Written by Ben Cox – As you cross the Pecan Bayou on CC Woodson heading out of town sits Victory Life church. Tucked neatly into the pecan trees, Victory Life is part church and part private school, with the campus of Victory Life Academy and its football stadium on the grounds.
Pastored by Duane Sheriff via live feed from the church’s main location in Durant, Oklahoma, Victory Life is led locally by three men who share in the responsibilities of the day to day operations and local outreach of the church.
Lead Campus Pastor Stan Roberts came to Victory Life Brownwood from another location in the Victory Life body in 2005 with his wife, Cathy.
“Part of our whole focus is to help people find their gifts and their talents and their place,” says Roberts. “And that way they find fulfillment when they find out what they’re called to do and where they plug in.”
Victory Life is a bit different than most churches in the area because of the live feed from Oklahoma. But Roberts says that is not something that turns folks away from the church, infact it is something that has been going on for many churches across the country for years. “Back in 2008 there were over five million people attending multiplicational churches.”
Roberts said that despite churches being different in their approach to the Gospel, that doesn’t make one of them more right or wrong. “Churches all throughout central Texas all have different personalities, but we all serve a need and a part of the body of Christ. We’re not the only church, we’re just one of them.”
There are two other leaders at Victory Life. Christian McDaniel is the Assistant Pastor and is in charge of Grow Teams, Serve Teams, and Life Groups which meet in church members homes.
Growing up as a preacher’s kid, McDaniel is no stranger to ministry despite Victory Life being his first official position in a church.
While attending Howard Payne University McDaniel was a member of Living Word Church, which became Victory Life in 2005.
On Sundays, McDaniel is in charge of the transitionary period from the praise and worship portion of the service, through the offertory and announcements before the sermon begins.
Frankie Valencia is the Worship Pastor for Victory Life, and leads the praise team through the services. He works every week to create an environment of worship for each service.
“We believe that worship is a very important part of what we call an ecosystem. You’ve got your service environment, community environment and your worship environment,” Valencia says. “We believe if you can be in all three of those you’ll experience the most growth (in Christ).”
Valencia is also in charge of the Youth ministry for Victory Life, a position he takes very seriously and leads from his own experiences and studies of Scripture.
“Our mission at Victory Life Church is building healthy churches that are growing people in Christ. And that mission carries over to the youth,” Valencia said.
Leading the praise team through contemporary praise music, Valencia also incorporates music from the church’s new praise and worship cd that was recently released. All the music on the disc was written by Victory Life musicians.
The church is currently in a building campaign to create a new 1000 seat worship facility in the field in front of their current worship center, which was originally built to be a gymnasium for the school. The church is building in phases as to avoid incurring debt, and will turn the current worship space into the originally planned gym as soon as the new facility is complete.
Founded in the 1980’s, there are currently 12 churches under the Victory Life umbrella, including the main campus in Durant, Oklahoma and the Brownwood location. There are also online worships services accessible through the church website.
