What about a Victory Baptist Church?
If you are having trouble getting satisfied in the church you are attending, and if you can not get along with but a very select few of the members, and if you can not take the church over because the Pastor just refuses to see it your way, and if you feel like the preaching is being aimed straight at you, and if it seems as though you are losing at every business meeting, then go home and start your own church. Make yourself and your family the officers of this new church. Take a few young sheep that you have sown discord--I mean discussed--all the "problems" with; surely you can entice a few of them over to this new "den".
When you finally get this far, declare this young assembly the Victory Baptist Church. Getting your way is the Victory! You might also call it Harmony Baptist because with only your family and a few followers, harmony could be possible. It does not really matter that calling something a Church doesn't make it a church, because it is your church! You run it. If you say it is a church then it is a church! Just think, you can give yourself your tithe from now on. No need to keep holding it back any longer! Now you can give it and still keep it! Imagine paying your light bill with your tithe money! You won't have to pay property taxes on your house or land anymore! Now it is church property! You are probably feeling dumb for not thinking of this sooner - all those wasted years trying to get victory! Imagine the money you have wasted. Think of it, you can support all of your family members with designated missions giving! What a way to put your kids through college.
Sad thing is, putting an ass in a building doesn't make that building a barn -- it only makes it smell like a barn.
The reality is Victory Baptist Church may look like a church, but it is not a church. Yet this is all too common. The names and faces are different but the foundation is the same wherever it is located. A family or two that never has been able to get satisfied creates a schism in a church and leaves in the wake to start their own church. God is not in it. Baptist Churches send out preachers to start Churches. Read the book of Acts. God isn't sending out disgruntled malcontents who can only get along if they are meeting in their living room. In fact, if the laws of sowing and reaping apply to these folks (which they will)- trouble makers will soon show up and these same folks may get voted out of their own "church", which could mean being voted out of their house!
Be careful church member, the devil has a group of tares who really think they "know better" but they don't. Back-track these people. There is a reason they have never been able to get plugged into a church and stay. If you allow these "church planters" to criticize your pastor, your church leaders, or your church in general it will only be a matter of time until you quit growing in the Lord and then lose your love for the fellowship that was once so sweet. Have a backbone-let these folks know where your loyalty is. Listen to some of the closing words of Paul to a congregation riddled with divisions, "Be not deceived. evil communications corrupt good manners." Don't let a pack of frauds talk you out of the will of God. You don't want to be pulled out of a good church, stay away from these devils.
Steven E. Mays
Trumpet Editor.