The Beginnings of Soul Survivor

“In the early 90s, I (Mike Pilavachi - ed.) was the youth worker at St Andrews Chorleywood, an Anglican church in Hertfordshire.

In my youth group there was a 15-year old kid called Matt Redman who worshipped his heart out at the back of meetings.

When he began to play the guitar, I encouraged him and he started to lead our worship.

Both of us were longing to grow in our own understanding of worshipping Jesus and one day we said, "Wouldn't it be great to worship the lord together without the feeling that we've go to lead the group and do this and that…?"

So Matt said, "Why don't we spend an evening a week just worshiping the Lord? Saturday is the best night of the week - why don't we give God Saturday night?" I agreed.

So for a few months, Matt and I would go into the church on a Saturday night for a couple of hours.

He'd get his guitar out and the two of us would sing songs to Jesus, pray, read the word and sing in the Spirit.

Gradually other young people started joining us and that's how Soul Survivor started. It was all by accident.”