This blog post was written by Hannah Blackburn.
In this week’s episode of the First Priority Podcast, Brad Schelling and Steve Cherrico sat down with special guest Larry Crawford. Larry has been a campus coach at a local middle school in the Murfreesboro, TN, area for just over one year. He and his wife have been attending Living Water Church for about ten years. Larry works in sales and goes to the middle school once a week to coach their First Priority club.
Larry’s story on how he became a club coach happened quickly. For Larry, it all goes back to being servant minded and sacrificial. One of the kids at the middle school noticed there wasn’t a Christian based club at her school. Her father is the pastor of Larry’s church, and she told Larry that the middle school needed an adult to lead a First Priority club. Larry jumped in with First Priority resources and training and thus began his journey as a club coach.
How many students does it take to start a First Priority club? The answer: only one! At Larry’s first club meeting, there were five students. The next week there were seven, then ten, then twelve, then twenty-five students in the club. Now, there are somewhere between forty to fifty students! This growth happened 100% from word-of-mouth between students inviting their peers to the club. As the club continues to grow, students have more and more ideas on how to grow and connect, they just need the confidence to do so.
Students are very instrumental in inviting their friends to church, a story that Larry has seen multiple times. It’s hard to break out of the assumption that students already know who Jesus is, because that’s simply not the case. Seeing middle schoolers step up for Bible reading and teaching has been very inspirational for Larry to see. As the club grows, Larry has watched it mature to be increasingly student led, which is the goal for First Priority clubs to become.
How do we understand the difference between a small church versus a big church? There is none! There is the local place we worship together, but the definition of the church is God moving through people as the body of Christ! First Priority focuses on being the church by connecting students with each other and giving them the resources needed to bring their peers to Christ. Ultimately, it’s not about First Priority or any one person or organization, it’s about leading people to Jesus and furthering God’s Kingdom.
