Life Update 2022

To my brothers and sisters in Christ at Wynndale Baptist Church:

From Aaron Tucker and family:

After three months of intense prayer, we as a family all believe that God is

calling us to a new ministry, and away from Wynndale. I will be with you for

another two weeks, and my last day of ministry with you will be

Wednesday, March 30, 2022.

I have accepted God’s call to a new ministry. Raymond Road Baptist

Church of Jackson has asked me to be their next senior pastor. I am both

grateful for the grace of God and humbled by the responsibility for this

opportunity to preach and to lead. Please pray for me. Pray that I will honor

Christ as I seek to follow Him and as I seek to lead others to Him. I am

praying for the continued blessings of the grace of God to help me,

because I know that I will need Him.

But any excitement we feel about a new ministry is tempered by great

sadness as we now have to say goodbye to our Wynndale church family. In

fact, to be completely honest, I wrestled quite a bit with this prayer: “You

know, God, this is really not a convenient time for me to make this change!”

And each time, I kept hearing a response from God that went something

like: “Wynndale was my church before you joined them, and it will be my

church long after you’re gone. You let me worry about the timing. Just

follow me.”

How do you say goodbye after almost 6 years full of memories? How do we

adequately express to you our love and our thankfulness?

Thank you, Jerry, for your friendship. I have learned a lot from you. Thank

you, Barry, for being so steadfast as we ministered side by side. But there

are so many more of you to whom I owe such gratitude for your friendship,

your love for my family, and your faithfulness to serve Christ by my side.

We have weathered so much together in such a short time. God has been

so, so, so good. We even made it through a pandemic together!

I take comfort today, in spite of my sadness, in several things:

-I take comfort that God can be trusted in what He is doing, no matter how

fully we do or do not understand it.

-I take comfort that God has used this pandemic to shake things up a little

bit both in the American church and at Wynndale. This is a good thing,

because it allows us an opportunity to reset, an opportunity to focus again

on what CHRIST has for his bride, the church. Let us all pray for clear

guidance from the Holy Spirit on what his plan is for all of us.

-I take comfort that God’s man, our shepherd, Bro. Jerry will continue to

lead Wynndale by the Holy Spirit.

-I take comfort that God is strengthening Barry every day throughout his

battle with cancer, and that Barry and Linda have a faith in God that

inspires us all.

-Last, I take comfort that I will be just down the road from Wynndale. I look

forward to continuing to see more of you in the future. We will certainly run

into one another around town.

I am glad that this is not really “goodbye,” but is instead “see you later.”

Thank you all. We love you.

In closing, I remind us all of the commands of God in Hebrews 12:1-3. That

we should lay aside weight and sin, and run with endurance our race. That

we should look to JESUS, who began our faith and who is continuing it in

us. We should look to him, because HE went through crucifixion to finish

his race at the finish line, which was at God’s right hand. And if we will just

THINK about HIM, we can endure anything without being tired and without

giving up.

I will pray continually for you, my Wynndale family. When I pray, I will ask

God’s blessings on you, just as was done by the priests in Numbers 6:24-

26.

“May the Lord bless you, and protect you;

may the Lord shine the warmth of his face upon you, and give you grace;

may the Lord lift up his loving eyes to see you, and give you peace.”