Have you or your kids been to Soul Survivor?

[Coffeeandcards]

You might want to read this if so:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/12/mike-pilavachi-soul-survivor-charity-watchdog/

Yep good summary.

The serious/intensity was incouraged as after all our end goal was to worship God/ our actions needed to glorify God therefore it was imperative we lived in the manner we believed led to this... unfortunately the purity angle tied in with this as well as the drive that led lots of us to have the goal of leadership /full time Christians wasnt great...

I think it’s lead to a lot of confused teenagers who were so devoted the the church above all else (often with good intent) that it has seriously damaged them and their lives. I know of people cutting out friendships and relationships and even taking admin job in the church over going to uni and studying.

The poster who summed it up as too intense is spot on. It encouraged an all consuming devotion above all us. Contact with the world was first and foremost for mission and outreach.
I suspect I’m not the only adult who now feels cheated out of some of the best years of their life

And of course I’m confused and conflicted. Because at the time I loved it. And it did bring me closer to my faith. Even though I no longer worship in that style I have some very fond memories. And some not so fond ones

@NotEspeciallyHappyValley The evangelical view of friendships with non-Christians is really horribly transactional and mercenary. It's based on the highly dubious assumption that they must be broken and need fixing, and we have the only solution to whatever their problems are, real or imaginary.

If they made it clear they didn't want to sign up to the whole package, we were encouraged to just dump them and move onto some more promising potential victims converts.

I went to Soul Survivor several times in the early 2000s, I remember everyone practically worshipped MP, would be so hard for a victim to speak up in such an atmosphere.
I don't recall ever picking up any off-vibes or anything like that but I'd say I was pretty brainwashed at the time so not really thinking straight.
I do have really good memories of SS though, though more to do with hanging out with friends than the actual meetings.

A lot of people have put some quite personal things on this thread, which I have been following closely, so I feel that I should share my own perspective.

I have never been a worshipper, but an adored family member became swept up in a charismatic church as a result of Christian Union involvement. The first warning bell rang for me when they were encouraged to make a good-sized donation to a church, at a very young age. I won't put identifying detail (it's not my story to tell), but their history of church involvement involves everything that you might expect: tithing income, huge amounts of time spent on church activities and, later, significant family sacrifices for a religious purpose. Their involvement with the church has also formed a huge barrier between us - there are certain things that we just cannot talk about as our values are so different...

Funnily enough, I do actually believe in God: a God who does not require a book, a building, a group of people, a leader or regular donations to be celebrated. However, I also believe in truth, reason and the values of civil society. None of these church organisations lie outside the law or the potential for change, especially when it comes to their influence over young or vulnerable people.

What steps could be taken to make change?

Ah tithing. I still regret sticking 10% of my income in the offering when I was in 6th form and saving up for Uni. I really needed that money!

Tithing from a sixth former 😮- talk about taking money from the hands of children...

I know! Tbf no one told me I should or anything, I didn't tell anyone I was going to do it and perhaps someone would have suggested not giving so much money if I had told them, but I had convinced myself that if I didn't then God would be angry at me and things would go badly at Uni so I felt I had to tithe so that Uni would go well.

Natsku - yes that period of my life was very tricky at home and yet the work I did I gave away 10% of.... I even umed and ahed about tithing the student loan (I think I did...)

Yes we had that. My dos were not amused

I went to soul survivor and new wine all through my teenaged years and can really relate to a lot of this. I really hero worshiped MP when I was growing up and the whole crew. I have mixed feelings looking back on it all - there were definitely some positives for me: I felt very loved and secure and when being a teenaged girl was hard (which it so often is), my faith grounded me and gave me a lot of comfort.

I’m still involved in church as an adult but feeling more and more disillusioned with it. Last time we went to new wine I completely hated it, felt like it was a emotionally manipulative and swore never to go back.

My husband is still very much a believer (though has quite a liberal one) and we’re bringing our kids up as Christians but I do feel quite torn about it all…. I want all the good bits for them but to protect them from the bad stuff.

I still have massive hang ups about sex from it all and probably should get round to having therapy…

See I think that should be blinking illegal to accept or solicit donations from a young person under 18. And I don't care if other charities miss out if that can be prevented.

To be fair (ish) I don't think it was explicitly taught to under 18s. But being under 18 and over 12 you were usually in the main meetings where tithing was taught (giving first to God...)

But we were taught that nothing belonged to us and we should give everything to God.

This kind of thing with money was done to my husband when we were at uni. The heavily evangelical church (who I already thought were a crazy) gave the congregation a credit card sized note with 'this is God's money' printed on it, to put in their wallets. He was really paranoid about spending on something ungodly Controlling much? I made him rip it up and change church.

Were they at St Andrews, Chorleywood

My experiences made me go fully the other way with my children, no religion, banned from religious studies at school (I live in Finland now and religious studies here is the state religion with tests on the bible and stuff, so I put them in the secular alternative of Ethics) but I also feel torn about it, there was good things like the community aspect of church and they know pretty much nothing about the bible so so many references in tv and films completely pass them by.

Yes similar here - I've not encouraged church for my kids at all.

I attempted to raise my kids Christian as I was still struggling on with it when they were little. I regret that now, but they all seem to have got through it unscathed and have all independently become atheists. They're in their early 20s now.

My oldest is 12 and very much an atheist now (as evidenced by her ethics homework when she had to say whether certain things were a want or a need, one was religion and she wrote "not either a want or a need"!) but when she was younger she felt she really missed out on the religious stuff at school, they even do whole class fun days out which are only for the children that are religious and she was the only one left out (now a few others are opted out so she's not the only one at least). I let my youngest go to nursery Easter and Christmas services last year because of this as I don't want him to feel left out and different but I don't like it. I just hope there will be more non-religious children in his class when he starts school so they can do their own fun stuff when the religious children are having their fun days.

It’s died down on Twitter and mainstream media. I guess this is going to be swept under the carpet. I know for a fact that someone raised this in 2002 with SS staff so he has got away with it for another 20 years.

Wow Samey that's 20 years ago... and when I was taking groups to SS... that's awful.

I saw that the keyboard player allegedly being ‘bullied’ by MP on a viral video clip has gone on Twitter saying it was all fine and not bullying.

Pretty horrifying. And I agree, no-one in the Church of England ever seems to learn. So many people have got away with things like this, and no-one ever seems to face any consequences.