I went to a concert with some friends when I was a teenager. We were minding our own business walking from our car to the arena and here they were ….. the “turn or burn church”. You know, the “get right or get left crowd”, the “you filthy sinner scumbag” (said with disgust.) They had signs; they had a blow horn warning of the danger that was to come to us if we were to go in there. They even told me I was going to hell. They proceeded to tell me that I could go to heaven with them instead. Oh, now that made my night! A person asked me if I wanted to live forever, to which I responded, “hey sure but were would you park?” (you know all those people and cars. Ha.) Being a church kid I was nice to these people, but very embarrassed. My friends knew my brother and I went to church. I was hoping they didn’t think I was on the next weekend’s “turn or burn” shift.

A few years back a guy name Huey Lewis wrote a song entitled “Jacob’s Ladder”. The song said he was in Southside Birmingham and he saw a fat man selling salvation in his hand. He said, “Mister, I am not in a hurry and I don’t want to be like you.” Ouch! I am to this day trying to figure out why so many Christians think it is their job to be the Holy Spirit. I know most of them mean well, but come on. The Bible says it is the job of the Holy Spirit to convict and to convert not ours. Our job is to love God and love people. Jesus said in Matthew 5: 16, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in Heaven.” Shine a light.

Why do I write?

First things first. I pray that you had a tremendous holiday filled with joy from being with family and friends. I did. I was so excited to get back to the midwest to see family. We celebrated the birth of our Savior. We mourned the loss of my wife’s grandmother. We ate WAY to much food. Followed shortly by the desire to be back home again in Tennessee. Life is good. Glad to be back at work waking up everyday thinking about how to best help the Church reach the middle and high school Campus for Christ.

Now back to my question: Why do I write?

Because I feel like the goal of First Priority, the ministry I am a part of, is missing in America. We have segregated the generations and are suffering because of it. Retirees are thinking golf and nothingness after 65 will be bliss only to find that without human connection and purpose, life is dismal. Teens are put in a building with primarily other teens and left on Friday night to their own wandering thoughts and ideas. It is time to connect the Church to the Campus for Christ. Students are looking for Hope. That is a spiritual destination that an anti-bullying or gun control or don’t do drugs school assembly cannot answer. We have taken the conversation about God out of schools that only the church can legally bring back. Students need to hear about Jesus. They need to learn how to have faith in life. We need to bring them joy through relationship. I want as many people in as many churches to join in this movement as possible to connect to students and change the climate of our culture for generations to come. It is what gets me going each and every morning. That is why I write.

According to Andy Stanley’s book, Making Vision Stick, “An organization can drift further away from the founding vision that energized the original team of Leaders. The gravitational pull is always to the left or right of center. Success lures us into taking our hands off the wheel.”

I have noticed over the years as I have watch First Priority that it is easy to drift away from the original vision. What starts out as a charge to reach the school for Christ
soon looks more like a nice Bible study than a mission trip. Believe me there is nothing wrong with a Bible study, and we think you should study it every day and even twice on Sundays. However, that is not the vision of First Priority. The vision of a First Priority club is to see the hope of Christ in ever person in the school. This of course takes a very intention plan. We must be intentional about sharing the gospel.

Romans 10:14-15 says “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written:“How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!”

I have seen some very successful clubs get complacent about sharing the gospel. As soon as that starts to happen you see the drift and then instead of going straight, you get off by just one or two degrees to the right. Soon you are headed in a totally new direction. The devil would love for us to get comfortable and get away from the main vision of sharing the hope of Christ to every student. Keep your eyes on Jesus, don’t look down at a text,  and don’t look at the shinny stuff on the side of the road. Remember, you are sent to preach the gospel of peace.

Keep Fishing,

Mark Roberts

If you listen to leadership podcasts, read time management books, or hang around people of influence, you will quickly learn that success does not happen over night. Sometimes is does seem like that new hot band came out of nowhere. Once you check into them, you will soon realize that their first self funded album came out 20 years ago and they’ve been on the road ever since. During that time, they have honed in on their skills. They have learned how to interact with a crowd. They have learned how to deal with a crazy fan in the mall. They are masters of their skill! Is it because they are an overnight success or because they put in the work? Whether it is Stephen Curry on the basketball court, Jordan Smith on the Voice, and author, preacher, or _______, they have all become successful because of years of focus and dedication.

Prayer is no different.

You don’t get a quality prayer life by sitting down for ten minutes one day. Can God move the mountains in ten minutes. Yes. Do you know how to hear Him telling you to move that mountain in your life after ten minutes? Probably not. Like other aspects of life, learning to pray takes time, patience, and dedication.

Let me confess for a moment. I have a ‘day of prayer’ on my calendar once a month. When I do start that day each month in prayer, my patience is often over by noon. Those days only happen when I feel like I have that much time to give in the first place. Mark Batterson hit me between the eyes with this quote, “100 percent of the prayers I don’t pray won’t get answered.” (page 91 of The Circle Maker)

What is God calling you to today? What does He want you to circle? Who does He want you to circle? Will you take the time, have the patience, and be dedicated to listening for His voice?

The hope of Christ in every student is the First Priority vision. It is what we want to see. We want to see life change like this happen in every student in America:

See Marvin’s God’s Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcDEn47DiY4

Is that a big vision? Are you capable of working hard enough to see that vision happen? I know I am not capable of making that a reality on my own. Is God’s arm too short to see that happen? No it is not. I can play my part, but God is going to have to move in communities all across America in order for First Priority to realize its dream. I want to be part of that. I want to be a part of life change in America. Did you know that the same day that the shootings in California happened that students heard the gospel of Jesus Christ for the first time in their school classroom? We have a First Priority Director operating 15 minutes from where the shooting took place. It doesn’t get put on the news. It happens. We are a part of God moving. Circle the schools in your area in prayer and jump in with us!

Esther 4:14 (NKJV)

14 “For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

Mordecai speaks truth to Esther and tells her she is there for a reason. If you are familiar with the story you know that Esther had become Queen and Haman had plotted to have all the Jews killed. Mordecai gets wind of it and tells Esther if she does not act it will be ruin for the Jews.

We have all been in a situation where we knew we are there for a reason. I believe God put each of us in certain places to accomplish His will and to be used by Him for such a time as this. I have found that everyday can be an adventure if we have the mind set of being in a place where we know God has put us.

Three years ago First Priority of Heritage, KY decided to hire a full time director by faith. There were three to four First Priority clubs up and running, but the potential for more was right in front of them. Shawn Ingram took over as the director and 3 years later they are on 28 campuses reaching hundreds of students for Christ. Shawn is exactly where God wants him to be and he is living the adventure because He knows he is there for such a time as this.

Look around you, are you living the adventure or just trying to get to the greener grass on the other side of the fence, missing the opportunity you have in front of you? If you think the grass you have under your feet is brown and it better over there, just water and fertilize where you stand by recognizing you stand there for such a time as this.

“Our prayers are often misguided simply because we are not omniscient” (The Circle Maker page 64). I know! Right?! It isn’t something any one of us would deny. Yet, I often act as if this is not true. I act as though my momentary situation does merit eternal recognition. My worry and stress and tasks and lists get the best of me. So how do I work through it?

First, I fly. I get on a commercial jet and make sure that I have a widow seat. Once in the air, I get to see the city then the country. I see the houses, the commercial property, and the rolling hills, lakes and rivers. This gives me a bigger perspective. Early in my traveling career, I realized that there are a lot of houses in America. I also realized that 99% of my focus in life was under just one of those roofs. I began to wonder what the people in the other houses dreamed and worried about. It put me and my life into perspective. For illustrative purposes, let’s talk money for a moment. If someone owned just 5 average American homes outright, they’d be a millionaire. Bill Gates net worth is 79.2 billion. The total value of all American homes is 27.5 Trillion! Bill Gates, if all his wealth was in homes, he would only own .2% of the homes in the U.S. And yet, God holds the world in the palm of his hand… forever. How much value to I put on my situation, under my roof, in my lifetime (cause we have only talked today, not yesterday or tomorrow and the situations they hold). While I use flying to gain this perspective, use whatever comes across your path to gain a larger perspective on the world.

This gets me to my second perspective: “You can’t never always sometimes tell.” What do I and Mark Batterson mean by this? We mean that we need to wait and see. The best way to wait and see is to stay where you are. Last night I went to bed during the third quarter of the football game between the Patriots and Broncos, thinking the Patriots had it won. If I had circled that game in prayer (which I don’t usually do for games), I wouldn’t have had the enjoyment of seeing God hand work to give the Patriots their first loss of the season. When you circle something, you need to stick it out. You can’t never always sometimes tell what the outcome is going to be until the outcome has happened. Don’t give up. Don’t give in. Don’t let up. Don’t stop working. Be called stubborn. I was called that often in my days working as a youth pastor at a church. It is because I had clearly defined objectives that I wanted to see happen in the lives of students. What do you want to see happen in the lives of students? Do you want to see every student in your community have the opportunity to hear about how much Jesus loves them? Then circle First Priority. Circle the school(s) in your area. Circle the churches you need to work with in order to accomplish this task. Then do not leave those circles until you see God answering your prayer.

If you aren’t willing to run off the cliff, you’ll never fly.

It is called a “This is crazy moment” (page 51 in The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson). Peter had one. So did Moses. As did David, Joshua, the Magi, Noah, Jesus, Adam Taylor, you and me. It is that moment when we sense God calling us out of our boat, or to build a boat, or that he is going to provide meat in our dessert experience. Reach every student in the local high school with the Hope of Christ? CRAZY! But can God do it? YES. That is not the craziest part. The craziest part is that He wants to use YOU to do it!
I didn’t like to think that way when I started with First Priority. I have always said that God can reclaim a generation in the U.S. But I didn’t like it when I said that God will only do it if I follow through. I didn’t want to limit God to me. But my perspective changed in Ezekiel 37. Could God have brought the nation of Israel back to life spiritually without Ezekiel? Yes. But God wanted to bring fulfillment to Ezekiel. He wanted Ezekiel to be part of God’s plan to restore his people. Do I want to find joy in Christ? Of course I do. Then why does it surprise me that God plans on using me to bring redemption to his people in the U.S.? He wants to use you too! Take this crazy moment and think crazy thoughts about a united crazy group of churches in your community to help Christian students bring the Hope of Christ to every student in their school.

Blessings! Brad Schelling

The scars:
There are places on my body that will always remind me of my dear brother Todd. When he was hit he would immediately turn and look for something to throw at me, remember the broom? We were standing in the kitchen and were in a fight and I hit him. He turns to look for something to throw, and guess what was handy? A pot of boiling water. He grabbed the pot and flung the hot water at me. It is a good thing I had a shirt on. The water hit me right under the right armpit. I ripped off my shirt and watched as my skin peeled off my arm.

Scar two is not that visible, but equally funny. Todd and I were fighting, and the phone rang. The phone ringing is like a time out in Mark and Todd’s fight world. I had gotten the last punch in so I was happy and therefore not mad anymore. I run to answer the phone and as I picked it up, a dart, yes a dart as in dartboard flies past my head and directly into my wrist bone. The poor person on the other end of the phone heard things they did not expect to hear. It was probably someone from church.

Scar three is the one you will not believe. Todd and I would get off the bus run into the house and go to the bathroom. You did or do this also. It is against the law to go at school. After the bathroom stop it was off to the kitchen to see what we could eat. My mom always kept our freezer stocked full of Mexican TV dinners. This particular day Todd decided to stop off at the kitchen before he went to the bathroom. His TV dinner was already in the 10 microwave and almost ready. I saw his dinner and thought it was sure nice of him to cook this meal for me. I took the dinner and knew I would have to eat in secret. I made my way to another bathroom to enjoy his enchiladas. After a few minutes I heard the scream I was waiting for. Todd is mad. There are no more dinners in the freezer and I have just upset the hungry bear. I keep silent. He finally found me and beat on the door. I taunted him with how good they were and how hungry I was. This of course made him even angrier. I gave him a few minuets to cool down and then made my way to the kitchen to put up my empty plate. When I got to the living room Todd steps out from behind the door with a shotgun. I am thinking to myself, he must have been real hungry. I am protesting and telling him it is not even funny to point the gun at me. He has some goofy look on his face and is telling me I have five seconds to run. That is so nice of him to give me a chance to run. I know he is not really going to shoot me but just for the heck of it, I run! While I am trying to make my way out of the house I hear a blast. Something blows into my arm and I drop and roll. I look down at my arm and it is a bloody mess. I thinking the idiot shot me. He runs over surprised at the blood and says; “I promise I took the buckshot out.” Todd trying to be funny empties out a shotgun shell but forgot about the plastic wad that did five hundred miles an hour into my left arm. I am living with Einstein. Todd and I knew if my mom and dad ever found out about that little episode he would not only been beat, but he would spend the rest of his childhood in his closet. I could not let that happen because who would I fight with? We decided to rap my arm up in ace
bandages and try to hid it from them. This was very hard to do since the wad had pierced my vein. I used this incident for years. Any time I needed Todd to do something for me I threatened him
with telling our parents. My parents always wondered why Todd was so nice to me after that.

We all have scars from life. Some we can look back on and laugh about. Some are much deeper. First Priority is all about bringing HOPE to students all across America. We want to help them see their scars as a way to grow.

Keep Fishing,
Mark Roberts

I am a busybody. I like doing things. I confess that I have a list of things that I feel are ‘God-ordained’ like work (cause I am in ministry), helping my family, and working on my house. I use these as an excuse sometimes to get up in the morning and get right to work rather than turning to God in prayer to see how he would have me navigate the list. But, there are also things that I see that God has answered because I/we waited.
When we felt God call us to open our home to foster care and took in a 4 day old baby, we wanted him to be ours almost immediately. We circled him immediately. I’d like to say that was in a good way, but it was not. We ran around in fear, fretting, worrying, talking to lawyers, and trying everything we could do to manipulate the system so we could adopt him today. Then we prayed. We circled our family and laid this 6 month old in the middle. We prayed over him every night for a week. My wife and I fasted during that time. It was during that week, while I was pleading with God on a drive up I65, that He said, “Yes, he is yours.” Even though it was another two years and two months until it was official, we had peace because God had given him to us. We didn’t have to chase or try to take what wasn’t ours. We had been given a gift from God even before it was official.
The Israelites had the same thing in the Jericho story. They were coming out of the season of the desert and into the Lord’s promise. As they were approaching the city, Joshua encountered the commander of the Lord’s army. The commander told Joshua that the Lord had given him the city, and the Israelites had not done anything yet. They still had to obey, but the city was theirs. They could walk confidently because they had God’s answer. See Joshua 5-6.
This brings me to stories in First Priority. There are a number of situations in 3 communities that have me down right now. In studying to write this article, Mark Batterson reminds me of a few methods to pray through them. First, “Most of us don’t get what we want because we don’t know what we want.” (page 35). In one community, I know that we want provision. Finances to buy our leader’s time to do the work God has called him to. In two others, the minister is doing well and clubs are effective. But there is a spirit of discontentment. What I am discontent with is a little fuzzy. How can God answer my question if I don’t know what the question is? I need to think through my discontent then pray through that discontent. Second, I need to ask myself, “What if?” What if God answered this discontentment? Would it be the desired result that I am looking for? Would the heavens be open? Would God be glorified? Third, I need to “praise God for disappointment because it drives us to our knees.” (page 27). I wouldn’t be praying to and relying on God as much this morning if the discontentment wasn’t there. Thank you Lord for discontentment. Help me to pray through it.