First Priority

presents

“Networking”
w/ Dan Price

Friday, February 28
9:00 AM Central Time
Live on Google Hangout!

Once you are on Google+, add bradschelling@gmail.com to your circles.  You will then be invited to the Hangout that Friday.
If you need assistance with ‘Google Hangout’, contact Brad via email for more information.

Dan Price is a board member with First Priority of America.  Hailing from the state of Colorado, Dan is a natural networker.  Dan attended Wheaton College on a football scholarship graduating with a degree in Business Economics.  Dan currently leads a Vemma Marketing Team as well as owns and operates several Fedex truck routes.  He and his wife Trish and son Lucas currently reside in Pheonix, AZ.  Join us on Google Hangout as Dan shares tips on how to influence your community for Jesus Christ.

Has God called you to do something that you have not done because of fear?

Paul said to King Agrippa in Acts 26:19, “So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven. 20 First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and then to the Gentiles, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds.”

Paul was been prison for years because he was obedient to the vision from heaven. Wow, look where obedience get us; locked up!

No wonder we get scared to really jump out there and do something that God has told us to do, like start a campus ministry, go to the mission field, etc. We are scared of the unknown, the uncertainty of money and stability, the fear of failure. All of these things and many more keep most Christians on the sidelines of life, watching everyone else play. We wait for the players in the game to write a book or a song on how exciting it was for them to play in the game and then we run to the next conference to hear them speak and leave like we did at summer camp ready to charge hell with a water pistol. Once we get back home, we get caught up in back to business as usual and we sit and watch.

Life, real life, abundant life, is a life of obedience. If God told you to do something, then do it. Paul, like Nehemiah, was right where God put him. He was speaking to a king and proclaiming the good news. You are on this Nehemiah list because we believe God put you right where you are to unite your city to reach thousands of students. In 2014, don’t let Satan keep you on the sidelines. Do something. Get in the game.

Mark Roberts

It has been said that ‘timing is everything, but it’s not the only thing’. Remember that as you continue to follow God and walk into this new year. As the year starts, there will be moments filled with pressure to speed through to an ‘end’. Whether your end is to launch three new clubs, get your Initiation Team together, or get through the Vision Casting so you can get on with the rest, take your time and remember your goal: the Hope of Christ in Every Student. Your goal is not to start a club; students have lots of options for those already. Your goal is not to network youth ministers; there already is a ‘National Network of Youth Ministry’ that gathers them together because they are youth ministers. Business Leaders definitely do not need another nonprofit knocking on their door. But students do need eternal Hope. The only way to reach them all is with a united church effort in your community. Is anybody organizing them? That is why you are where God has placed
you. He has given you a burden; not for another thing to do, but to work this plan. Your end?

Uniting the Local Body of Christ
With a Plan of Action
To Influence the School
With the Gospel.

That’s it. Period. You do not start clubs. Sure, you may be actively involved in one, even Nehemiah worked on his part of the wall. But Nehemiah’s success wasn’t in his ability to lay bricks, it was his vision for the big picture and willingness to be used by God to bring his people together for a common purpose. If not you, then who?

The first steps to getting FP going in your community

8,373 students have shared that they began their walk with Christ as a result of them hearing the gospel in a First Priority club in 2013.  Here is a story of one club influencing their peers and getting them plugged in to the body of Christ.  God works in his ways.

Students find Jesus at Christmas?

I have family who were teachers of English as a second language, AKA missionaries, at a university in China a few years ago.  They were not allowed to share Jesus or Christianity with ANYONE!  If they were to do so, they risked being deported themselves and those they shared with, and their families, being imprisoned and beaten – even if they hadn’t actually converted.  The risks were great.  So they found [legal] ways to share.  As ESL teachers, they were allowed to talk about American culture.  What is more American than Christmas and Easter!?!  The school administration allowed this in the classroom.  Students in China found Christ through them sharing “American Culture”.  What opportunity would lie in your local middle and high school if there was an organized group of Christians ready to share their faith at Christmas?  Would the subject of Christmas be something that already has everyone at school’s attention?  I think so!  They may not believe, but they get days off for it so they love it.  What would happen if you took those Christian students and had them invite their non-believing friends to the school commons one day after school to watch the movie Elf, eat spaghetti with syrup, and talk about Christmas?  Would lives be changed?  Maybe.  Could lives be changed?  YES!  The sky is the limit on your creativity in how to make this happen.  But the first need is for a group of Christian students to get together and pray about who God would have them invite.  If your goal is life change, the program is the means to the end, not the end itself.  So, start in prayer for the lost, start talking to students about being a missionary at school this Christmas, and gather 3-5 other churches to get in on the action.  Time is limited and your youth budget may be already gone, but together life change can still happen in 2013.

Merry Christmas,
Brad

Want to do this but need to talk through it before getting started?  Give us a call:

First Priority of America

Happy Thanksgiving

I am an imperfect leader helping to lead an imperfect organization.  Sounds logical [to my wife], but there are days and weeks that I don’t believe this is true.  I feel like First Priority of America, being an evangelistic local church strategy to teenagers, is better than or equal to anything else a person could give their life to.  I feel like God has placed me in the perfect place and nobody else in the world has the privilege I do.  Have you ever felt that way?  My pride comes before my fall, every time.

I am an imperfect person, helping to lead an imperfect group.  So what does imperfection mean for me on a daily basis?  It means that I need to manage myself and put structure in place to keep me humble and focused.  Andy Stanley says, “Don’t trade your blessing for a bowl of soup.”  He is referring to Isaac and Jacob when Jacob trades the generational blessing of his father for his immediate need for food.  I need to put priorities on my thoughts, actions, words, deeds, emotions, physical health, spiritual health, finances, marriage, and time.  I cannot allow my immediate physical desire to have a bowl of ice cream to override my goal of being below 190 pounds for the rest of my life.  At the moment, I am at 199 pounds, so the answer is no.  If I am at 189 pounds, then the answer can be a yes.

What does this have to do with leadership, especially leadership in a Christian movement?  Everything.

When my wife and I started to manage our finances well, we each lost 10 pounds.  It wasn’t because we were focused on our weight, it was because our pile of finances got cleaned up and we saw another layer of life that was a mess.  Jay Strack says, ‘Eat the big frog first.’  Why do all the little ‘easy’ things all day if you are going to get fired for not doing this one hard thing you are avoiding? If you aren’t going to do it, just quit at the beginning of the day and save yourself the day of worry.  Get up and exercise today [speaking out of imperfection again today on this one], then the next difficult task at work will be easier cause you’ve already overcome the biggest mountain of the day: to exercise.

This is important because today is important.  Today matters.  Justin Irving said, “Your barrel of leadership can only be as full as your shortest slat.”  If you are emotionally distant because you are fighting with your wife, the rest of your relationships will be affected.

I offer friendship and perspective from experience as an imperfect leader helping to lead an imperfect organization.

Confession: I have committed all 7 deadly sins, most recently, at a Pizza Ranch buffet.

Mark and I were sharing First Priority this past week with a group of church leaders.  We ran into a student pastor who loved the First Priority idea but was sad to say that he was getting fired from his church.  The reason was because he was spending too much time reaching out to students in the neighborhood where the church was located.  Now our first reaction was to say that this was horrible.  Our second reaction was to ask if he had taken any of the congregation along with him on this journey. You see,

• Ministry is about seeing a need and meeting it.
• Leadership is the action of leading a group of people towards a communal vision.
• Ministry Leadership is creating an opportunity for others to join you in meeting a need.

As you lead in ministry, it is important to remember that it is not about you meeting the need, but it’s about you creating an opportunity for others to join you in meeting a need.  How do I do that?  Well, I am glad that you asked.  There are four roles that you need to not just identify, but spend (unequal) time playing each role.

1. The first is a Spokesperson.  A spokesperson is focused on others today.  If you are a student pastor, you are often a spokesperson speaking to the adults in church on behalf of students and meeting their needs today.
2. Direction Setter is the second role and is focused on others tomorrow.  The direction setter sees a need and helps people see how we can work together to meet that need in the future.  First Priority does a lot of this before starting a club at school.  People need to see the need and what can be done down the road if some churches come together for this vision.
3. Coach is the third role who is focused us today. Again, if you are a student pastor, you spend a lot of time in this role helping students (your inner circle) walk with Christ each day.
4. Last but not least, there is the Change Agent.  A change agent is about us tomorrow.  They know where we are and the direction that we need to go.  The change agent walks the group through getting to the new location.

Whether you are desiring to start First Priority in your community or not, as a ministry leader, you will need to spend time in each of these roles.  Each week you will spend a different amount of time in each role, depending on the need.

The Roles are written by Mark McCloskey in conjunction with the 4-R Model of Transformational Leadership.  Many articles and more information can be found online.

We get asked this question all the time. Another comment people make is, “I am sorry that this is taking so long.” My response, “Don’t worry about it.” Why? Because of a core value that we hold found in the story of Nehemiah. Here it is: This is about who you are before it is about what you do.

Nehemiah 1:1, “Now it happened in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year.” The month of Chislev is around the March/April time of year. Now check out Nehemiah 2:1, “In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence.” The month of Nisan is around December. WHAT? That’s eight months! That’s eight months of not doing ANYTHING! The only things we know that Nehemiah did between April and December of that year were praying, fasting, mourning, and doing his job as cupbearer to the king. Well, he did his job as cupbearer until December when he was sad. Do you realize what being sad in front of the king meant for him? It meant that Nehemiah was no longer doing his job. Anyone who was not happy before the king could be put to death. The king had absolute authority. If he didn’t like how you were acting, he could put to you death for no more reason than being sad in front of him. So why was Nehemiah willing to be sad in front of the king? Because he was more concerned and burdened about the condition of the walls of Jerusalem than he was about preserving his own life! Now that is a burden!

So, how long does it take to start First Priority?

1. It takes burden for the condition of the schools in your community.
2. However long it takes for you to get there.

I just talked to our Director of Communications, Brandon, yesterday about this very issue. On one hand, within 2 to 6 weeks someone could have a team of people from 3 to 5 churches in the room ready to start something. On the other hand, we get calls from people 2 to 3 years after their initial point of contact saying they have to get First Priority going; the time is now right for them.

How long is it going to take you? That is between you and God and the holy discontent rising up in your soul.