towns in the next three years: Watford, Luton, and Hatfield. Funding was sought for “missional leaders to plant churches and new worshipping communities (NWCs) and drive missional step change and discipleship”. This would entail “building on the Soul Survivor Watford (SSW) model, to be accelerated under new leadership”.
SSW is the largest church in the diocese, reporting a worshipping community of 1700 — of whom 526 were under 18 — in 2024. The bid refers to “continued growth under new leadership”. It has produced 16 ordinands in the past ten years and established three plants (one of which closed) and three revitalisations, with three more plants or revitalisations planned for the next three years. As part of the bid, Christ Church, Watford, which is described as “previously a dying church” that has grown since the appointment of an interim minister, is to be “revitalised” with the support of SSW.
In Hatfield, the plan focuses on St John’s, which was “revitalised” by Soul Survivor in 2015, and is described as the fastest-growing church in the diocese, having grown by 55 to 130, with the support of a £145,000 diocesan investment. The aim is for it to grow to 300 and plant two churches in the next five years.
Under the plans, the largest share of the funding was destined for Luton, one of the youngest towns in the country, with a large Muslim population, and areas of deprivation. A “locally led revitalisation” of St Mary’s is planned, including the redevelopment of the ground and buildings and the appointment of a “missional leader” to help to establish “new intercultural worshipping communities”. There are also plans to establish an extraparochial young adult church in the town — expected to have a worshipping community of 350 by 2036 — in addition to a new worshipping community at Linmere, where 7000 new homes are planned.
It is now just over two years since the National Safeguarding Team concluded that allegations about the founder and former senior pastor of Soul Survivor, Mike Pilavachi, were founded, concluding that he had exhibited “coercive and controlling behaviour” that led to inappropriate relationships, the physical wrestling of youths, and the massaging of young male interns. It is 16 months since Fiona Scolding KC published her review of the scandal, finding that Mr Pilavachi’s abuse of power was enabled by a “wholesale” failure of organisational culture at Soul Survivor (News, 4 October 2024).
Church growth — faster in Evangelical and Charismatic churches — came with a risk, she warned. “The larger the numbers, the greater the power and the greater need to check oneself and reflect upon the opportunities to abuse power.” Among her recommendations was that the diocese “consider what lessons can be learnt about future church plants and expressions of new sorts of congregation and ministry to avoid repetition of the same mistakes”. Soul Survivor required a change of culture.
The director of mission and ministry in the diocese is Canon Tim Lomax, who was the Bishop’s Visitor to Soul Survivor. This week, a diocesan spokesman said that the Scolding review had “shaped our plans by embedding stronger governance and accountability into all mission initiatives”. A new Bishop’s Mission Order for Soul Survivor, Watford, came into effect in January 2025. Changes made in response to the review “ensure that future plants and BMOs operate within clear diocesan structures and robust supervisory frameworks”.
The February papers for the General Synod include an update on implementation of the Scolding review, including a corporate apology sent to survivors and a revised Code of Practice for Mission Initiatives, designed to be used as good practice by NWCs, besides having legal force for BMOs. “There are times when NWCs can be resistant to being seen as part of the wider Church as they want to be new and different,” it says.
Bishops and other leaders must learn “from the experiences of mistakes in governance, safeguarding and delivery in the wider Church”, as well as positive stories. “If we continue a Church of England culture which does not, by its actions, show that it believes in the mixed ecology Church, we shall continue to run into the same issues.”
Between 2018 and 2023, attendance of under-18s in the diocese of St Albans fell by 30 per cent. The new plans include expanding The Alban Way, a discipleship pathway for children and young people, and increasing the number of paid youth and children’s workers, to be targeted at churches “with thriving young and diverse ministries, or high potential based on demography”. The bid also refers to “historic overrepresentation of middle-class white” among the diocese’s leadership and plans to “flood [the] current discernment process with younger and more diverse leaders”.
In 2017, the diocese was awarded £1.75 of Strategic Development Funding towards its Reaching New People project, which set objectives including “8000 new people growing in faith in Jesus Christ” and “300 maturing fresh expressions of Church or mission-focused congregations”. It concluded in 2021. An evaluation carried out by the Church Army Research Unit was not made public, but the bid states that the initiative “produced c. 2000 new disciples” and a “shift of culture”.
Targets in the new bid over a five-year period include an increase of 1684 in the total Worshipping Community and “305 people [to] come to faith”. The bid speaks of the “opportunity to reach over one million people — 53 per cent of our diocesan population — with the love of God” in the next nine years.
This week, the Priest-in-Charge of St Andrew’s, Luton, said that he was “troubled” by the plans and “staggered” by the mention of Soul Survivor with no reference to recent history. While the bid referred to “extensive grassroots consultation”, and there had been many meetings and visits, no “clear consensus” had emerged, he said.
He expected his parish — young, diverse, and economically deprived, with one half-time priest for 23,000 people — to receive very little under the plans, he said. Furthermore, “the culture of measurement doesn’t really align with our missional goals. . . I find it absolutely abhorrent, the idea that you can plumb a number into an algorithm and it will tell you how many souls will be saved.” He disputed the bid’s claims about the effectiveness of church-planting and suggested that it was “nonsense” to report that the Reaching New People project had led to 2000 new disciples.
The bid lists as “root causes of decline” “Too few churches with missional energy, vision and capacity; complacency and inaction with current decline; clergy and local leaders content maintaining the status quo”. This was hurtful to clergy and laity “working their guts out”, with thousands of people coming through their doors every year and “so little to work with in terms of resource”, Fr Larner said. The original purpose of Queen Anne’s Bounty had been to support parishes that had a poor living. “I think it’s wrong that that has been changed into this bid system. . . I just don’t think this stuff will work in the long term.”
