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Fall Conference 2023

By First Priority Of America, Events, Podcast

This year’s fall conference was a blast! We saw so many of the amazing people that make up our First Priority community. To start us off, Justin Theroit welcomed us all to kick it off this year!

Matthew 18:20 “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them.”

At the Fall Conference, we gathered as believers and worshiped the Lord. We gathered in breakouts to learn and talk all things First Priority! When the body of Christ is together, we are more aware of the work He is doing in our lives and clubs. We are capable of learning new ways to serve our clubs and communities better. Whether that be through finding donors or learning how to work our new app.

Fall Conference was filled with fun too! Steve Cherrico and Stephen Summit set up this year’s First Priority Olympics. The games included a scavenger hunt, brain games, and even dodgeball!

We were able to take a tour of Black River Entertainment, and it was incredible. The tour was followed by a Hattie B’s dinner at The Well, where we heard Gordon Kerr give his personal testimony and his daughter Hannah perform.

To end the conference, we had a great Wednesday morning filled with more worship, another opportunity to join different breakouts, and hear one final take away from John Carruth! We are so thankful for all who joined us this year! If you didn’t get to make it to our Fall Conference, we hope to see you next time!

Stay tuned for our podcast to listen to some words from those who were with us at Fall Conference!

This blog was written by Kenley Kizer

Did you know?

By First Priority Of America, Events

Did you know that we are offering two leadership scholarships this year to a deserving senior who exemplifies leadership in their First Priority Club! We are excited to offer this opportunity to help our student leaders continue to grow and lead as they seek the next step towards their futu

We are also looking forward to the annual Spring Meetings which will take place in two cities:

Nashville May 1-2

Tampa May 8-9

Spring Meetings are a chance for us to reflect on this year and look towards even greater things for the coming year.

God is on the move and it is evident in the stories that we witness and the growth in our club numbers so far this year.

One story, I want to share, comes from First Priority Permian Basin. They had their students create and share cardboard testimonies. Students shared how the love and support they received through their FP Club, helped them make the turn from broken to healed. Students were “not seen”, “felt like a nobody” before Jesus and now “feel loved”, “like a somebody”. Many found very concrete answers to heavy problems, a place to live; a set of parents. One student stated if all the stories told were true, she wants to get to know Jesus.

We are thankful for the willingness of student leaders who are sharing the Gospel with their peers.

August Happenings!

By First Priority Of America, Events

Let the School Year Begin!

It’s August which means many schools are about to start or have already started. Student leaders are being trained To Take the Hope of Christ to Every Student in their school. Isn’t that exciting? Students are going to be reaching students with the Gospel of Christ and changing our world!

Did you know?

The Tennessee Weekend of Prayer Over Students designates the first full weekend of August each year as a day of prayer over our schools. At the request of First Priority, The TN State Legislators and Governor Bill Haslam signed it into law on April 24th, 2015. First Priority, Moms in Prayer, local churches and others work to coordinate prayer for our schools, students, teachers, staff and administrators during this weekend as school begins each year.

 

2 Opportunities to Bring Jesus to your City

By Nehemiah, Events

People like to do things. We are seeing that with Covid more than ever. Many times it just takes someone stepping out and making plans for that to happen. Take little league baseball for example. Without the league office and parent volunteers, no 5 year old would have the opportunity to swing a bat. The same is true with getting believers together to pray.

There are 2 opportunities for community prayer that we encourage here at First Priority.

The first is gathering adults from area churches before school begins to pray together at the school. In Tennessee, the state government has taken the first step for us and declared the weekend before school starts each year to be the ‘Weekend of Prayer over Students’ (see graphic below). It is our excuse to promote this to church leaders in our cities, gather the Christian students, their parents, and all other prayer warriors to pray together for the school. Whatever your situation is in your community, make a declaration, call it something, create a graphic, and use that as an excuse to get people to pray for the students at school. This event is crucial every year, but there is so much more to pray about together this year than any recent years!

To give you the start of a plan for this, let me tell you that in Spring Hill we set different times throughout the weekend for each school so people can participate in more than one gathering. So for example, Spring Station Middle School is Saturday morning at 9, Summit High school is Saturday morning at 10, Heritage Middle is Sunday night at 6, and Independence High School is Sunday night at 7. I lead Spring Station and Summit’s prayer gathering. I simply invite everyone to gather at the front door (outside) and we pray what is on our hearts. That typically takes anywhere from 10-20 minutes with under 12 people praying. I then ask everyone to walk around the outside of the building one time in prayer. I usually have a mix of personalities; by this I mean that some walk in silence while others walk in groups and make prayer declarations out loud.   

The second prayer opportunity is See You At the Pole. People usually fall into 2 camps with SYATP. You either have never heard of it, or remember it as something students did in the 90’s.  it is a movement that began in Texas in the 90’s and spread around the world in a short period of time. For us at FP, we consider it another excuse to petition God on behalf of the students and school leadership. For 2020, the universal date is Wednesday, September 23. Prayer happens at the flag pole starting 30 minutes before school begins. This time typically allows for students who ride the bus, or get a parent’s ride, to at the very least catch the end of it. It is always cool to watch the crowd grow as the busses arrive and the prayer is happening. Of course the crowd size is usually dependent on how well you did in getting the student pastors and parents involved in getting the word out. You can check out more information at www.syatp.com. They typically have the current year resources up by mid July. Again, it is an excuse to give your students leadership of their faith at the public school.

Don’t miss the opportunity for 2020! Our students, parents, teachers, and school administration need us to pray for them this year more than ever.

2019 First Priority Fall Conference

By Events

The countdown is on. There is only one week left to get the Early Bird price of $199 for our 2019 National First Priority Conference in Orlando, FL. Register and pay before August 1st in order to take advantage of this pricing. The price will increase to $250 on August 1st so register today!

National Day of Prayer

By Events

The National Day of Prayer is an annual event that happens on the first Thursday in May each year. The National Day of Prayer helps unite people of all faith to pray for our nation. First Priority students have been praying across our country today and this week to unite together and pray for their schools, clubs, and our nation. Thank you for your continued support in praying for our students so that they can reach more students for Christ!

NDOP HALEY NDOP pcole NDOP PHILLIP

70 Days of Expansion

By First Priority Of America, Events

The INSANITY of Gospel Entrepreneurs

Friends,
It is amazing to consider the ministry of First Priority and that we are reaching

10,000 students a year for Christ. The possibility of doubling that number by the end of 2018 is not only possible, but probable. The joy and privilege I have in leading this organization begins and ends with your passion and energy to reach America’s students with the Gospel. These 70 Days will give us all some additional intentionality to take our evangelism “game” up a level. The difference in elite athletes and great athletes is only the higher level of focus and discipline in the fundamentals. The challenge with the 70 Days of Expansion is to be intentional in everything we do and with more passion.

This plan has 4 components:

  • To bring clarity to the student led First Priority clubs by spending time in prayer and fasting in February
  • To give a more focused and intentional evangelism push in March
  • To create a community service project focused on the schools in April
  • To end the 70 days partnering with the National Day of Prayer on May 3

So what is our goal? The important thing is that WE AS A NATIONAL MINISTRY focus for 70 days on expanding our efforts to see students saved and we are ALL as prepared as possible. Included in the 70 Resources are the details and information for the upcoming ’70 Days of Expansion’ starting in February 2018!

The more we pray about this idea and hear the excitement from many of you, the more we feel that this is an incredible opportunity for all of us to unite around a project that will raise awareness of the First Priority brand.

With H.O.P.E. from Christ,

Dr. Rick Forbus
President
First Priority of America, Inc.

70 Days of Expansion Outreach Guide

70 DAYS of Expansion Prayer and Fasting Guide

70 Days of Expansion Service

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70 Days of Expansion NDOP 11×17 Poster

Partner Banquet: Results and Progress

By Local FP Communities, Events

Less than two weeks ago, we celebrated the many things that God is doing in Johnston County and across America at our second annual First Priority Partner Banquet. It is amazing to see how God is using Elementary, Middle, and High School students to impact their schools with the hope of Christ.

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Since our launch in Johnston County, we have grown to:

18 schools
28 partner churches
175 student leaders
100 adult volunteers
700 in weekly attendance
322 commitments to Christ.

We are humbled and honored to see what God is doing through the students of Johnston County. Our vision is to be in every school in Johnston County by the end of 2019. This goal is based on the interest of students across Johnston County who want First Priority in their schools.

We would like to give a special thank you to everyone who attended the Banquet. It was our pleasure to host you and spend the evening together. Through your partnership of praying, promoting, participating, and providing, this mission can be accomplished. We are excited to continue this journey together!

Sincerely,
Joel Rowland
Executive Director of First Priority Greater Clayton, NC

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