I attended Victory church for over 6 years. My kids were in the youth group, and we were part of a few different ministry areas. I left earlier this year due to personal reasons - the harm that I see Victory leadership causing to the Body of Christ is disturbing. While they seem on the surface to "help people become who God called them to be" they don't tolerate people who disagree with them, interpret Scripture differently, or ask too many questions. I've observed them censoring and shunning those who don't align 100% with the leaders thoughts and opinions, even when leadership is exhibiting unhealthy patterns of behavior. This happened to me when I expressed on my personal social media concerns regarding holding leaders accountable for errors in their behavior, and treatment of former church members.
In one of their video messages, the lead pastor encourages members to forgive and 'forget,' ...specifically meaning forgive him of his errors, and forget they happened. The way I see it, this puts the listener in a gaslighted position of being in a cycle of spiritual abuse. Do what the pastor says, don't disagree with him, and only go along with the group mentality whether or not it aligns with scripture.
Although we left months ago, our kids had strong relationships there, and continued to attend the youth ministry program. Recently, the youth pastor told us via text message that our children could no longer attend their youth group. The decision to reject our children from their youth ministry was made because the main pastor didn't like what someone told him I had posted on social media about the church. The pastor based rejection of our children from their community-wide youth ministry on hearsay from another church member. We tried to call the youth pastor directly, but he didn't answer. We went to the church in person to talk, but the youth pastors closed the door and turned off the lights. The main pastor had instructed the youth leader to not allow our kids back until we meet in person with just him (which we are not comfortable with due to his bullying nature), and also instructed the youth leader not to talk to us.
The pastor and the youth pastors seemed to not understand why we were hurt that they would do this to our kids. I truly cannot understand a church that would ban kids from youth group because a parent questioned the church's public post on a public forum, or requested leadership be held accountable for their poor behavior. Their social medias look good because they delete and block anyone who says anything that is not positive or 100% in agreement with them, and they actually told me that I wasn't allowed to comment on their material (then they blocked me)
Even though I spent years of my life with this community, I cannot recommend this church. The leadership makes themselves look like good fruit, but peel the surface, and they are rotten inside, spreading disease to other believers. read more