A recent update I sent out to our supporters

As most of you know, when Ashlee and I stepped out in faith to lead the charge with the new Aletheia church plant in Tampa nearly a year ago now, we decided to leave a very comfortable life which included a set salary, set health insurance, and a comfortable job. And so many of you found out about what would be our new way of living which meant starting from scratch without the comfortable job, set salary and set health insurance…and you came through for us in one of our greatest times of need as a family.

Most of my blog readers are the very ones who stepped up to take care of us and provide financial support for our family this past year. But not all of you. So I figured this time, I will let everyone in on what we do for those who have so sacrificially stepped up for us this past year. Each month, Ashlee and I write a news letter to our faithful supporters to keep them in the loop as to what’s going on in our lives and in the life of the ministry. We feel it necessary in order to insure that they will be reminded to continually keep us in their prayers. As a result, there are more prayers being said for the ministry and for our family, and therefore more great things are taking place. Here is the letter we sent out this past week. Once again it’s an update (and it’s minus all the cool design and pictures that Ashlee put with it). Please read and be encouraged as to what God is doing here in Tampa through the ministry of Aletheia.

Hi faithful supporters,

Ashlee and I hope and pray that everything is going well for you so far this new year. We miss you all and think of you often.

We just wanted to update you on some of the latest news from Tampa. Things are moving right along. 2010 has been jam-packed and very eventful so far. Ashlee is doing splendidly as she continues to carry baby Asher. The arrival date is coming soon (less than 4 weeks) and the doctor’s suspect that our little man might come a little early. This is great news to Ashlee. She is feeling great and Asher is developing perfectly in the womb. We can’t wait to welcome our new addition. We are pleased to announce also that some reinforcements are joining us this next month. Mom and Dad are finally selling their home and will be in Tampa at the end of February. This will provide timely help for us not only for baby-sitting purposes, but also for ministry purposes i.e. Having the greatest Bible teacher on earth at my beckon call isn’t a terrible thing

Speaking of ministry, I have never been more encouraged about what God is doing here in Tampa. After a very difficult and challenging 2009, we are finally seeing some incredible momentum. We are in a new and more accommodating room on campus now and it has worked out masterfully. Our volunteer army has worked tirelessly to make Sunday nights even better. Since we launched our services again on January 10th, we have seen our attendance increase from 52 to 60 to 72 just this past Sunday. That was our largest attended gathering to date. We also have a baptism coming up in two weeks. And people are receiving Christ. Another 4 lives have come to Jesus, and many others have heard the truth. In fact, I have had conversations just this week alone with JW’s, Mormon’s, and Hindus. USF is a melting pot of every religious and cultural background that you can imagine. And we don’t shy away from talking with anyone. As a result, we offend a lot of people. Just yesterday, I brought a Mormon student to tears. Really, it was the Word of God that could be blamed for that. In a loving way, I communicated what the Bible says about the nature of God and she was not good with it because it went against everything she was taught growing up. This story is not an isolated one either. Things like this are happening all of the time as we battle in the trenches in order to see the lost reached.

We need your constant prayers for the battle that is going on in this city and on the campus of USF. Hearts are turning towards God but it is not easy. Please continue to pray for the momentum to continue. Pray that hearts will be softened to hear the truth. Pray that our church will see more rapid growth as we have the capabilities and the personnel to accommodate that. Pray for the rest of the pregnancy, for the labor, and the delivery. Pray for that precious little life that is about to come into our lives. Thanks so much.

We love you and will continue to pray for you. Please keep in touch with us.

In service to Christ,

aaron, ashlee, andrew, and asher

Just One Advantage of the Aletheia Network

There are some great things going on within the Aletheia Network. We now have five churches that are going strong. Our three churches in Virginia are plugging along, seeing people reached and discipled, and making a huge impact. Our global impact is being realized in Chiapas, Mexico, where Thick and Abby are tirelessly working to build Aletheia Tuxtla. And here in Tampa, I couldn’t be more excited with the progress that we are seeing. There is a ton of momentum and I praise God for what He is doing.

As I have taken on my new role this last year as teaching pastor, I have really had to put forth quite a bit of effort to plan and prepare to teach God’s Word on Sundays. Let’s just say that I have to put a little more into preparing for a study than my dad has to. When I have been teaching the Bible for 35 years, then maybe I can slack off a bit

One thing that has helped make the transition as teaching pastor easier for me is that I have borrowed some of the themes and series titles that some of our other Pastors have used. This a. eliminates the amount of work load that is put on our creative team (although Ace designed “Crash Course,” the current series Aletheia Tampa is doing) and Emilio designed “Exile,” (the next series I will be doing as we study 1 Peter), and b. It cuts some of the cost as we can borrow some of the design props that the other churches used for the series. For instance Josh is sending me two “Exile” banners which will be used here in Tampa when we start the new series, after being used in Richmond when Josh taught the series. Pretty sweet right!

Also, not only do we get to borrow the design elements of the new theme, but I also am able to borrow the notes that the other pastors used, or in Aletheia Harrisonburg’s case, watch their video podcasts. This has helped me tremendously and what a blessing it is to have a community of like minded churches and pastors who share the same vision, where we don’t have to feel like we are stealing somebody else’s thunder.

The Network is expanding. We have hopes of seeing more collegiate ministries and church plants started this year and in the many years to come God willing. In April, we have been asked to speak at a United States Air Force chaplain’s conference (Thanks Bill Evans!) to instruct them about our model and to see it used and reproduced at Air Force locations all over the country and the world. In addition, we are scouting out places like NC State in Raleigh, North Carolina, as well as places such as Perugia, Italy….And, any other place that has a major college and University.

We’re dreaming big. Because we believe in a big God who does big things.

If you want more information on how to get involed or how to pray for the Aletheia (Collegiate Church Planting) Network, visit the web site @ http://aletheianetwork.com/

2010 started off with a bang

Last night marked the beginning of 2010 for Aletheia Tampa. The Marshall Center opened it’s wonderful doors again which meant we could finally hold our weekly worship experiences after a long 4 week lay off. I could tell that our volunteer army really missed it because they were a little extra fired up last night. And we needed that fire, let me tell you. Once again, we found ourselves in a different room, a better room at that. Our new location facilitated a much more inviting environment to do what we do, but it was much larger than last semester’s location, so we had to get creative to fill some extra space…and that is what our crew did. They made it happen and the room looked great in the end.

We had a great service. With school not even being back in session yet, we had a relatively large group out, everybody seemed to be excited, and everything went off without a major glitch…not counting the breaker being tripped during set-up or Ashlee’s Mac malfunctioning during rehearsal of course. But once things got kicked off, everything went perfectly. God answered our prayers, brought people out, the band rocked the house, and the truth was elevated. I am really encouraged right now and can’t wait for the coming weeks to see what God does on the campus of USF and in the city of Tampa through this little budding ministry. I get to serve God with the finest team and I am so grateful for all that they do. They were amazing last night once again.

Praise the Lord for His faithfulness! Enjoy these images…

Pic 1: Part of our set-up team Pic 2: A new addition…cafe Aletheia Tampa

Pic 3: Emilio’s fine graphic design skills Pic 4: Megan and Shay at the hospitality table (what a spread)

Pic 5: Band rehearsing Pic 6: Two pretty Aletheia ladies

Pic 7: Attempting to communicate God’s Word Pic 8: The after math

Pic 9: Porta-church at its finest (don’t worry, all of this stuff was hidden behind our pipe and drape)

The latest Read

Since I have finished seminary now, and I am not forced to read 4 books every 8 weeks, I am vowing to actually start working through books no longer out of obligation, but out of a desire to expand my knowledge base. And when I say knowledge, I mean Biblical and practical ministry knowledge.

That being said, the first book I have picked up this new year is called Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders. So far it has been a great read, chock full of little theological nuggets, as well as many great examples both Biblical and modern day of true Christ-like servant leadership. I recommend the book for anyone seeking to be a more balanced leader in every facet of life, no matter if you are in ministry or not.

Drew getting his groove on again

When you’ve got a kid that gets as happy as mine does when he hears music that it makes him start to dance like a mad man, you just have to get that on video. So, here is my 2 and a half year old son Andrew David Proffitt doing his thing.

What do you want to accomplish in 2010?

New year’s excite me to no end. I have so many thoughts of grandeur for 2010 that I can hardly stand it. Some of my desires and goals for this next year are…

1. Have a healthy baby boy born at the end of February
2. See 100 people accept Jesus into their heart through the ministry of Aletheia Tampa
3. See 25 people baptized
4. For the church plant to reach 150 people by year’s end
5. See a new Aletheia Church planted
6. Take a trip to the Florida Keys with Ashlee
7. See Drew become more interested in basketball (right now it’s all cars and trucks)
8. Begin writing a book
9. Have all of my family living in Tampa
10. See my wife’s budding business grow

Alright, that’s my top ten in no particular order of importance other than the first one

Now it’s your turn. Comment what you would like to accomplish this year. Save the “I want to get a new sweet car” kind of stuff for another person’s post. I want to hear about what you want to accomplish for Jesus this next year. Bring it on…

One for the ages

So a lack of blogging for me generally means I’m either too busy, my wife is popping out children, or I am on a mission trip. This time thankfully, it was not the middle reason. We returned home yesterday at 4am after one of the wildest one-week missions I have ever been on. And that is saying something because I’ve been on about 35 one-week missions in my lifetime. This trip took the cake as far as originality goes. I chronicled each day’s event in my little ministry journal per Ashlee’s request. She hates when she is out of the loop with things in my life so I promised her I would write down the highlights. Here they are…

Day 1 December 13th – The day started at 12:43am with an early morning departure from Tampa to the Miami airport. We were able to reunite with some of the Aletheia Harrisonburg crew in the San Jose, Costa Rica, airport during our layover. It was great to reconnect with Jay and Matt. Once in Lima, we connected with Halterman and dad. Our team had successfully been brought together. We then connected with pastor Jaime, the pastor who we would be working with the first few days. Then, we grabbed our rental cars, and headed out of Lima towards the city we would be ministering in for most of the week. Lima was an interesting city. 8 million people, dusty, dilapidated, and worn down. The driving conditions are not much to write home about so we escaped that and headed south. Through Megan’s connections, we were able to crash at a beach house all week and it was pretty awesome. It was our retreat away from the madness of the larger city we served in. It was definitely still a Peruvian house stay though. We took cold showers, ran out of electricity and water at certain times during the week, and used butane tanks to cook our food. Pretty cool!

Day 2 December 14th – After recovering from an almost 24 hour travel day, we immediately went to Canete to do what we do best, evangelize. We got into some great conversations and saw some people come to Christ. The first guy I talked to was a book vendor who was working right in the middle of a park. He stopped everything he was doing to talk with us for a half hour. He prayed to receive God’s free gift of salvation that couldn’t be worked for. His name was Angel. It was a great start to what would be a great week of evangelizing. Later on in the day, we were able to hit up an open air market, that smelled of dying dogs and feces (great combination), but had the best fruit ever. Anytime you can lead people to Christ and find some incredibly tasting fruit in the same day is a victory for me. For those of you who don’t know, fruit is one of my secret loves. I could probably live off of plums and watermelons.

Day 3 December 15th – It was Halterman’s birthday but this day would be no celebration. We were recruited to help rebuild the roof of a lady who attended Pastor Jaime’s church in Canete. Another “you may no know moment” here is that I am not a handy-man. And to be honest, we didn’t have too many handy-men on this trip. Really Jay was our only go-to-guy. We were asked to help rebuild a roof that was made of thatch, bamboo, and plastic tarp. One thing you may need to know is that Peru is by a land slide the dustiest place I have ever been too. At the end of each day, we were all so dirty and dusty. but this day proved to be the dirtiest and dustiest. We accomplished our goal though and did a pretty darn good job. We all got roasted by the hot Peruvian sun, some more than others One other thing I must note is that we did not really have adequate tools and we had to make shift things to stand on to get high enough to rebuild the roof. That was interesting. Imagine standing on a rickety chair, with another chair on top of that, and a step stool on top of that. Yep, that’s how we rolled. But we got the job done!

Day 4 December 16th – This was the best and most eventful day of the trip. The day started with us having no power. This would be the case for 8 hours. The previous two days, we just drove into town to meet up with Pastor Jamie. On this day, he called us and told us he was coming our way because there was a strike going on in town and that riots had broken out. In his words, it was “not safe!” So he came out to the beach house and told us what was going on in more detail. Evidently, the people of Canete were upset because the government which had previously promised to build a new university in town had backed out of its promise. The people were furious and decided to take it out on their own people, city, and property…go figure, right? We made it to town pretty easily though so we weren’t too worried at that point in time. We saw a burning car, lots of rocks had been thrown on the roads, and police with riot gear on. But still, like I said, it was smooth sailing getting to town. And on this day, God wanted us to be there. We headed straight to a busy park again and ended up talking with dozens of people. All in all, we saw 16 people come to know the Lord, many of whom were young teenagers. It was incredible. We were rejoicing knowing that God had ordained these encounters from the beginning of time. We gave all of these new believers Bibles, discipleship courses, and pushed them all to Pastor Jaime’s church which was just around the corner. It was spectacular. The last guy we spoke with was a bar owner named Elvis (sweet name I know). He was born in Cuba but had ended up making it to Peru. This guy was one of the most sweetest dudes I have ever met. he offered us to sit down and brought us out some water. We talked with him for about an hour. He believed in God but didn’t really understand how to have a personal connection with Him. We shared the Gospel message and right there he prayed to receive it with us. It was amazing. We followed all of that evangelizing up with a spontaneous soccer game in the plaza with a bunch of 13 year old’s. It was great and we held strong in the beginning until we started to get gassed. That’s when those little dudes put it to us pretty good. We had fun and they loved playing against the big Americans. It was probably one of the best times of their lives.

Little did we know that this day was about to get a whole lot weirder. After spending about 5 hours in town, we decided it was time to head back to the beach house. What we were not aware of was that the riots had intensified. We saw that traffic looked a little worse to get to the main road so we took a detour and found our way back. Once on the main road, I could tell that something wasn’t right. As we kept driving I looked out of the corner of my eye only to see a guy throwing a boulder at our car (which was a Fiat Fire for those of you interested in knowing). We barely escaped realizing that the mob had grown increasingly larger, angrier, and violent. We wove our way through the masses, the boulders, the burning cars and the hi-jacked buses, only to find ourselves trapped in a gas station parking lot with police officers telling us to stay put. We had seen the worst of it and survived but there was still one more crowd coming our way. That is where the video below picks up the action. We didn’t get the best stuff on video but you can get a glimpse of the adrenaline that was pumping through us. This was from Halterman’s car’s vantage point. I was behind him. If you look closely, you will see buses with shattered windows and blown out tires, and of course tons and tons of people.

We made it out of there alive, in tact, and surprisingly without a scratch on our sweet Fiat’s. It was a crazy adventure and one that I surely never want to repeat again. Once home, we relived what had just happened and thanked God for preserving us. It was unbelievable.

Day 5 December 17th – We woke up with another surprise…no running water. We also got a call from Jaime who said that the riots had intensified even more. To us, this was all we needed to hear. We decided that our time in Canete had come to an end. Originally, we had planned on staying in Canete until Friday, but knowing what we knew, and experiencing what we experienced, we decided to pack up, clean the beach house (remember without any water), and head up to Lima to spend our last few days. While we were preparing to leave, we got word that one of our team members was not feeling well. It was Matt Johnson and he was really sick. After violently throwing up for about ten minutes, he appeared to have it out of his system. This was a good thing seeing as though we had a two hour car ride in front of us. We made it to Lima at 1:30, met the pastor who we would be working with there for the next few days, and headed out to evangelize. We ended up seeing another two people pray to receive Christ. I talked with a chef-in-training who was waiting for his 8 year old niece to finish her ballet lessons. He opened up and told us that the message made sense and that he wanted to accept Jesus into his life. After finishing doing ministry, we headed back to our place to rest because a couple more of our team members got hit by a Peruvian microbiological attack. The day ended with some rest.

Day 6 December 18th – Pastor Brian wanted to take our team to see the sights of Lima. But the problem was, we had to follow him in his van. He was the scariest driver on the road already full of the scariest drivers in the world. To say we almost died on multiple occasions would be the understatement of the year. But we still had fun as always checking out a 600 year old city with all of it’s old buildings and 8 millions people. The coolest part was eating at a cafe that overlooked the pacific. It was nice to relax after what was a crazy non-relaxing week. But the week was not over yet and there was still some more work to be done.

Day 7 December 19th – Emilio and J.R. left us this day so our team decreased in size. One thing about Lima is that it is such a loud city with what I counted was car horns that go off every 3 seconds (even during the middle of the night). It never stops. We didn’t sleep much while in Lima but we still had lost of fun. On our last day, Pastor Brian wanted us to go with him to check out the daughter church which was located about an hour and 15 minutes away. We got to the little town and it reminded me of all my visits to Mexico over the years. Lots of stray dogs, shacks for houses, and no running water…and everything stunk really bad. About 400 children showed up for this clown/magic show put on by the shipping company DHL. It was great but we were not really putting our time to good use. So, 5 of us left and headed back to town. But no trip would ever be without some type of adventure for us on this mission. We got pulled over by a cop. He told us that the back seat passengers were not wearing seat belts. We found out later that it is Peruvian law that a non-citizen cannot be cited for a traffic violation. But we didn’t know that at the time. So dad, as was not surprising, began to talk his way out of it. he gave the cop every detail of who we were and what were doing. We learned from Brian that the Peruvians are very mystical and that once police officers find out you are a pastor they will generally leave you alone as to not conjure up bad karma in their lives. That was not really the case with us. He told us he was going to call the station and he kept showing us how much we owed for breaking the law. Well, dad and I kept talking, and he finally just said “Look, I need for you guys to give me some money so that I can buy my kid’s Christmas’ presents.” Nothing like a good old bribe by a cop on your last day in Peru. So we gave him a few bucks, he shook our hands again, and we were on our way. We wanted to spend our last day evangelizing and that is what we did. We went to the near-by park and got into some great conversations. Halterman and I spoke with two guys who worked together. One was 19 and the other was probably about 38. The 19 year old was just blown away when we told him that salvation in Jesus only comes through repentance and faith. It was overwhelming to me to see this sink into His head. He was immersed in a culture that promoted belief through works and mysticism and here he was accepting Christ’s sacrifice through the right means. It was incredible. Our day ended with one more conversation with a mechanical engineer named Fred who dad kept calling “Fritz.” It was awesome. The guy was so friendly and he prayed to accept Christ also. What a fitting way to end a crazy week of ministry.

Day 8 December 20th – We woke up, packed up, cleaned up, and headed to the airport. We were all pretty exhausted and happy that the trip was over. We got to the airport, unloaded our cars, checked in, and went to our gates. The travel day was pretty eventful but it didn’t compare to the rest of the week so I will save you the details. Let’s just say we got home, much later than we anticipated, and for me, got to see my wonderful wife and son. That was a great way to end what was the most incredibly amazing mission to Peru.

The memories I have will stay with me forever. God assembled the perfect team to do His work in a dark country with little hope. I have to say a big thank you to Megan, J.R., Emilio, Johnson, Jay, Halterman, and dad, for being the most incredible servants of Jesus on this trip. You guys made this trip by far the most funny and interesting mission trips I have ever been on. The small impact we made I’m sure was even greater for those who God had us encounter. How important it is to serve God globally. This will continue to be a core value of Aletheia Tampa and the Aletheia Network…at least as long as I’m alive Thanks for reading. Leave your comments and let me know your thoughts.

Reflections

As we prepare to take our first missions trip as a church to Peru in three days, I can’t help but take a moment, breathe in deeply, and smile real big. This week has been a welcomed break for me as it is the first week in many months (other than when my pops came and spoke for me a month ago) that I haven’t had to really buckle down and prepare to teach. Aletheia Tampa won’t be able to have a worship experience again until January 10th. This new ministry venture has been somewhat of a huge transition for me. Doing ministry comes relatively easy for me after doing it now since I came out of the womb, but Bible teaching is not something that came very easy. Really, I hope that it doesn’t come easy for anyone because you can’t get up and wing a Bible study. I remember many worship sets that I led where the band wasn’t able to practice and we pulled it off just fine. You can’t do that with Bible teaching. Unless your goal is something other than to educate people about what God’s Word has to say.

But even as I say this week has been a break for me, I couldn’t help myself and yesterday spent 7 hours writing a Bible study after spending 4 hours the day before doing research and reading commentaries on that same Bible study. And I’m sure I will spend much of the break after our trip to Peru working on getting ahead on Bible studies for next year. I guess I have become a glutton for God’s Word. I enjoy preparing for a Bible study so much more than I do preparing to lead worship. There’s nothing more satisfying than to dig deep into the Word and let God open your eyes to new insights that I had never known before. And then after that, to be able to present it to a bunch of willing people who will sit and listen to you get excited for 40 minutes, just blows my mind. I am privileged to do what I do.

Even with as challenging as this past year as been, it has been one of the most personally rewarding times of my life. Amidst the tragedy that came into our lives at the end of last year, I have to say that this year has been the most fulfilling spiritually for me and my family. We have really been stretched this year, dragged through the fire so to speak, and in the end, we are more joyful than ever before.

I don’t have to remind my readers again my thoughts on church planting but while I’m at it I’ll go ahead and say it…”Church planting is the most difficult and challenging aspect of ministry to do in America.” There I said it again. It’s tough. But we are so encouraged. We are closer to each other. We are closer to God. And we wouldn’t want to be doing anything else at this point in our lives. It’s nice to be right where God wants you to be. It’s a good place to be. It’s real peaceful, even when everything around is stormy and rough.

I am looking forward to what this next year brings. And I hope you will view things the same way that I am right now. It is God after all who can encourage us to “Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, you righteous; And shout for joy, all you upright in heart!” (Ps. 32:11). He has redeemed us and given us mercy and grace. What amazing concepts those three are.

Pray for Matt Chandler

To everyone who doesn’t know who Matt Chandler is, he is the lead pastor of a church in Texas called The Village Church. The church has over 6,000 people in attendance on any given weekend. He is 34 years old and is one of those radically gifted young dudes that God is using to expand His kingdom in this struggling nation we call the United States of America. On Thanksgiving day he collapsed and had a seizure. He was rushed to the hospital and doctors ran tests on his brain and found a mass on his frontal lobe. Devastating news. He is scheduled for surgery tomorrow and the doctors still don’t know if the tumor is malignant. Please pray for this man of God. He is a preacher that stands on the Word of God. Listen to him throw down. And don’t forget to pray for him tomorrow.

What a real man looks like

Mark Driscoll lays the hammer down per usual regarding the weaknesses of “guys.” It’s 23 minutes long but well worth it. Enjoy…or be offended…