EGN NEWS DESK
Worship chief Matt Redman and his spouse Beth are opening up about their expertise beneath disgraced Soul Survivor founder Mike Pilavachi.
The ‘10,000 Reasons’ singer mentioned that Pilavachi “typically” wished to wrestle him and that if he and his spouse offended him ultimately, they have been subjected to “silent remedy” that lasted “months and months and months”.
Redman mentioned that on one event he was ignored by Pilavachi for 3 weeks as a result of he added an additional music to the worship checklist with out checking it with him first. Beth mentioned that after they have been nonetheless relationship, they have been “frozen out” by Pilavachi after they went to the cinema with out telling him.
Redman says he has forgiven Pilavachi however that their years in ministry collectively have taken their toll.
“I’m nonetheless working by means of all that occurred. I used to be subjected to vital emotional, religious and bodily abuse in a scenario that I did not know learn how to get out of. I’ve spent years making an attempt to heal from that point. I’ve forgiven Mike, however I nonetheless really feel the affect right now,” he mentioned.
The pair first met when Redman was simply 13 years outdated and attending St Andrews Chorleywood church, in Hertfordshire, the place Pilavachi was a youth employee on the time.
They went on to co-found the massively profitable Soul Survivor youth motion that noticed 1000’s of younger individuals transformed to Christ at a time when the broader Church was struggling to achieve them. They travelled the world along with Pilavachi preaching whereas Redman led the worship.
In the documentary, Redman credit Pilavachi with releasing him from sexual abuse by the hands of his stepfather after the vicar helped him go to the authorities however he says that this led him to have an “timeless loyalty to [Pilavachi] for positive” and that this in flip stopped him from strolling away sooner.
Looking again on his expertise as a teen with Pilavachi, he mentioned, “I used to be most likely seeing him daily, I might suppose. And then he began to counsel me about my sexual abuse. Which, trying again, I do not really feel superior about as a result of he wasn’t a educated counsellor.
“He’d really been an accountant just some years earlier than and, you realize, I used to be telling the deepest, darkest issues and he was asking me for the small print of what occurred. The actual problematic factor to me about that’s he would typically wrestle me afterwards.
“Wrestling was undoubtedly his factor. I do know lots of people who have been bodily wrestled by Mike, and it was very often in a hidden room within the church or it will be round his home away from everybody.”
He mentioned that on the time he tried to rationalise it by considering that “perhaps it is a youth chief making an attempt to interrupt the stress and it is what youth leaders do”
“Sometimes it might go on for 20 minutes, it was like full-on wrestling,” he continued.
“But clearly it is a youth chief. This is an grownup, that is hidden away from everybody. Looking again, I actually do not be ok with it. And particularly as generally it occurred straight after we would been speaking concerning the particulars of the sexual abuse that I’d suffered.”
Redman shares his expertise within the new documentary, Let There Be Light, out now on his YouTube channel.
If you will have been affected by the problems raised on this story, name thirtyone:eight on 0303 003 1111, or the Safe Spaces helpline on 0300 303 1056.
