Today, my middle son shared his faith at school with the help of his campus coach Michael. One new student accepted Christ! In two days, my two oldest sons have both reached a new person with the HOPE Christ through First Priority Blue Ridge. I am one proud board member, campus coach and of course dad!
Thank you letter from a student to her FP Director:
We are constantly thanking those who support First Priority financially and spiritually. This past week was engage week at my High School. We had the chance to welcome back a senior from last year that had been involved with the First Priority club here since 2015. With the lure of 6 pizzas we had over 30 people who came and heard the never-ending grace in his testimony.
I have been involved with First Priority since 2015 as well, and it was refreshing to not only hear how his testimony has changed and matured but also to see the number of students in our club grow. But more than that, our club has grown in connection, attention, maturity and conversation. This year, we have been able to hear people talk who have never shared before and have seen students come that we never thought would come to our club.
God is so good and works in ways we often don’t understand. 
First Priority has been the spark in some students lives to help them be open and eager to further their knowledge in the Lord and they have come to know the Lord personally by joining a church. This year, we have seen things that this club was built on more than ever. Thank you so much to those who are praying for us and giving. Seeing students grow and come to know the Lord is not only a praise in their lives, but also has opened the eyes of our leaders and have helped them grow. The Bible says in Isaiah 6:8, a verse used quite often but is so true, “Send Me”. As a high school student, it’s hard to grasp that completely when we are stuck in Florida. But, we tend to miss the point of that verse. Everywhere on the planet is a battlefield and my school is our mission field.
As students, we have the chance to do something adults can’t do, which is to reach other students from the inside. This school year we have seen so much growth in every area and we can’t wait to see what lies ahead.
Thank you,
Chloe
FP Student
Story from a parent whose son is involved in FP North Alabama
My son Avery, went to FP last week and the leader asked them to write a name down, pray for the person, and invite them to FP this week.
He invited an atheist friend who flat out said, “No!”
None of his friends went with him; so, he went alone. He said only about 6 people showed up; so, the pastor asked them to take extra sausage and biscuits to their friends.
Avery grabbed 3 extras and headed towards his friends, who didn’t see him coming. One friend, who he isn’t sure he’s a believer said, “Today is going to be awful because I’m so hungry!” Avery walked up, reached around him and put the sausage and biscuit in his face. His friend was amazed and said, “How did you know? How did you do that?”
He was able to talk to him about FP a little more. This friend said, “Ok, I may start going there with you.”
God is working in many ways! He’s training our kids to disciple, to overcome objections and criticism, and to know that God will set up situations to help them reach others!
Thank you for your prayers and for all you do every week! Thank the Pastor who devotes his time there too. This is from a parent, it’s not the numbers but the faithful obedience of the ones who answer the call.
I am a parent. I have two beautiful children, one of which is a teenager. I pray for my kids everyday. Life is scary and doesn’t always work out the way you think it should. I know it definitely didn’t for me. Never would I have thought I would be a single mom. I grew up in the church. Was very involved in the church from childhood to adulthood. I married someone in ministry as well and so I thought my life was set. Little did I know, life wasn’t as set as I thought.
As I pray for my kids, I think of the many things I am thankful for. I am definitely thankful that I was led to work at a place where God is the center of it all. As I sit at my desk, I am reminded of our call to serve.
I know we all don’t have a teenager in our lives. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t our job to pray for them, help them, and reach out to encourage them in Christ. What better way to do that than supporting or starting a First Priority Club in a middle or high school near you. God may be calling you to pray. God may be calling you to provide food. God may be urging you to do more. I know I have definitely felt the call in my life to do more. The students in our schools need us. They need us to help them so that they can do more. Our students are eager to be in community with each other and are eager to hear the gospel. But they can’t hear it if we don’t first make a way for them to share the good news of Christ.
I talked a few weeks ago about being BRAVE. Being brave is hard. It takes that first step of faith to set something into motion. What steps do you need to take to set a plan into motion? Can you pray for our students? Can you pray that God would bring the people our students need to start more FP clubs across our nation so that more lives are changed for Christ? Can you help in some way, to see the HOPE of Christ in every student?
Each day, like you, I face a ton of choices of where to begin. What project to work on next, what school to begin to pray for strategically, and much more.
In the midst of that, I am filled with waves of emotions, thoughts, and outcome possibilities. If I am being genuine, that wave can quickly turn into a tidal wave and cause me to pause or even stop positive forward motion completely. Thoughts of fear, what if, can I, should I, then what, can cripple even the most emotionally intelligent human being.
As a leader in my community, especially one that is for the Kingdom of God here on earth as well as in heaven, I am well aware that “leadership itself begins and ends at the feet of Jesus” (Dr. Brent Crowe). However, as surprising as it sounds, until I take the first step forward, that tidal wave continues to grow.
There is something relieving, almost stress negative about taking the first step forward. Even if at some point I need to adjust my path one direction or another, that simple movement is profoundly helpful to us all. And frankly, adjustment when I am moving forward, never seems as difficult as the first step was.
I have never met Nik Wallenda, however like millions of others, I did watch him on live TV as he walked across the Grand Canyon on a tight rope with no harness in 2013. If you did not get to see it, I recommend you go here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N8fUOLcSak and watch it. It’s truly a wonder.
One logical question after watching this, is why were so many of us moved by Nik’s choice to try such a crazy thing? I think the next logical question is, how did he keep moving forward? As I review my memory of watching this event, I remember thinking, that takes guts to take the first step forward.
Which frankly is the answer to most of our questions in life. “How in the world am I going to do this?” “This opportunity is huge! Where do I begin?” As a leader, it draws me back to the feet of Jesus. In Psalms 37:23 it says, The steps of a man are established by the Lord, when he delights in his way. Simply put, when our lives, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the fortunate, are laid at His feet, the next logical place is the first step forward. For He has already established your steps, AND He delights in you going His way!
If you are a parent of a student and reading this and you are burdened to help them grown in their burden for their school, then the next logical step forward is to pray with them for their campus. Not just once, but daily and with repetition.
If you are a student who came home from a winter missions trip fired up for the gospel, and not sure what to do now, the next logical step forward is to share that burden with some friends and start a gospel movement (https://firstpriority.club/changeit/) on your campus.
Whatever your place in this world, in the name of Jesus I pray that you are moved today to take the first step forward.
Steve Cherrico
FP Executive Director Greater Nashville
I was challenged a few weeks ago at church by a message from our youth pastor, telling us to forget the past and look towards the future. He actually first had us take some quiet moments and reflect on this past year. Reflect on those memories of good and bad and laughter and sadness. And then he said, now forget what I just had you do because what I really want you to do is to forget the past. Don’t dwell in the past. Look towards the future. Look towards today. How are you going to be different? What is 2018 going to look like for you? What are you going to focus on?
We were given a card at the beginning of the service with a big blank space in the middle of it. He asked us to pull out that card and think of a word that we were going to try and focus on this year. Now, I don’t always like these kinds of exercises in church because sometimes nothing comes to me to write down and then I feel the pressure of writing something anyway. Or sometimes it seems too cheesy and think do I really need to do this? Or I write something down only to let it get lost in the depths of my purse, where it gets bent and crumpled and eventually thrown away and forgotten.
But this time, I felt challenged. I wanted to forget this past year and move forward. So many times, I get hung up on what’s happened in the past and it has been a stumbling block for me to move forward. So I stood there, in the midst of worshiping God, and knew what my word for 2018 was going to be. Brave. Be brave. 
So many times, I am hindered by not feeling good enough or holy enough to share the gospel with others. Or I take the easy road and just do what I’ve always done. But this year, I want to be brave. I want to be brave for Christ. Whatever that might look like. Maybe it’s being brave and writing more blogs like this. Maybe it’s volunteering more in ways that get me out of my comfort zone. Maybe it’s sharing Christ with my neighbors. Hopefully it’s all of those things.
What is your word for 2018? How are you going to move forward instead of focusing on the past? I pray that through the challenges and triumphs you will follow where God leads.
Kristina Zirschky
Admin of Systems and Communications
Have you ever thought about how big God really is? Have you ever stopped long enough to look up into the sky and think how big is the God we serve?
If you are like me, we have a tendency to put God in a three dimensional box that we have created out of our own experiences. In a society where we, for the most part, have our needs and wants taken care of, we pull God out of a box only when we are at church. We might run to Him on certain occasions (when we are in need), but we seldom think of God and his unbelievable creation. The Bible states in Ephesians 3:20 “ that God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we even ask or think!”
Now I don’t know about you, but I can think of some pretty unbelievable stuff. Hollywood does a good job of blowing our minds with stuff, but God can do things we could not even dream of. Seriously, things we can’t dream of, wow! (I bet heaven is crazy cool) We use words to describe God, but are there really any that can even come close? If you read John’s account of his revelation in the book of Revelation and his description of things God allowed him to see, I bet it was hard to find the words. All these things are way above our understanding. I heard a guy say one time, “if you or I understood everything about God, He would be no bigger than our understanding.” That’s good!
In this new year let’s keep our minds on doing big things with a big God, like reaching campuses for Christ!
Mark Roberts
Associate Director
FP of America
First Priority exists so that students can reach students for Christ. Read how a student leader from South Florida was not only reached, but is now reaching others for Christ.
A student named Audrey was the mission week speaker and she shared about her time in First Priority during middle school. She 
explained that the message and community of that club helped her to understand her worth and stop cutting herself. The legacy of the middle school club was easy to see through Audrey’s testimony.
Moreover, Audrey was a main key in starting a club at her high school. When asked why, she explained that she has a little brother graduating middle school next year and she wants him to have access to First Priority in high school! Audrey understands that her faithfulness today will give opportunity for her brother and his peers to hear the Gospel in years to come! She is building a legacy for those who come after her!
Chris Lane
Executive Director
FP South Florida
During the end of the year, I always reflect on my life and evaluate all the year has brought me and my family. This year, I find myself pretty much in the same place. I want to stop, but I keep viewing my Christian faith through the eyes of an American Christian. I guess it just gets so easy to look though rose colored glasses when we live in a very blessed place. I know we have our issues and I know the problems are real, but for the most part we are blessed.
I recently re-read a story of Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh. They described their harrowing tale of imprisonment by the Iranian regime because of their Christian faith. These two ladies personify the biblical admonition that we should gain joy through suffering and trials. (James 1: 2-3) Okay, let me stop here. Wow, I don’t know about you, but I really don’t like the idea of suffering or going though trials.
Both women were raised in Muslim homes in Iran. Having never embraced Islam, they became Christians as young adults. They met each other in 2005 while studying theology in Turkey. When they returned to Iran, they evangelized together for several years, covertly distributing Bibles to some twenty thousand people and starting two secret house churches. In March 2009 they were arrested in Tehran for promoting Christianity, which is punishable by death.
When a Muslim prisoner said they were “silly” for not renouncing Christianity, Marziyeh replied, “Our insistence on our faith is not out of stubbornness. . . . I have lived with God for many years. . . . He is my all.” We are inseparable. My life has no value without Him. I love God so much that denying Him would be denying my own existence. How could I ever deny something that is in every cell of my body? I would rather spend the rest of my life in prison if that’s what it takes to stay close to Him. I would rather be killed than kill the spirit of Christ within me.”
I must confess that I talk about faith like that, but rarely experience it. The verse that jumps out to me is Psalm 46:10
“Be still, and know that I am God, I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”
Well that’s my problem…being still. 
I am so ADD that it took me forever to write this blog. Squirrel! Technology is great but it has also become a distraction especially for people like me. I pray that God would allow me to be still at least a few minutes each day. I pray God would remind me that through the storms and through the trials (even though most of them are first world problems, but still problems) that I can experience God’s presence in my life. I want to be able to say like Marzlyeh, “I love God so much that denying him would be denying my own existence.”
Thank you Marziyeh for reminding me of this truth.
Mark Roberts
Associate Director
First Priority of America
Christmas growing up in the Mississippi Delta was wonderful. I didn’t know that it was different. The harvest had just come in; cotton, soy beans, rice and silage, and we usually had experienced a few frosty mornings. It seemed that most everything began to revolve around Main St., the levee at Lake Ferguson and Deer Creek. Greenville, MS was as magical as Disney World if you were a little kid and had never seen Disney World. Main St., back in those days, was decorated beautifully and we actually went window shopping, sometimes ending up at the church (my dad always had a reason to stop by the church and check on things) or looking at decorations on the Levee.
Deer Creek was Leland, MS’s centerpiece at Christmas time. It was simply a creek running through flatlands with homemade Christmas floats anchored down somehow. They were illuminated, always the same, and fun to look at from the car windows. It probably took 12 minutes to see them all! What a night! My Mom always made a huge deal about everything, with hot chocolate, decorations and neighbor-drop-offs.
Neighbor drop-offs were candies, peanut brittle and an occasional fig cake for very important people. (This fig cake was and still is famous around the church and my family.) My Dad who could have easily run for Mayor, was Minister of Music and Administration at First Baptist Church in Greenville, MS for 50+ years. Some say he was the first full-time Minister of Music in the state, starting in 1954 in his 20’s. He was a churchman, a friend, a joke teller and great musician, planner and organizer. My Mom was the perfect match and companion. Both were (my Mom still is living and still creative) extremely creative and well-loved. They loved on just about everybody that would let them, of all walks of life and races. I thought everyone’s life was magical with lots of friends, Firestone Christmas albums playing on a huge stereo in the home, lots of baking, wrapping, and taking things to the janitor of the church and his family at Christmas time. I thought everyone’s Mom made angel costumes, shepherd head pieces and fed 50-60 teenagers for dinner after youth choir practice on Sunday afternoons. My sister and I were tortured by having to dress up in the heat of August for my Dad to take our pictures for the upcoming FORBUS CHRISTMAS CARD.
Jesus was the central character, Christmas music was the underscoring, and church candles painted the backdrop for growing up in the Delta. My parents’ year long benevolence got really ramped up at Christmas time. Homeless folks dropped by the church while I was there with my Dad and I watched him always do extra for them.
Never snow, but quite a magical remembrance, are the visions I recall. I could stand on the front steps of the church and see to the left across the street the Catholic Church and to the right the Jewish Synagogue. The Methodist Church was one street over. I can remember times when the church bells were in competition! Jesus was the reason for such memories. I was saved and baptized in that church.
I’m hoping many of the students who came to Christ this school year will find that Jesus changes their “scenery” at Christmas. No matter how lonely, dysfunctional the home may be; a saved teenager has a great chance to celebrate this Christmas. The Christ of Christmas changes everything and makes it spiritually magical wherever we find ourselves.
Nancy and I wish you all a Christ-filled Christmas. Never stop praying for the students of America to find Him! We need your support to see that every student has a chance to experience the Gospel.
Rick Forbus, PhD
President and CEO
rick@fpofamerica.com
