C.B. is my church. My son and I have pasts. Perhaps we'll start our own church. Ministries that I've been connected with in the past are dependent on donations, which mean you must have a good reputation, which means it's not good to be seen with people like us.
These ministries, in turn, are in relationship with a local international television ministry which is also dependent on donations. Donators are notoriously fickle.
If something doesn't look quite right, it could cost a ministry millions of dollars. It's just a bunch of hooey, I don't miss the politics and meddling. I do miss my old Vineyard church, though.
CB?
While a member in one Baptist church, my wife (at that time) was working for a while in nursing homes. One place welcomed a preacher to come on Sundays to minister to the "home bound" and my wife suggested that I share scripture on a few Sundays. My pastor at the time was interested in what I was doing and attended one of these little services.
That didn't last too long because some attendees wanted me to hear their confessions and act like a priest, making me extremely uncomfortable, but an old Scottish pastor who'd temporarily stepped in to conduct services while our pastor was absent felt that I needed an ordination of sorts to continue in that ministry,so he laid his hands on me and prayed with me for the Lord's support and guidance.
With the approval of the church leadership we recruited some help from the congregation and found a nursing home and an assisted living residence that welcomed us as a church ministry for Sunday worship a few times a month.
We did this for a few years, with me slowly preaching through the book of Matthew, and helpers providing music for singing and distributing "elements" for communion observance. Sometimes as few as 4 or 5 residents attended, but in the nursing home the nurses packed the room for the health benefit of ministry.
Unfortunately, my former wife became disappointed over time with the ministry and upset at the time it required of me, so I used the ministry as opportunity to bring in other men equipped to teach and preach in my place for the experience behind a pulpit.
At the same time I was a bit discontented with changes being made in worship services at our home church and had a sense that church leadership wasn't being considerate of the concerns of older members.
After speaking with the leadership who believed that the mature should be willing to drop their concerns for the sake of church growth, and in pleasing the expanding numbers of youthful attendees, I perceived a church split coming and didn't want to be caught up in the strife that goes with such splits. Taking sides becomes an inevitability when mutual submission vanishes and my own discontentment, the loss of my peace, and a sense of the Lord’s leading, lead me to drop my membership and seek another local assembly.
A church split did follow and others left with either hurt feelings or bruised egos, but that congregation survived and continued to grow, as well as the "eldercare ministry" we helped to start. The thing I had to consider is that the Church belongs to Christ, not to the pastors, elders or any men. The Lord is free to do with it as He sees fit. We can only serve Him successfully to the extent that we submit to His will and abide in His word.
Some people are church planters. If it's the Lord's work, His word will prosper in His purpose. When men make the church their own, God can fix that, but at a cost to the assembly.
We can accomplish nothing without Him and it isn't His way to validate our choices, but to guide them.
God bless you brother and if He's leading you to start your own assembly, then I'm confident that He has a great starting place. Just remember whose church it is and it will prosper. Amen.