Soul Survivor
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Soul Survivor is a Christian charity based in Watford, London. It runs charismatic Christian festivals in the UK. The biggest of these festivals occurs every August at the Royal Bath and West Showground, near Shepton Mallet. There are other Soul Survivor events around the world, but these are organised by charitable bodies in each country and not centrally administered from the UK.
There is also a church, founded shortly after the Soul Survivor Festivals and under the same leadership, known as "Soul Survivor Watford". This is a separate registered charity, and meets in Watford, close to the Soul Survivor ('Ministries') offices.
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[edit] History
Soul Survivor's origins can be traced back to St. Andrew's Church, Chorleywood (the Vicar of which was Bishop David Pytches). The youth worker (Mike Pilavachi) and a young musician (Matt Redman) had a vision of thousands of young people praising God together at their own festival, having seen how New Wine had impacted so many lives. Their vision became reality in 1993 when 1996 young people attended the first Soul Survivor festival. The festival grew in popularity and by 1995 it had to be split across two weeks (Soul Survivor A and Soul Survivor B). By 2003 attendance at the events was around 21,500 over the two separate weeks.
[edit] Today
2005 saw the first Momentum festival, sandwiched between weeks A and B - aimed at 18-30 year olds. Soul Survivor has also branched into other countries such as Malaysia, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada and Australia. These international conferences are administered locally and agree to work under the values of Soul Survivor. It is usual for a small team from Soul Survivor's Watford staff to attend the international events.
In 2007, as well as the 2 weeks in Somerset, there will be an additional week of Soul Survivor, located in Cheshire.
[edit] Momentum
Momentum is a conference run in the same format as Soul Survivor, but is aimed at students and those in their twenties. The first five day conferences took place in 2005. Momentum 2006 saw just under 5000 people attend between the 19th and 24th of August. Momentum 2007 will take place from 20th - 24th July preceding the main Soul Survivor weeks A and B by two weeks.
[edit] Outreach
The Soul Survivor staff believe very strongly that the worship of God is more than just singing songs; it is about putting faith into action, "getting out onto the streets" and proclaiming social justice. In the US their slogan was "actions speak louder". As a result the charity runs outreach events like London's Soul in the City (summer 2004) and supported the Festival:Manchester event in 2003. Thousands of young people come from all over the UK and even the world to work in multi-cultural communities on very diverse projects to help improve the quality of life for the people in each city. At Soul Survivor 2005 the creation of a new mission charity was announced. Soul Action aims to bring the good news of God’s Kingdom to the last, the least and the lost. As soon as it was formed, the charity announced plans for a major outreach event to be staged in Durban, South Africa, in 2009.
In recent years, the task of leading worship has been undertaken by Tim Hughes. However, he has since moved to Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB), where he is highly involved with Worship Central, a joint Soul Survivor/HTB initiative. The task is now headed up by the Canadian youngster Ben Cantelon.
[edit] References
[edit] See also
- World Wide Message Tribe
- New Wine - a similar event aimed at families, which also originated from St. Andrews.
