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Church Leaders

Jul 10
Love0

Thank you for your Partnership

By Priority Parents, Student Leaders, Church Leaders, Faculty Sponsors, Community Leaders

Thank you for your partnership in the ministry of First Priority!  We are always encouraged by people who are passionate about reaching students, our future generations. We see the despair of middle and high school students brought on by abuse, addiction, depression, and suicide. Our goal is to bring the HOPE of Christ to every student in America. This past school year, we trained 3,608 Christian students to lead a First Priority club on 820 schools around the country and we saw 10,022 students come to know Christ!  This all happened inside public school buildings this school year! Thank you for being a part of that!

Henry Ford-2We are on our way to helping the 325,000 local churches in our country to influence all 41,000 public middle and high schools. We believe the body of Christ is alive and well in every community in America. What would happen if we got churches in your community to work together to influence their schools with the gospel? After all, Christian churches outnumber public schools four to one! This wouldn’t happen without you working in your community! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Keep praying for the lost to hear the gospel in your schools. Continue helping train and equip the Christian students to share their faith with them. And most importantly, talk about First Priority with family and friends in and out of your community. If nobody is sharing Jesus with the lost students in your school, nobody is sharing Jesus with lost students in your school! We are always one generation away from missing them entirely.

Jun 13
Love0

Summer Prayer Challenge: Week 2- JOY

By Priority Parents, Student Leaders, Church Leaders, Community Leaders, Local FP Communities

The act of saying “yes” to Jesus causes the “fruit of the Spirit” to come through us! And the second fruit we are focusing on is JOY. As we hold onto God we can have gladness that overflows into our friends, family, and the world. Joy

Challenge: Let’s pray that this week we would pursue the Joy of the Lord even when life gets tough. Let’s pray that that Joy would overflow out of us so that we can impact the people around us for the sake of the Gospel.

Let’s also pray for the students who will be sharing about JOY in their schools during the month two HOPE cycle.

I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my Joy. Yes, your joy will overflow -John 15:11

Oct 12
Love0

How we can turn Hopelessness into Hope for our Students

By Priority Parents, Church Leaders

Anxiety and hopelessness crawl across our school campuses in America like a stalking predator. In certain urban environments, students spend their nights with other homeless teens under bridges and then attend school the next day. Why now, more than ever, are young people committing suicide and running away? Hopelessness.

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Life can feel out of control. Every day, we hear of hate groups rising to power, wars and the threat of war, and natural disasters leaving wreckage in their wake. Add to these the timeless yet ever-present threats of joblessness, debt, illness, and other personal circumstances, and it’s no wonder anxiety is on the rise. With the absence of responsible parenting and access to everything under the sun, students need Jesus now. Often, when teens feel anxious about something, their initial reaction is to cry out to God, asking Him to fix their situation. But they ask, “What if He doesn’t? What if God doesn’t listen?”

First Priority is an answer for troubled teens that have a gap in their upbringing and connection to anything about Jesus the Messiah. Without First Priority, many students will drift into oblivion to a tragic ending. This powerful Gospel-sharing solution for our nation’s teens, First Priority, needs help. We need concerned parents and pastors to serve with us in this cause. We need funding. In these times, any sacrificial gift you can make to the national budget, can help a teen have the hope of the Gospel at school.

Nancy and I are honored to serve with you,

Rick Forbus, PhD
President and CEO
First Priority of America
rick@fpofamerica.com

May 17
Love0

Are You Challenging Your Students to do Hard Things?

By Church Leaders, Community Leaders

First Priority wants to say thank you for being a leader and a light on the schools in your community. The school in America is considered to be part of the 3rd largest mission field in the world consisting of 25 million students. The hard work and your passion to see Christ made known at your local schools has been amazing almost 10,000 students have put their hope in Christ! Praise!
If your looking for a great resource to help equip your students to become a stronger leader you should check out  the book Do hard things by Alex and Britt Harris. They wrote the book when they were 18 years old.  They have had over 35 million hits on their website challenging teens all across the country to do hard things. They also talk about views about teenagers and challenges them head on. One of the challenges they discuss is the idea of being a teenager is not  a vacation from responsibility.
The Harris brothers bring out that most teenagers have bought into this idea of teenagers are on a vacation.The book will challenge students to look beyond their potential and inspire them to do hard things for God. When we look through the Bible we have seen teenagers do some hard and amazing things. One story from the Bible that we all are familiar with is David and Goliath. David was a teenager and he trusted God to defeat the giant Goliath. Yep a teenager slayed the giant in front of the armies of Israel and the philistines. Sometimes we just read over that familiar story and miss that God chose a teenager not the king, experienced solider, or a adult but God chose a teenager to lead Israel to victory.
“Unfortunately we often get praise for things that weren’t particularly difficult to achieve. If we focus on the props and encouragement of those who have low expectations for us, we become mediocre. It can be challenging to set our sights on excellence, particularly when we’re hearing that we’re already there. One of life’s greatest lessons, which we all must learn, could be expressed in the phrase “That was nothing. Watch this.” Challenge yourself and others to call the normal things normal and save that word excellent for things that really are.”
― Alex Harris
What a awesome statement! Our hope is this for you  students too! If your wanting to find out more about this resource check out their site.
Jan 30
Love0

Church Leader Update 1-2013

By Church Leaders

 

I believe there are students in your community who do not know Jesus. I also believe that many of them not only do not know Jesus, but have never heard the truth of the Gospel spoken to them. They have heard the name of Jesus used in vain and they have heard Jerry Seinfeld, Ray Romano, or Charlie Sheen make an off-handed church joke, but have they ever heard that God is Love (John 3:16; 10:10), that man is sinful (Romans 3:23; 6:23), that Jesus is God’s provision for man’s sin (Romans 5:8), and that when you receive Him, you experience a new birth (John 1:12)? I BET NOT!

This week, we want to highlight what First Priority means to youth pastors. Sometimes people ask us how we convince youth pastors who already have a full plate to take a campus for First Priority. The answer is simple. Once a youth pastor sees that First Priority is an avenue to extend their ministry beyond the walls of the church to the public school campus, they cannot wait to get involved. Instead of First Priority being another item on a “to-do” list, we become a tool for them to accomplish their ultimate goal… winning students to Christ and helping them find a life full of Him!

Phil Bixby, youth pastor at Trinity Church in Dade County, Florida, has seen the value in connecting the church to the campus and is recruiting his peers. He took Matt Shull, the new youth pastor at Words of Life Church in Miami, to several campuses to check out the ministry. Matt was so excited that he created a video clip to show his pastor and church. In just 3 campus visits, they saw 68 students come to Christ! .

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