‘What Soul Survivor Got Wrong’… a missed opportunity

(First written in 2012, edited 2014

(more recent post: ‘The Christology of Soul Survivor)

Last year at Soul Survivor a very young (like 15 yo) member of the prayer or ‘enabling’ team kept showing up whenever anyone in my group was being prayed for and he had a couple of bad habits. First, he pushed! He would stand in front of the person he was praying for and give them a little nudge in the chest or just apply continuous pressure until they went down. As soon as they hit the deck he moved on to ‘get’ somebody else.

The other thing he did – which I found even more annoying – is he’d tell you that you were praying wrong. So he would physically move your hand to ‘more powerful praying positions.’ I was praying for one of my young people one evening and he came, moved my hand from the young person’s shoulder to their chest, but assured me that ‘everything else you’re doing is great!’ I wanted to ask whether or not the Holy Spirit has a better line of fire now my hand was out of the way?

I thought the enabling team was there to make sure groups we’re looking after each other and blessing what God was doing – not interrupting experienced group leaders to choreograph hand positions and push people over who looked a wee bit wobbly?

Why The Crit?… Hater!

I don’t want to come off as overly critical (too late right?). Soul Survivor is great! It has an amazing legacy and done some incredible ministry. I’ve been taking youth groups for years and we always get a lot out of it. We meet God there and are blessed by powerful, Spirit-led ministry. I respect the people running it and it forms an effective part of my annual youth work discipleship and mission strategy. But there is stuff that Soul Survivor has done (and does do) that has caused issues for young people that I’ve worked with over the years.

Soul Survivor wields an enormous amount of influence in the youth work world and has developed a large proportion of youth leaders in my generation. Big influence means big responsibility, and even though I know they get lots of unhelpful criticism – they need to set the example for how to properly evaluate themselves in humility and be clear about their mistakes, as well as their many successes.

The Opportunity Andy Was Given

I was thrilled therefore when in 2011, Andy Croft was given a huge opportunity to talk at the Youth Work Summit on ‘What Soul Survivor got Wrong.’ This was an opportunity to cut through all the crazy criticism they get and say, ‘here’s how we see it and how we’re trying to grow as a movement and serve your youth groups better – we know we haven’t always gotten it right and we’re aware of specific areas to develop and here’s how we’ve been doing it.’

Unfortunately, this is not the talk Andy gave. The ten minute message took on a tone that straddled the lines between subversively defensive and so broad that you couldn’t really blame them for anything. I’ve got mounds of respect for Crofty, but this really was a missed opportunity to set an example of how to engage critique well. The only real conclusion I was able to draw was that Soul Survivor does not effectively evaluate its ministry, doesn’t have a language developed to talk about its issues in public, and is not aware of specific areas that they need to grow in.

What Andy said

Andy talked about the initial phone call where he was given this opportunity, which he seemed a bit upset by. He moved on to say he realized the importance of evaluating ministry and so would give it a shot.

1. Evaluate ministries against their aims

He explained that ministries should be evaluated against what they are trying to achieve – which is right as long as that the aims are specific enough to be valuable. The aim Andy gave for Soul Survivor was “to reach young people and to equip them to live the whole of their lives for Jesus.”

This is a good aim – but is practically the same broad aim of every other youth ministry in the Christian world. How can we effectively evaluate against that? I guess we can in a very broad way, but such as a single aim, it’s very difficult to come up with specifics.

A better way of saying it might be “to reach young people and to equip them to live the whole of their lives for Jesus – by developing an event that works alongside churches to provide a worship and teaching experience that motivates, inspires, encourages direction change and sets trends for Christian youth culture.” That would have been more of a  benchmark to measure.

As it is, using such a broad aim means we have no effective tool to measure Soul Survivor’s success, or of course its issues.

2. What we can’t do

Andy continued by saying there are lots of things that Soul Survivor cannot do and shouldn’t be held responsible for. Again he’s right! Understanding the resource scope of what you’re doing is simply a smart thing to do!

He said that ‘As an event, we cannot do discipleship or effective followup.’ And fair enough – that’s true too. But if a key, pivotal part of Soul Survivor’s aim is to ‘equip young people to live their whole lives for Jesus’, isn’t that the heartbeat of discipleship? If we measure Soul Survivor against it’s given aim, then is it perhaps missing out something significant here?

More importantly though, Andy just took Soul Survivor off the hook. With a hugely broad aim, a tip of the hat to ‘well we can’t do everything’ and no specifics of what they can and should do we’re left with nothing but straw men and meanies like me saying ‘hang on a minute?!?’

3. No history to measure by

Andy said that as Soul Survivor is only ’19 years young’ it’s harder to evaluate how successful it’s been. Under that logic though the vast majority of the UK’s youth ministry to can’t be clearly evaluated or held to account either. Nor can – as my wife pointed out – most of our marriages.

Because of Soul Survivor operating over the last two decades, Andy says that the group to look at are the 20s and 30s of today’s church and culture. Andy makes some insightful and important observations here: 20s and 30s are missing from our churches and sexual ethics in that age group is confused at best.

Because of these two points Andy says Soul Survivor could have done better; particularly showing more clearly the cost of following Jesus and teaching better about relationships. And good on him – yes Soul Survivor can take a measure of responsibility here and should work on those two areas. However, so can just about everything else in society – and again, are these not primarily discipleship areas?

These are not Soul Survivor specific points. All of us – education, church, politics, the leadership of previous generations – have had a hand to play in today’s 20s and 30s culture. Even though I share Andy’s passion to teach the cost of following Jesus and be clear on sexual ethics – if that’s the only thing Soul Survivor takes away from two decades of youth event ministry we’re going to be found seriously wanting.

So what did Soul Survivor get wrong?

This is harsh, but it’s hard to take away anything of significance, or at least specificity, from what Andy shared. Andy ended with a short ‘what we’ve got right’ section. If I’m honest, it sounded like practiced criticism-rebuffing rather than effective evaluation or humble honesty.

I’ve not yet read or heard anything from Soul Survivor that demonstrates a language for evaluation and improvement. It must be there because Soul Survivor has developed and has got better every year. From this message four years ago though, however, it looks like Soul Survivor still thinks of itself as the underdog trying to get a seat at the big boys table.

What we need from you Soul Survivor

Soul Survivor please, you need to set the example and lead the way. Help us on the ground know that even you get it wrong and show us how to effectively evaluate, own up to, and change our own shortcomings. We need you to set the example!

Where do I think Soul Survivor may have got it wrong

I think Soul Survivor has got some specifics to answer for. I’m sure they have answers to some of these, different opinions on others, and have better insight for some I’ve missed.

– It’s part in the increased commercialization of Christian media
– The consumerist approach to the events that only nominally (or awkwardly) create space for genuine community participation
– The events effectively replace many youth groups short term mission trips that always used to be the first weeks of summer
– Copycat events all over the UK trying to replicate the Soul Survivor feeling, splitting churches and keeping young people in youth groups rather than growing into full Church life – not to mention draining resources and people
– Assuming everyone wants to be the happy, sweaty extrovert for the week
– Not always explaining the Gospel before asking people to respond to it by becoming a Christian
– Creating a generation (my generation) of youth leaders who think the Soul Survivor formula is the way to run week-in-week-out youth work
– An odd approach to the distinct parts of lament and joy
– An energy sapping approach to spirituality that doesn’t take physical health seriously enough in emotional encounters
– Although getting better, a poor respect historically for Bible Teaching
– Inspiring people to be on stage rather than on the front lines (made better with Soul Action’s work)
– Perhaps not properly training or supervising their enabling team.

I want to end by saying I have masses of respect for Soul Survivor – but I want them to lead too. They are not a reactionary group any more – they are mainstream and need to be taking their place as servant-hearted, wise and humble leaders in the UK Youth Ministry scene.