Aaron Proffitt

I am having a great time in Tampa…almost too good of a time. It’s kind of scary. I keep imagining that something terrible is going to happen and then I quickly remember that something horrible already did happen…my son died six months ago. God then reassures me that the best times are yet to come and that it’s okay to enjoy life again.

As most of you know, I am a church planter. I am building a church from the ground up here in Tampa, with a very incredible team of people I might add. With church planting though, you almost expect dips and valleys because it’s the nature of the beast. Well, I really can’t stand dips and valleys. We had them in Harrisonburg, then in Richmond, and I know Jamie has had them in Norfolk. Every week here in Tampa, I expect them to come. Well, for the first 10 weeks in Tampa, we have not really experienced them. We have seen 12 people accept Christ. Another 5 have been baptized. And our Monday night worship experience has seen growth each week until last night. Last night was the first time in 10 weeks that we didn’t have more people than we did the previous week (grant it, we were only down a few people from our incredible meeting two weeks before so it’s not as bad as you might think). We have not even launched “actual” services so I shouldn’t be too discouraged…and I’m not discouraged. But I expect for God to move incredibly each week. I just expected for God to grow it every week. But He chose not to do that this week. Oh well.

What I am learning from God as we study through Philippians as a church is that Paul was a confident dude…at times almost borderline cocky (especially in the way that he calls out his naysayers). Really, he was just confident in what God had called him to do and he was so dead set on his calling that nothing got in the way of his desires to see Christ’s kingdom expanded. I love what Paul says in v 18 of the first chapter. He states: “What then? That in every way, whether in pretense or truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice.” People had awful motives for speaking the truth and Paul was just gently reminding them, that “no matter what your motives are, Christ is still going to be communicated. And this makes me happy people.” Paul was confident in what he was doing. I am teaching on security this next week and how secure Paul was with his calling. For me, I have been called by God to do what I am doing. I need to be so secure in this that nothing gets in the way. My attitude needs to be one of confidence, believing wholeheartedly that God is going to accomplish some incredible things down here in Tampa with this brand new church plant.

So basically, I am stoked for what God is doing and what he is going to do.