In my community group this week, we began to talk about evangelism and the tension between grace and truth which somehow led into friendship evangelism vs. door-to-door evangelism. Friendship evangelism is good, because most non-believers only develop a curiosity about Jesus when they know and trust someone who believes in Jesus. Often, however, that is as far as friendship evangelism goes. The love, life, and death of Jesus rarely gets shared. Then there is the door-to-door approach of finding a stranger on the street and sharing the information found in the four spiritual laws or the Romans Road to salvation. There was no relationship there, but a process in a believer’s head with the hope that God has the other person ready to hear it. As they debated and discussed, honestly I felt bored with it. As we traveled home and I finished the night painting in our girls’ bedroom, it came to me: First Priority is the perfect union of those two opposing strategies to sharing faith. First, students trust students. There are believing students on most sports teams at the local school. The believers are also on the student council, in the band, traveling with the debate team, etc. What’s my point? The non-believers in those groups trust the believers in those groups. They’ve spent time together and trust each other. That is the first step to friendship evangelism. The second step is to actually talk about spiritual things. That is where First Priority comes in. We all get intimidated when we have to do something for the first time. Especially by ourselves. What if we brought the believing students at the school together to create an environment to talk Jesus and share the gospel with the non-believers who trust them?
First Priority of America’s goal is to see the Hope of Christ in Every Student. We do that by Uniting the Local Body of Christ with a Plan of Action to Influence the School with the Gospel. My point? I want you to know that by coordinating a new First Priority movement in your area that thousands of lives will be changed because it works. Students Reach Students. The Good News of Jesus Christ is powerful and effective. Take those two points to 3-5 churches this month and start a movement that will change eternity.
Brad Schelling
Director of Expansion
First Priority of America
