Facing the Canon with Mike Pilavachi

hi and welcome to my youtube channel my guest on facing the canon is my dear friend mike pilipachi a great tonic [Music] mike pilavanchi welcome to facing the cannon it's great to be with you john oh mike we've known each other i was trying to remember but i think it's about 35 years yep we've we've been good friends when i was a young youth worker at san andreas truly wood you used to come and do our house parties for our youth group and they were very memorable and it was the beginning of of what of what we were both doing well you've been on it for a bit while longer than me yeah no and oh we kylie and i remember those weekends but you um growing up did you have any faith no no i was an atheist because my parents were greek orthodox atheists and i remember so your parents greek all thoughts in terms of culture culturally but had no belief in god no they were very because they saw what they saw as the corruption of the church in cyprus which is where our ancestors come from and so they were anti-church anti-religion they were science is the future they escaped from all that superstition coming to england as they saw it and when i was 14 i wrote an essay in my english class and the title was why i am not a christian and it's god's sense of humor just over a year later i became a christian and how what were the things that led up to it how did you have this epiphany well i think looking back the reason i wrote the essay was because i was searching and uh i started looking at all sorts of things new age stuff um i kept going to the library because i wasn't happy with my life and i was just trying to find something and then there were these two guys in at school in my class at school they were normal they were fun they weren't weird but they were kind and they cottoned on that i was searching for something and when the the cross was explained to me i personally never needed much convincing that i was a sinner but when i heard the good news that he loved me and that he paid for my sin and he made the way back i understood it completely and i remember it was the 15th of january i went up to barn hill which was a a um a hill near near where i lived in in harrow wembley and i went with a little booklet called becoming a christian by john stott yes i had read it before yeah and i read journey into life by norman warren and then there was a little prayer at the end and i prepared i knew what i was doing i went there i knelt on the wet grass and i said the prayer at the bottom of the booklet and i got up and i didn't feel any different but i knew that from when i knelt down to when i got up my life had completely changed and that was it really yeah how did your family react to you calling yourself a christian not great really i think that's the description not great they were very upset and um they they were our heritage there's lots of good things about our heritage they're also one or two not quite such good things absolutely and um they they they banned me from going to church they banned me from going to any christian meeting and at first i used to pretend that i was going to the pub yes and i was going to parties and of course they were thrilled and because they've been worried because i'd never went out before that and my dad used to say to me my son you're drinking you're you're going out with girls you're having sex that's my son and it was like so different to most parents and and i didn't know what to do so i let him believe that and then one day the leaders of my home group um a couple called mark and pat thomas they sat me down and they said mike do you think it's dishonoring to jesus to be lying to your parents about coming here and i said i don't know but i can't live without this i can't survive if i can't come here and they said well we want to suggest let's pray about it that you tell your parents and you trust jesus and i was like i know what's going to happen but we prayed about it and of course i didn't have a choice so i went home and i remember when i told them that i had be that i was going to christian meetings i remember my mum was upstairs and my dad was downstairs and i was on the stairs in between and um i was so upset because they were furious my mum was crying and my dad was shouting i didn't know what else i didn't know what to do so i started speaking in tongues out loud i mean out loud and it was just the most stupid thing to do but they both stopped and they looked at me and they said to each other he's gone mad yeah he has gone crazy and then i ran out of the house and i was trembling and i went to this couple and i said i've left home and they sat me down they prayed with me and they sent me back and the thing was my dad was so upset with me that he did not speak to me for i think it was over a month he won't speak to me and because he wouldn't speak to me he was too proud to tell me where are you going yes so i got up i i put my coat on and i left to go to the meeting and they didn't tell me not to yeah so you never lied so i never lied they knew where i was going and they didn't tell me no and then by the time they were okay with me but the the sadness is they never um they never came to terms with it and i mean i remember i sat with my dad when he was dying of heart failure in the hospital and i said to him when he was and i don't know you know i said dad you all you have to do is say yes to jesus yeah and after he died i i imagine that he did but i think that might have been wishful thinking he said no all his life and then with my mum she accepted it but she didn't agree with it yeah and the sadness is i prayed for them um i tried to witness to them but it never they there was a pride yeah but it's always hard with family isn't it to communicate our faith and and i think it is the hardest with your own parents yeah it was agony and she died three years ago yes and there's no evidence that she gave her life so they're the things that are sad but um where i never got my parents approval for anything i did yeah you know they thought i was wasting my life and i wanted you want your parents approval yes in the end i realized i had my father in heaven's approval absolutely and he loved me and he was for me and he was proud of not my achievements because it wasn't achievements but of me because i'm his son yeah and you know as he said of jesus this is my son whom i love absolutely with him i'm well pleased i'm in christ and so that which is true of jesus is true for me one of my favorite quotes mike is um saint isaac of syria which i know you're very familiar with oh old isaac saint isaac and he said i would rather be judged by god than my own mother because god will be more generous isn't that one so i think always with parents and always with friends that we don't know i think well at least we know that god's never going to make a mistake but anyway you moved on you ended up well we'll kind of accelerate the story but you ended up becoming the youth leader at saint andrews hollywood okay from having trained as an accountant how did you end up at saint andrews i heard that there was this church in a village at the end of the metropolitan line where they prayed for you prayed for people and things happened and i was so desperate i remember one sunday afternoon it was spontaneous i don't care i'm gonna go and i got on the train i got off at shorelywood station i thought oh my word this is a village and i asked people do you know where andrew's truly wood is and these two guys they said yes we're going there follow us i went there for the first time i sat two pews from the back it was still fairly traditional in some ways they had a choir that was robed and everything but i knew i'd come home it was like waves of love came over me and i just knew this is this is my home and i started going there and for some reason i never understood the vicar and his wife david and mary pitches they they took me in they loved me they cared for me i was in their house all the time mary and another lady prue bedwell who have since become great friends they they prayed with me every other friday for over three years for some of the things the wounds in my heart and i found healing and then one day david um asked me to see to see him and he said i want you to consider giving up your job and becoming the youth worker at the church and it's all i'd ever wanted to do yes and i said yes and then i started as the the youth worker and the truth is i had no idea what i was doing no i'm learning on the job oh boy and i made so many mistakes and in the end i remember i made so many mistakes that i said to the youth group i said i want to tell you a secret i don't know what i'm doing and they looked at each other and they said we know yes and i said look can we pretend can we do it together and we'll pretend i'm doing it to you would you help me and and that i stumbled on raising up others by accident and it was because i didn't know and like you said one of the youth group was matt redmond he was 13 um when i took over the youth group martin lisel yes 12 and he's been associate vicar holy trinity the last few years i'm now actually um uh his son jack who's my godson is now one of my interns this this year and there were others a guy called craig boulez who's written so many books and edited christian magazines and a whole bunch of others guys and girls and what it was was was i didn't know what to do so it was like i like with me i love your honesty mike i mean you're always you're you make yourself very vulnerable which actually is very endearing now all those years were very full very fruitful and then through that soul survivor was birthed i mean when you look back now you know you started with your youth group and then you ended up having some what three weeks in the summer with thousands could you believe what god was doing during those decades no i i i mean none of it was well you know what it's like none of it was planned it was you know there was my youth group and then matt learnt guitar and started leading worship and then um i started getting invited to speak at other youth groups and i took him with me and something started to happen and then you came a few years to our to our um house party our youth group house party and god was doing things there and then new wine started from our church yes and i led the youth at new wine and then i just had this dream of doing something that was a bit like new wine a little bit like green belt a bit like spring harvest but just for young people where where we would take jesus seriously but not take ourselves seriously where non-christians could come and feel at home but where we would proclaim the gospel and we would train young people to move in the gifts and the power of the spirit and i went to david and i thought i'm sharing with him the vision he will say no and then at least i've done it i told him my dream he listened and i remember he said it sounds ridiculous to me and then he paused and he said but it sounds like it might be god yes let's have a go yeah and in 1993 we had our first soul survivor camp 1999 9896 arrived yeah i counted them myself and again honestly john yeah we didn't know what we were doing yeah but god was there you were it was amazing with you you did the bible readings for those first times i loved it and do you remember you did the bible readings kevin prost worship crazy worship leader with an anointing from heaven but you led the ministry you taught in the evenings yeah i mean they were very inspiring times weren't they and the presence of god was tangible yeah it was and the second year to our amazement 4000k yeah and then 6 000. and but in those early years we had a number become christians but it wasn't huge numbers because there weren't huge numbers of non-christians there and then what changed it is um we did two missions um in 2000 um uh in manchester we called it the message and we took three and a half thousand young people to manchester instead of the festival and then in 2004 yes sold in the city london and eleven and a half thousand christian young people paid to do mission in london and you know what was amazing was after that they started bringing their non-christian friends to the festival and before that a third of our seminars were on evangelism and mission yes and we had you yeah um doing all that we loved it do you know but the thing was after that even though we had a third of the seminars on evangelism and mission all they ever wanted to do was be worship leaders yes and the reason for that was because what they saw was worship leaders absolutely when they did mission when they did evangelism they caught it and then they became evangelists and then they started bringing the kids and i remember there was one evening you you spoke and you invited folk to come forward to and that that evening was the most we've ever had um and i think it was about 3 000 young people came forward to give their lives to jesus and i was like it was soon after seoul in the city yeah into this world and i remember thinking but there can't be three thousand here non-christians and then we started asking yes and they all brought their friends it was amazing and it was a repeat i remember that because bishop graham crave was overseeing the like the response and the follow-up and i i can still remember his face of like oh my word this is incredible but what is so admirable is you you led souls five of festivals for how many years 27. and then the lord said to you it's done lay it down and and often in ministry we tend to feel that we've got to perpetuate something that god inspired us to start with you felt no it's done i need to lay it down was that difficult you know honestly it wasn't um and it wasn't because god made it really really clear and we always said we said at the beginning you know god i always used to say god never said i'll build my soul survivor any more than he said i'll build my why wham my youth for christ my new wine my focus my whatever he only said i'll build my church and what we said was we exist for a season and when that season's over you know he's building his church we're there to serve the church for a season so when he said he made it so so clear and lots of people didn't understand and you know folk were like why why and the answer was because god said we don't completely understand it but he has said and now looking back that last year last summer 2019 we had one of the two it was the joint most we've ever had because all the groups that came every other year they were convinced we had 32 and a half thousand amazing came to our last event we finished with a surplus that we could give away to other youth organizations and it finished perfectly if we had gone one more year yes we would have gone bankrupt because of covid we wouldn't have been able to do it we wouldn't have been able to finish no and now i look back and i'm thinking lord do you know what's funny i get people all the time saying you must be so prophetic you knew what was coming yeah and it's like you have no idea we had no idea it's looking back and you think ah wow lord you knew and the only thing that makes it harder is all the other things that were starting up couldn't yeah absolutely and we're praying that this coming summer they can although in a different way in a different way but i think the lesson there at mike is that god guides our steps but he also guides our stops yes brilliant and we don't often discern that that maybe yes he's guiding the steps but maybe he's guiding our stocks and we shouldn't be disappointed now you of course are still ministering you're pastoring a church in watford called soul survivor how's that going well i've loved the journey the the biggest privilege of my life is being involved in pastoring a church that i love and we started it the same year as the festivals so that's been going now 28 years and i'm actually i'm actually really encouraged by where we are yes but what we're we're praying about and we've just had some major discussions is lord what what what kind of church do you want us to be coming out of lockdown and what do you want us to do now to prepare yes to prepare for life after covid and and i have some regrets um if i'm honest if i'd known kovid was coming i would have we would have been much more intentional about discipleship yes and and especially with the 20s and early 30s we could have done a better job john and yeah sure to have you know to have explained the heart of the gospel more clearly to have done better by to get people into the scripture into prayer more we not we didn't do it but we weren't intentional and it's all of that has become exposed but i suppose in hindsight though it's with everything isn't it right you you do look back and you you learn things yes but now you've got to look forwards isn't it yeah and so one of the things we want to do is is that so we're about to start a series with the whole church online on john's gospel we're all going to read john's gospel and we're going to have a whole variety of teachings on it we also want to really really learn again how to pray corporately yes in a way that isn't token yeah um also um our evangelism and mission you know we've loved being able to invite folk into the family but it's you know it's outreach not just in grab of course and and and also we really believe that the lord's speaking to us about being more intentional about church planting yeah and not to create yet another empire or network that's the last thing that the church needs we've got enough of those but friendship-based yes you know so that as long as you want to be friends we want to serve you when you when you feel like it's not that's fine we release you we want we want to be generous hearted because jesus the father the gospel is about god so loved the world that he gave yeah and we gotta love his world that we give all that he gives us the one of the things i've always loved about you mike is that you've always been a person of the word and of the spirit you're a word and spirit person and what do you sense the holy spirit is saying now to the church well i mean this is from my limited you know this is just very very personal uh for us and i i've been talking to a lot of leaders the last few weeks weeks and months and to a lot of leaders about leaders and the honest truth is many churches are struggling yes many leaders are struggling and that's the honest truth and we need i think it's the gospel is powerful the gospel does not change we mustn't lose confidence in the good news of jesus and possibly what we've done in many of our churches is in order and i i believe in being culturally relevant but sometimes in order to be culturally relevant we've forgotten that we are also meant to be culturally prophetic and distinctive and and actually the gospel goes against you know the gospel is not about right-wing politics the gospel is not about left-wing politics the gospel is not about middle-of-the-road politics the gospel is about another flipping kingdom altogether and it's about the kingdom of god and we've got to rise up there's got to be a renewed move of the spirit which is about radical christianity and we need a generation to rise up who are radically committed to the scriptures and to all the scriptures and you know what we don't we don't come to judge the bible yeah do i like that don't i we come to the bible to let the bible judge us yes and when we became christians i don't know i know it was the same for you yeah we would look at the bible and it's like oh i can't do that okay yeah i've got to change oh i'm meant to do that i need to change yeah and we've got to get back to a radical commitment to jesus and your little series yeah on some of the seriousness and the revivals of the past and and you know revival isn't a spray that god's going to spray in the atmosphere revival comes as we go yeah and and actually god is faithful he is so faithful and we've got to trust in his faithfulness and we need to be an alternative community yeah that and it's not complicated it's the great commandment we love him with all that we have and all that we are the new commandment that we love one another as he loves us so family and the great commission to go into every ethnicity every people group and make disciples of everyone and the message hasn't changed we just complicated it and we so wanted to be popular and it's funny in the acts of the apostles yeah you know there was such power and what they preached was so contrary yeah to the roman empire and even the jewish leaders that they were hated but there was an awe yeah and a priority and a purity and people came in droves to christ and i think the lord is out of this and i want to give my remaining years to helping to raise up a generation who are radically committed to christ his church and his cause our mem our mem and our mem mike always a joy seeing you being with you and thank you so much for being on facing the cannon and i just want to say thank you so much my friend for all that you have served over years faithfully you've been an inspiration to me not just with us but all over the world and the fruit you won't even know till you get to heaven thank you my friend the gospel has not changed indeed jesus christ is the same yesterday today and forever let's rediscover uh those basics and be passionate to know christ and to make him known thank you to my friend and my guest mike pavlachi today i hope you're inspired i'm inspired thank you for joining us on facing the canon please join us again [Music] you

Channel: J.John

Views: 8,811

Rating: 4.9471364 out of 5

Keywords: j.john, jjohn, philo trust, philo, Christianity, Christian, Jesus, God, Facing the Canon, Interview, Inspiration, Mike Pilavachi, Soul Survivor

Id: Kg24zC0De0w

Length: 28min 30sec (1710 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 07 2021