I am sure that most of my readers will have watched detective dramas on television where, during the investigation of a murder, a large chart is placed on the wall at the police station.  On this chart will be affixed pictures of all the possible suspects.  Without such a helpful visual aid, it is all too easy for the viewer to get the characters and their position within the fictional investigation hopelessly muddled up in the mind.   Most of us find such charts helpful in making sense of all the information that the fictional police and detectives are busily amassing in the drama. 

Another common convention, when drawing these fictional charts, is to create connecting lines between the suspects.  These lines show the way the suspects are linked in some way to each other and, sometimes, to the same businesses or institutions.  Every character has their own identifiable network.  Each works and lives within a context and this can be visually expressed through the use of these lines.  Quite often there is a moment in the drama where the chief detective is shown staring at the chart trying to see if there are any more connections that have been overlooked.  The detective will also be looking for such things as anomalies or patterns on the chart to enable him or her to crack open the case so that the guilty one can be revealed. 

This image of a chart, with pictures of suspects together with their connections, came to my mind as we heard the latest news about Jonathan Fletcher.  His story is well known and most of what we know about his malfeasance has been set out in Andrew Graystone’s excellent second edition account of the Iwerne saga, Bleeding for Jesus.  This blog assumes some knowledge of the story down to the very recent ‘examination of the facts’ hearing, at the Crown Court at Kingston upon Thames.  At this hearing Fletcher (JF) was found to have committed the sexual abuse and assault offences of which he was accused, even though he was judged as ‘not fit to plead’. The judge was obliged to ‘impose an absolute discharge’.

The important part of this JF story, I believe, is not to be found in these somewhat squalid episodes revealed inside a Surrey court, but in the way he was a key figure in the entire conservative evangelical world in the Church of England.  Although JF served most of his ministry at a single church, Emmanuel Wimbledon, he was probably more influential within this evangelical network than any other single individual.  He was the one who, for at least three decades, seems to have occupied a quasi-episcopal role within this powerful church network.  No one knew the individuals within that spider’s web better than him, and he appears also to have had enormous power within those circles to exercise a dominating patronage role.  Thus, he was able to place his own favoured candidates in the top jobs of the uber-wealthy parishes within the network.  Although that personal power, because of his old-age and pervading scandal, has now faded, most of the leading parishes within this wealthy network are still run by individuals who obtained their positions through knowing him and obtaining his approval.  These are the parishes that are able, because their immense wealth, to employ, in some cases, 15 or more curates and their loyalty to the wider church structures is, at best, luke-warm.  The whole conservative evangelical world in the Church of England was for decades substantially managed and controlled by JF.  No one could further their career within that world without JF’s personal approval.  In the light of all that has been revealed since 2019 when his past criminal behaviour was brought into the light of day, it is hard not to see him as a kind of mafia boss within this section of the Church.  In the current court case, JF is deemed to be suffering from dementia and unfit to answer charges of assault and sexual abuse.  Whatever further details of this story emerge, it is hard to see how the damage done by this individual will be allowed to dissipate for decades to come.  

In reflecting on the life and influence of JF and the way that he seems to have acted like a spider at the heart of the large interconnecting web, we need to think further about the lines that hold this structure together.  Going back to our imagined chart on the police station wall, it is these lines, these connections, that JF did so much to create and sustain, that help us to understand the dynamics of the con evo world.  These lines operated like a circulatory system within the human body with the flow of blood being coordinated and controlled to a large extent by JF.  The style of relationships that we observe in the con evo world, many reflecting unhealthy power and dependency dynamics, still exist.  To understand these processes, we need to go back one further stage, to the influence of Iwerne and the English public-school. We need to look at the part played by this powerful institution in English society on the Church.

Much information about the influence of the Iwerne camps on the con evo section of the C of E has been brought to light.  We now understand better how the culture and ethos of the English public-school find their expression in sectors of other institutions, not just the C of E. There is a lot of valuable material in Graystone’s book on this topic.  Some of these values derived from this source were undoubtedly good.  Boys were introduced to the idea of self-sacrifice and perseverance in the face of adversity, and this may have done much, in the past, to help build up the morale of a nation facing conflict, whether in the task of empire building or fighting world wars.  A single word comes into my mind to describe this self-sacrificial aspect of public-school formation and that word is ‘chap’.  In the vocabulary of 60+ years ago, and maybe now, a chap was someone who played hard and worked hard for the team.  He was reliable and honest, especially in the context of supporting others who were like him in background.   The word chap attracted to itself various adjectives.  ‘Good chap’ was an important accolade, or the word decent was frequently used. 

Some of the metaphorical blood that flowed into the character of Iwerne campers and protegees of JF could be seen to possess positive and commendable qualities.  But the public-school system bred other darker values which have been now recognised as toxic and harmful.  My observations here come from my own stint at a similar school, but it was not one to attract the attention of Nash’s Iwerne project.  We were however imbibing some of the same arguably toxic values that were found alongside the positive qualities in the public school system.  The first thing I should mention was a constant undercurrent of violence that existed.  I am not describing physical bullying, though this existed.  I am describing an environment which sometimes allowed for an unexpected crisis of violence or cruelty to erupt, so that one could never be totally relaxed in front of senior boys or masters.  Christian teaching did exist in the school, but it was not a type that encouraged individual spiritual flourishing or exploration.  Words like duty, loyalty and obedience seemed to typify what was taught about morality.   These were all corporate values and the loyalty that was demanded in the school was always to further corporate well-being, whether it was the values of the sports team, the house or the school itself.

Corporate morality is not of itself a bad thing.  What was unattractive and more serious was the effect of a fiercely hierarchical pattern of authority that existed within my school.   Boys fought tooth and nail to obtain the status of prefect or get chosen for the school (or house) teams.  Because there was so much in the way of competitive behaviour, there was also a lot of energy expended in striving to obtain status in some sphere.  The hierarchical environment also bred a particular kind of corrosive snobbery.  One did not associate with younger or less successful boys.  Friendships were often political. Who you were seen speaking to might enhance or undermine your status in the school.  It need hardly be said that values that might help build up the support of real community were not valued.  Any admission of vulnerability or indeed wanting to help the weak or disadvantaged also had little place within the system.

I realise as I write these words that they may only be the memories of a previous generation of public-school pupils and that things may today be quite different.  But I recognise that many of the current generation of clergy and bishops who have imbibed some of the values of public-schools and Iwerne may be unwittingly mediating these same values into the blood stream of parts of the church. JW is a product of this value system and a promoter.  He would have known well the competitiveness, ruthlessness and cruelty inherent in the public-school regime.  As one of the socially well-connected alumni who negotiated the system successfully, he would not have had any cause to criticise it.  So, in his long career of intense mentoring and influencing of younger clergy, he would been sharing these public-school values that seem to invert the values of the Magnificat.  Iwerne never seemed to be about exalting ’the humble and meek’ and there was never any talk of putting down ‘the mighty from their seat.’  

 Public schools in England traditionally stood for a distinctive elitist culture rooted in such things as fierce loyalties, entitlement and the worship of power as embodied in the successful sports hero.  The same values that emerge from these practices would spill over into the later lives of those who experienced them.  The professional networks they joined, including the CofE, continued to embody these values.    JF seems to have been a key player in creating and sustaining a group with the CofE strongly practising the toxic values of privilege and entitlement.  I am pleased to be able to say that not every conservative churchman aspired to these values and theology.  A group of churchmen of this theological persuasion represented by the late Melvin Tinker, seem to have stood apart from these elitist values that flow along the veins of what we might describe as the public-school mafia found among the heirs and successors of Jonathan Fletcher.  If the majority group among these conservatives is to have a future in the wider church, it may need to start by questioning and purging itself of the toxic legacy and poisonous contamination of some aspects of the public-school influence in the CofE.

By Carolina Frank

Jesus loved to teach through ordinary things. Seeds. Soil. Wheat. Weeds. Everyday images that people could recognise from their own lives. In Matthew 13, He speaks about a field where good seed is planted, yet over time other growth appears among it.

Anyone who has tended a garden knows this experience. You do not always notice unwanted growth at first. It arrives gradually, almost invisibly, and blends into what is healthy and good. Churches, like gardens, are made up of human; sincere, imperfect, hopeful people trying to follow God together. And wherever people gather, there will always be moments requiring wisdom, humility, and gentle correction.

Jesus reminds us that spiritual health is not about pretending problems do not exist. It is about tending carefully to what helps love, truth, and trust grow stronger.

“Whoever has ears, let them hear.” — Matthew 13:9

The Strength in Listening Well 

One of the great gifts any church can offer is the feeling of being truly heard. Most people know not to expect perfection from faith communities, but what they long for is honesty, kindness, and compassion when life becomes difficult. In conversations around safeguarding, listening matters deeply. Often the most healing words are simple phrases like: “Thank you for telling me,” or “I’m sorry you carried this alone.”

Jesus Himself spent much of His ministry listening to people others overlooked — the grieving, the isolated, the wounded, the ashamed. He created space for people to speak openly without fear.

“Carry each other’s burdens.” — Galatians 6:2

Healthy churches are not churches without challenges. They are churches willing to meet challenges with grace and courage instead of silence or discomfort.

When Small Things Are Left Untended

Most difficulties in life do not arrive all at once. More often, they begin almost imperceptibly. A misunderstanding that is never quite spoken about. A moment of hurt that is felt, but not fully named. A conversation that feels slightly too difficult to have, so it is gently set aside for another time that never really comes.

Over time, these small moments can begin to shape the emotional climate of a community. Not through intention, but through accumulation. A hesitation to speak openly here, a reluctance to ask a difficult question there. And slowly, without anyone consciously deciding it, trust can feel a little more fragile than it once was.

In the Parable of the Weeds, Jesus offers a simple but deeply human image of a field where different kinds of growth appear together. The point is not alarm, but awareness. Life, even in its best expressions, contains a mixture of what nourishes and what complicates flourishing.

In church life, these “weeds” are rarely obvious. More often, they are subtle patterns that develop over time. A preference for avoiding difficult conversations in order to keep things comfortable. A quiet instinct to soften or postpone uncomfortable truths. Or a sincere desire for harmony that, unintentionally, makes honesty feel slightly more costly than silence.

None of these arise from ill will. In fact, they often come from very understandable motivations, like a desire to protect relationships, preserve unity, or avoid unnecessary pain. Yet even good intentions, when left unexamined, can gradually narrow the space in which honest dialogue takes place.

Scripture, in its wisdom, encourages a different rhythm — one where truth and love are held together, not separated.

“Speak the truth in love.” — Ephesians 4:15

This is not a call to harshness, but to integrity. It suggests that real spiritual maturity is not found in avoiding difficult conversations, but in learning how to have them with patience, humility, and care for one another.

There is, at times, a quiet but important distinction to be made between protecting an institution’s reputation and tending to its deeper health. One is concerned with how things appear outwardly; the other is concerned with what is forming inwardly. The second is less visible, but ultimately more important, because it is what sustains trust over time.

And this is where humility becomes so central to the life of a church. Humility allows a community to say, in effect, “We are still learning.” It creates space not only for speaking, but for listening well. It makes room for reflection without defensiveness, and for growth without fear.

Seen in this light, growth is not a disruption to be managed, but a gift to be received. It is the ongoing work of becoming more truthful, more attentive, and more capable of holding both care and clarity together in the same heart.

Finding Faith Later in Life

One of the most beautiful surprises in modern church life is how many people discover faith later in life. We sometimes imagine spirituality belongs mostly to the young, but the opposite is often true. About 80% of adults over 50 say spiritual belief matters deeply to them. For many, faith arrives slowly and unexpectedly, like a letter appearing years after it was first sent.

Later life has a way of sharpening life’s deeper questions. People begin thinking more about meaning, forgiveness, family, legacy, and peace. Some who once felt distant from faith find themselves drawn toward prayer, Scripture, or the comfort of church community. Others return after many years away.

This is one reason gentle, trustworthy churches matter so much. Older (as well as younger) adults are looking for sincerity. They want communities where people can speak honestly, ask questions freely, and feel welcomed exactly as they are.

“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he.” — Isaiah 46:4

Faith is not something we outgrow; it becomes more integrated into the texture of a life well lived.

The Enduring Value of the Good Seed

It is important to remember that Jesus’ parable is ultimately hopeful. The story is not about fear of weeds, but about confidence in the good seed. Most churches are filled with acts of kindness that rarely make headlines — volunteers making tea after services, people visiting the lonely, pastors comforting grieving families, congregations praying faithfully for one another. These things matter enormously. The presence of challenges does not erase the goodness that also exists. In fact, moments of honesty and reflection can strengthen communities and deepen trust. A healthy church is not one that claims to have all the answers, but the one willing to grow in wisdom, compassion, and care.

Tending the Garden Together

The parables of Matthew 13 remind us that faith is not static. Like a garden, it requires attention, patience, and care. Some things nourish growth; other things  hinder it. Wisdom lies in learning the difference.

Church safeguarding, at its heart, comes down to creating communities where people feel safe, valued, heard, and loved. And perhaps that is the deeper invitation within these parables: to become more attentive to what helps goodness grow. Because wherever truth, kindness, humility, and compassion are nurtured, good seed continues to flourish.

After reading this new book by Lucy Sixsmith on Soul Survivor (SS), the notorious and controversial movement formerly led by Mike Pilavachi, I had to ask myself what genre of writing was being employed.  The blurb on the back cover uses the word ‘memoir’ to describe the book.  It is, however, much more than a memoir.  I find it easier to describe it as a written conversation between various parties of which the reader is one.  The central character is, of course, the author Lucy who, in her mid-thirties is trying today to make sense of her past exposure to the enormously influential movement for Christian young people, which flourished in Watford for some thirty years.  As part of our initiation into the strange (for some) world of charismatic beliefs and practice, we are introduced to a younger Lucy.  The teenage Lucy is also a party to the conversation. As a young impressionable teenager confronting ideas and experiences that she cannot fully process, she initiates us into the religious worldview of a religiously inclined teenager from the noughties.  By the end of the book, the reader will have been introduced to a variety of ideas and notions that may be novel to many older Christians, but the effort will have been worth it for two main reasons.  In the first place, charismatic Christianity is becoming the dominant expression of the faith in Britain today and Lucy’s description of the ideas and assumptions in the movement, whether as a teenager or as someone speaking from early adulthood, is not a bad place to start.  The second set of insights being offered, especially to non-charismatic Church people in leadership, is an understanding of some of the dynamics that are around when churches allow obedience and surrender to a maverick leader.  Such practices can easily tip over into manipulation and exploitation of impressionable and vulnerable young lives.  SS was allowed to function for thirty plus years without anyone asking the penetrating questions that might have better protected the young people it purported to serve.   

I write this short review as a charismatic ‘sympathiser’, having been an observer of the scene for a number of decades.  My own ability to identify with the leaders of the movement ceased with the passing of an earlier generation such as John Richards and John Gunstone.  For a variety of reasons, the movement turned in a new direction in the 80s.  The baton of leadership was passed on to a group with a more sectarian outlook.  To use political terminology, the soft left charismatic style of the 70s became the hard left controlling leadership of the later 80s and 90s.  Having myself found a small niche in the charismatic world in the early 80s, so that I was even invited to speak at healing conferences about my interest in this ministry, I ceased to be regarded as ‘sound’ by the end of the decade.

The SS generation of the nineties and noughties to which Lucy belonged, alongside many of her Christian contemporaries, brought forth a manifestation of charismatic practice which was strongly identified with the conservative evangelical camp.  What Lucy describes of her home church and her experiences of SS camps breathes a Christian culture that I would have found unbelievably stifling and restrictive.  For those of us who had been warmed by the early pioneer days of the charismatic movement, it had been a cause of sadness that our ‘liberal’ opinions made us a cause of suspicion and threat to the generation that came after.  Lucy’s memories and descriptions of her Christian pilgrimage as a young person growing up in this later culture contains much material for reflection.  We have laid out for us the kind of teaching that was shared by Mike Pilavachi with the tens of thousands of young people who imbibed the Christian faith from this somewhat uncompromising conservative narrative.  The importance of the book is found in the way we are invited by the author to share in her struggles, her questions and doubts.  It is as though we are invited to participate, through the reflections of the book, in a journey of faith from the perspective of a very young, but highly intelligent mind. 

When the Music Fades is not in any way meant to be a hatchet job of the damaging ministry of Mike Pilavachi.  Lucy clearly understands the implications of all that has been revealed of the harm and trauma that has befallen a group of young men –  the massages and the dangers of inappropriate closeness to Mike.  This typically involved being at first favoured before being discarded.  There was much more going on and, as the title of the book suggests, Lucy recognises fully the part played by music in creating a distinctive style within the culture of SS, one which was highly attractive to young people.  The sections of the book discussing music, as far as this commentator is concerned, are the ones that are most difficult to engage with.  Perhaps music taste will always be an area of partial incomprehension between the generations.  But I still find myself asking the question whether the style and emotion revealed through the music of SS takes us into the presence of God or whether the same music is a tool of manipulation and control.  One of Lucy’s chapters is entitled Surrender.  Is this word a description of an emotion deliberately cultivated by leaders and musicians to create a power dynamic which was of benefit to the leaders, in terms of gaining kudos from the wider institution?  However much ‘surrender’ seemed to describe the spiritual place where the young participants thought they wanted to be, it is a word that has strong undertones of vulnerability and control.  Telling a large crowd of potentially vulnerable young people the importance of surrendering to an emotion-laden atmosphere is a situation of great potential danger.  Do teenagers have the necessary discernment and capacity for self-protection not to be sucked into something that may harm them at a deep level? 

As a university academic Lucy is alert to the need to respond to many of the searching questions that she recognises will be asked by her potential readership.  She includes helpful material from a variety of disciplines which help to give the context for the phenomenon we know as SS.   Her understanding and presentation of material connected with the history of evangelicalism leading up to SS is instructive and helpful.  She tells us about Charles Simeon, Henry Martyn and Moody and Sankey.  Little by little we find ourselves absorbing the message and significance of SS from these other perspectives, those of theology, history, psychology and direct experience. 

The value of the book is perhaps that it throws down a challenge to church leaders, asking them to state where the boundaries should be drawn between something that is orthodox, wholesome and life-giving and other cultures which may be exploitative and harmful.  The perennial issue about the place of music needs fresh scrutiny and attention, since we cannot simply assume that because something is popular it is necessarily spiritual and healthy.  Lucy makes a serious attempt as a newly minted adult to communicate the feelings and strong emotions aroused in these young people by the evangelistic youth culture of today.  My own level of incomprehension at the genre of musical style within this culture suggests to me that there may still be a considerable problem for the Church to overcome.  Mike Pilavachi was allowed to practise a risky, even dangerous style of Christian ministry for so long, partly because church leaders did not understand and therefore could not monitor intelligently and perceptively what he was doing.  The author, the grown-up well educated Lucy, offers a bridge enabling other Christians outside charismatic circles to understand what was being attempted in these camps. Many of the themes of an earlier charismatic culture: prophecy, tongues and healing were still present.  My own impression from the book’s descriptions is that these gifts were being practiced with a level of wackiness.  There is also a sense that gifts are being practised, sometimes without any proper idea of what was going on.  There is a vivid description of the author emerging from her tent one morning at camp to discover her friend prophesying to a group of younger boys.  These boys were in Lucy’s words ‘sceptical, but magnanimous’.  There was some level of acceptance in that they stayed to listen even though they seemed unconvinced.  Lucy’s own home independent charismatic church had been deeply impacted by the Toronto Blessing so she was wide open to wacky episodes in church, along with vivid displays of emotion.  The adult Lucy is offering us keys to understanding something of this culture.  That understanding will allow the rest of us to feed on its energy and vitality, even when we feel a necessary system of checks and balance is absent.

The adult Lucy Sixsmith provides us with something extremely precious: a direct personal penetration and insight into areas of church life that is strange to many of us.  We feel privileged to enter such an unfamiliar place, the Soul Survivor camps, but with Lucy as our guide, we are better able to understand and certainly not be harmed by the experience.

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Some readers may have seen the news about the legal case involving Jonathan Fletcher. Surviving Church wrote on the earlier stages of this case aboutwhich readers might like to remind themselves. https://survivingchurch.org/2020/12/22/bishops-safeguarding-and-jonathan-fletcher/