The judge's order was supposed to create a Christmastime truce in the rancorous protests outside the large New Antioch Baptist Church in Randallstown.

Baltimore County Circuit Judge Lawrence R. Daniels figured that if he prohibited the bullhorns that have irked neighbors since May, and if he forced James E. Roberts Sr., excommunicated by New Antioch, and his fellow protesters to stay across Old Court Road from the church, then maybe this holiday season would be tranquil.

But there was no peace on Old Court Road last weekend.

Protesters were there, just as they have been every Sunday since May, their growing, if still small, numbers criticizing the Rev. Kenneth L. Barney and what they say is the church's focus on construction projects and wealth at the expense of charity and social action.

To officials at New Antioch Baptist, which has 5,000 members, the continued protests showed that more legal action is needed to maintain tranquillity for parishioners and to put to rest a nearly yearlong headache.

Barney and the church have filed a lawsuit against Roberts, which they intend to broaden to include defamation complaints, said their lawyer, Steven L. Tiedemann. They will also ask Daniels to hold Roberts in contempt for what they said were violations of the temporary restraining order.

"The goal is simply to have the parishioners come to church in a tranquil environment," Tiedemann said. "If Mr. Roberts was standing there with signs quietly on the sidewalk getting his message out, I don't know if this would ever have gotten to this point."

But the Lord, Roberts said, does not want him to be quiet.

Roberts said he sees the protest as God's will, and said he will keep trying to refocus the black church on the needs of its people.

"We are doing this out of love because we want our neighborhoods to be better," said Roberts, who started his protests in May, around the same time the church's governing board decided to kick him out of the congregation.

Roberts said he had been pressuring the church to donate to a new mission he had incorporated. When he was refused, he said, he asked for an explanation of church finances - including information about its multimillion-dollar building project.

The answers he received, Roberts said, were unsatisfactory.

He began silent protests in church, such as getting on his hands and knees during Barney's sermons. He pinned tracts he had written to his jacket, asking less-than-subtle questions about the pastor and church.

After the church board excommunicated him, Roberts started protesting outside.

Barney said Roberts and others who don't belong to the church would shout obscenities and accusations, walk into traffic and force New Antioch parishioners to pass through a gantlet to get into the church.

Roberts also distributed a flier depicting a funnel, with dollar bills going in and pennies coming out, next to a stick figure of Barney.

"It is ridiculous, alarming," Barney said. "We have tried to deal with him in a Christian way. But we have been unable to do that."

Barney, who started the church with his wife 25 years ago with seven members, said the church board had told Roberts that it would consider helping his mission once it was established.

But Roberts responded by threatening to disrupt the church, Barney said.

Now most parishioners simply ignore the protests, Barney said.

But there are signs that the protest is moving beyond the relationship between Roberts and New Antioch Baptist Church.

Bernetha George, a Baltimore County physician, said she saw Roberts and his group as she was driving by the church one Sunday in June, and decided to join the protest.

She said she was a member of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore until the late 1990s, when she left because of a "general dissatisfaction with how the church deals with the needs of the black community."

Now she is on Old Court Road every Sunday with Roberts, and George said she expects more protesters will join her.

"The black church still has that potential to be the powerful force that it has always been," she said, after ticking of a list of social ills that disproportionately affect the black community.

"It's just the individual ministerial leaders who have been confused. ... This [protest] is new. This is the time now."