First Priority of Alabama

The Hope of Christ in Every Student

Shop for mom and support First Priority at the same time!

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Shop for mom and support First Priority at the same time!  
    
Make mom smile… buy your Mother’s Day gifts at smile.amazon.com, and Amazon will donate a percentage of the purchase to First Priority. Mother’s Day is next Sunday, May 14, so begin your shopping now HERE. It’s simple; shop for mom and support First Priority at the same time! Amazon has a large variety of gifts that are perfect for Mother’s Day including electronics, jewelry, clothing, and more.  
 
Amazon’s program called AmazonSmile allows shoppers to select their favorite charitable organization to receive 0.5% of the purchase as a contribution from Amazon. AmazonSmile is the same Amazon you know, the same products, same prices, same service! The benefit: you are helping First Priority reach students with the love and hope of Jesus Christ.
 
CLICK HERE to get started today. Designate First Priority of Alabama as your charity of choice and start shopping! You will know your purchase is supporting First Priority when you see, “Supporting First Priority of Alabama” in the top left corner of Amazon’s Web site.
 
Make mom smile this Mother’s Day! We truly appreciate your support!

Join First Priority for a round of golf!

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Please join us for our Golf Challenge 2017

We are excited to invite you to take part in First Priority’s Golf Challenge 2017. We are holding a golf tournament at Trussville Country Club, 7905 Roper Road, Trussville, AL 35173 on Friday, June 9, 2017, at 12 p.m. and we hope you’ll come spend the day with us! You will be a blessing for First Priority and the important work we do on public school campuses all across our area.
 
The tournament will be a shotgun start and includes your golf round, lunch, gifts and snacks. Prizes will be awarded to the first place winning team.
 
Individual Player
Cost is $100 per player.
 
Hole Sponsorship
If you’re not able to play in the tournament, we hope you will consider a hole sponsorship for $100 that includes a full color sign with you or your company/church’s name placed at a shared tee box. To expand your hole sponsorship to include our late summer golf tournament at Highland Park Golf Course, the cost is $300. Please click here for more information on hole sponsorships.
 
The vision of First Priority is to see the Hope of Christ in every student. Your support helps us to achieve this great goal. We truly appreciate your support and the impact you are making on students’ lives. We hope you will save the date and make plans now to join us for our Golf Challenge 2017!

God is using students’ testimonies to change lives!

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This school year, we have seen exciting things happen in Thompson Sixth Grade Center’s First Priority club. This is a club that has struggled with student leadership in the past. At First Priority’s Leader’s Summit that was held in September, we focused on the “how to’s” of effective campus ministry and trained students on how to implement the First Priority HOPE Strategy. This strategy equips students with a plan of action to reach their school with the hope of Christ. There are now nine girls that serve on the leadership team at Thompson. The “P” week of the HOPE strategy is Prepare, which is designated for students to give their personal testimony of how Christ has impacted their life. Recently during Prepare Week, MaKayla, a 12-years-old student leader, got up and shared her story about how she was involved
in a tragic accident when she was in 2nd
grade. To summarize, she has a passion for horses and had been playing with a foal that she snuck up behind and it kicked her in the left side of her chest. She continued to share how she turned blue from lack of oxygen and then white as paramedics were called to the scene. Her mother began praying as she struggled to know what she could do for her daughter. CPR was dangerous because if the ribs were broken they could puncture the heart. The moment when all seems lost, Jesus is the answer… MaKayla’s only injury was a mark of the horse’s hoof imprinted on her chest. Her only reason for what happened is that God had a plan for sparing her life and she is now impacting her classmates by telling the story of how Christ has delivered her. Wow, to God be the glory! Speaking in front of a large group of students can be very scary, especially in middle school. We’re so proud of MaKayla for overcoming her fears, listening to God’s call and reaching her campus for Christ by sharing what God has done in her life.
 
This is just one testimony of what occurs every week on nearly 200 campuses across the Greater-Birmingham Area. God is using the lives of students to reach their peers for Christ. Equipping the next generation of leaders to share what Christ has done in their life is vitally important and has become our First Priority. Do you want to get involved? We need your prayer and support to continue equipping students with a platform, strategy and provision for ongoing effective campus ministry outreach. Call us today at 205.871.8886 or visit firstpriorityal.com to learn about the different ways you can help us continue to reach students with the hope of Christ.

New Year, New Opportunities!

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New Year, New Opportunities! 
  

It’s a new year filled with new opportunities! We hope you’ll take a moment to learn a little bit more about First Priority and the different ways you can be involved with this great ministry. The impact First Priority is making on students’ lives would never be possible without your prayer and support. Together, we can continue to reach students with the Hope of Christ. Let’s make 2017 the best year yet!
 
First Priority is a strategy for students to share the Love and Hope of Jesus Christ with every student in their school. We connect the CHURCH to the CAMPUS to share CHRIST with students. We are currently in our 26th year of ministry serving elementary, middle, junior high and high schools across the nation and world.
 
New studies from Barna say, “If Jesus is not already part of students’ lives by the time they leave junior high school, the chance of them professing Him as their Lord and Savior is very slim (6% to be exact).” That is why we unite the body of Christ with a plan of action to influence the school with the Gospel.
 

First Priority helps the local church extend its ministry to school campuses. We partner together to work with schools to help set-up and organize clubs that meet before school that are student-initiated and student-led. The public school is the largest mission field in America. We provide Christian students with a platform, strategy and support for ongoing effective campus ministry outreach. These students are on a 9-month mission trip when school is in session. None of this would be possible without your help! There are several ways you can get involved:

 
Pray – The ministry of First Priority could never be what God truly wants it to be without consistent prayer. Ask your church congregation to pray over students and commission them to go and be disciples in their school. Please be in constant prayer for students who don’t know Christ, and for Christian students to be bold in sharing their faith. Pray for our staff, volunteers, faculty sponsors, campus coaches, students and schools. When you pass by a school, pray for that school. Make a school zone your prayer zone.
 
Promote – Share the vision and mission of First Priority within your circle of influence. Pray about who would be blessed and interested to know about and support the mighty work that God is doing on our school campuses. We have a lot of resources available that you can share with others at firstpriorityal.com. Ask your church to give First Priority opportunities to speak and raise awareness about the ministry. Encourage your church’s youth pastor to promote First Priority with your youth group and to encourage students to attend club meetings, be on leadership and to invite their lost friends.
 
Participate – First Priority is always in need of volunteers. Most of the students in our schools will never step foot in a church, but they will attend school. We need to go to them. Encourage members of your church to get involved with First Priority and to participate and connect with students on our campuses. E-mail us at info@firstpriorityal.com to get involved.
 
Provide – Support First Priority financially and help ensure that every student in our area is reached with the Hope of Christ. It takes $3,000 to fund each school that we serve. I would like to encourage you to help support one or several of the more than 200 schools across the Greater-Birmingham Area. CLICK HERE to support First Priority. Call205.871.8886 or visit firstpriorityal.com to learn how you can join this Gospel movement to advance the Kingdom of God.
 
Will you commit to praying about how you can be involved with First Priority?

Your gift will be doubled on #GivingTuesday; will you help change lives?

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Your gift will be doubled on #GivingTuesday!
Help change lives today! 
Tomorrow, November 29, is #GivingTuesday, a day that charities, families, churches, businesses and students around the world will come together for one common purpose: to celebrate generosity and to give to causes they believe in. There’s Black Friday, Cyber Monday and now it’s time for #GivingTuesday, which kicks off the charitable season of giving. It’s a simple idea, and we hope you’ll join us and be a part of a global celebration of a new tradition of generosity!

This is an especially important time to give to First Priority. Some friends of First Priority have gotten together to challenge the ministry to raise $100,000 in November and December, and they will match every penny donated! Your gift of $25 will be immediately doubled to $50. Your $100 gift will be matched to make a $200 gift and $250 becomes $500. We hope you will consider giving a gift for our year-end Victory Matching Challenge. We have been doing this campaign for over 15 years and because of the impact it has made we have seen tens of thousands of lives changed. Every gift of love, every prayer, every word of support to a Christian student, faculty sponsor or youth worker means that another student will have the opportunity to hear the life-changing Gospel of Christ! Please prayerfully consider giving a gift for our year-end Victory Matching Challenge.

How you can be involved:

– Please pray about a gift and give online. A gift in any amount will be instantly doubled for twice the joy, twice the hope and twice the love to a student who so desperately needs to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ! The great thing about #GivingTuesday is that it is less about the amount each individual gives and more about having many individuals giving on the same day.
– Please share our #GivingTuesday information with your friend groups and/or church family through social media or other informational channels.
– After you have given, please tell everyone you can about how you are giving and invite them to do the same. Be sure to use hashtags: #GivingTuesday and #HopeofChrist in your posts!
We are so very thankful that for over 26 years, we have had such strong support from churches and individuals who love what we do and desire to help the most vulnerable in our society. We hope #GivingTuesday will give you another way to join with us and to invite others to do the same.
Thank you for helping us share the HOPE of Christ with the next generation through your generous donations! If you have any questions about #GivingTuesday, please contact us at 205.871.8886 or info@firstpriorityal.com.

Happy Thanksgiving from First Priority!

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First Priority gives thanks for you! 
During this time of Thanksgiving and all throughout the year, we give thanks for you. We are very thankful for you and your continuous prayer and support of this ministry. It is because of you that we are able to reach tens of thousands of students with the Hope of Christ each week on more than 200 school campuses across the Greater-Birmingham Area. We are truly grateful for people like you who desire to see students come to know Christ. We thank God for the amazing things He is doing in our schools this year.
We serve a great and almighty God! We have so much to be thankful for. May God bless you and your family this holiday season.
Happy Thanksgiving from the staff at First Priority!

Over 90 decisions for Christ since October!

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Hope
Over 90 decisions for Christ since the
beginning of October! 
We are excited to announce that, out of the clubs that have reported, there have been over 90 decisions made for Christ in First Priority clubs just since the beginning of October! Wow, God is good! These students have been followed-up with to be discipled and become involved with a local church. First Priority works! Lives are being changed. With this movement, all it takes is one student and an entire school and generation can be changed for Christ. God is truly amazing and we know He can do anything.

Last school year, middle and high school clubs began implementing First Priority’s HOPE Strategy, a 4-week cycle that is repeated every month: Help Week, Overcome Week, Prepare Week and Engage Week. To assist with carrying out this strategy, First Priority developed the HOPE curriculum, a comprehensive, informational packet of resources that leads, guides and directs teacher sponsors, campus coaches and students as they prepare for their meetings. Teachers have informed us that the HOPE curriculum is very exciting. It has raised the bar for students and provides valuable resources for them to be successful.

We have received more and more reports of the impact First Priority is making on unchurched students. These students thirst for God but can’t make it to church on Sunday because they live in a family that doesn’t go to church. We have seen students take on leadership roles who would not get that experience if it wasn’t for First Priority. We have seen lives changed due to the power of prayer. The great things happening in our clubs for God’s Kingdom is endless! The public school is the largest mission field in America. Students on our campuses work each week to ensure the gospel is spread throughout their school. They are unashamed and eager to share their faith and help their friends mature in their relationship with Christ. The desire to see their friends accept the love and message of Jesus Christ is evident in the number of salvations reported each school year. While students are reaching students, God is at work shaping lives.

None of this would be possible without your help! There are several ways you can get involved during this remaining school year: Pray, Participate, Promote, Provide. Please click on those links for more info. We hope you’ll begin praying now about how you can get involved in 2017!

You’re invited to meet Rachel Scott’s Mother, Beth Nimmo!

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You’re invited to come meet Beth!

 
I hope you had a chance to go see the new inspiring movie, “I’m Not Ashamed” this past weekend! If you didn’t, I encourage you to take your high school student to see it. The movie is based on the true story of Rachel Scott, the first person shot and killed during the Columbine massacre on April 20, 1999. Rachel’s life has touched millions of people for nearly two decades. I am excited to inform you that Rachel’s mother, Beth Nimmo, is coming to Birmingham. I would like to invite you to come meet Beth and hear from her first-hand.


Beth will be the speaker at First Priority’s SCORE (Students Count On Real Examples) Benefit Lunch that will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016, at 11:30 a.m. at The Club, One Robert S. Smith Drive, Birmingham, Ala. 35209. As you know, First Priority is a non-profit campus ministry that connects the church to the school campus to share Christ with students. I would like to invite you to partner with this great ministry. Not only will you be hearing from Rachel’s mother, but you will be helping to reach students with the hope of Christ all over Greater Birmingham.

I would be honored if you would be a SCORE Partner and join me at the lunch by making a generous donation of $100 to First Priority. Will you come take part in our Lunch and sit with me at a table? Do you know others who would like to attend? Please help me fill a table of 8 at $100 per seat. Please help me think of others who would like to support First Priority and attend our Benefit Lunch. I truly appreciate your time and consideration. It is because of faithful people like you that First Priority is able to touch the lives of students all over Greater Birmingham. 
I hope you will take a moment to learn more about this great sponsorship opportunity, our speaker Beth Nimmo, and the new film “I’m Not Ashamed,” which is based on the true story of Rachel Scott that hit movie theaters this past weekend. Join us for our SCORE Lunch and meet Rachel’s mother. CLICK HERE for more details.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions you may have. Thank you again for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you!
Thank you,
Greg Davis 
President 
First Priority Greater Birmingham

Eat at Newk’s and support First Priority!

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Eat at Newk’s and support First Priority! 
We would like to invite you to join us for First Priority Spirit Night at Newk’s on Thursday, September 22, 2016, from 4-9 p.m. Ten percent of every purchase made that evening will directly benefit First Priority. We are very excited about this great opportunity! We hope you will come and enjoy a wonderful dinner and support First Priority at the same time.

First Priority is a strategy for students to share the Love and Hope of Jesus Christ with every student in their school. We connect the CHURCH to the CAMPUS to share CHRIST with students. We are currently in our 26th year of ministry serving elementary, middle, Jr. high and high schools across the nation and world.
First Priority helps the local church extend its ministry to school campuses. We partner together to work with schools to help set-up and organize clubs that meet before school that are student-initiated and student-led. The public school is the largest mission field in America. We provide Christian students with a platform, strategy and support for ongoing effective campus ministry outreach. These students are on a 9-month mission trip when school is in session. None of this would be possible without your help! Please plan to join us on Thursday, September 22, from 4-9 p.m. and help support this great ministry!

Recap and pictures from Gardendale Golf Tournament

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Our Summer Golf Series was a huge success!  
First Priority held its last tournament of our Summer Golf Series on Friday, August 12, at the beautiful Castle Pines Country Club. We would like to thank all those who came out and participated in our event. We would also like to thank all of our sponsors who helped make this tournament a huge success. Golfers enjoyed lunch, a round of golf, snacks and gifts. Participants also received the pleasure of talking with and hearing from local First Priority Campus Coach James Dolinger who shared personally the impact he has seen First Priority make on students’ lives. He also shared with golfers about the opportunities that local businesses and community leaders have to make a difference in the lives of students through First Priority. We would like to thank James for volunteering his time to serve at our tournament. We hope you’ll take a moment to check out  pictures from our Summer Golf Series at Castle Pines. Thank you again to all those who came out to join us for our Gardendale Tournament, as well as our Trussville and Bessemer Tournaments. We couldn’t do what we do without you!
First Priority Greater Birmingham President Greg Davis praying with golfers before the start of the tournament

If you didn’t get to participate in our Summer Golf Series but would still like to support First Priority, we hope you’ll consider making a donation. The vision of First Priority is to see the Hope of Christ in every student. Your support helps us to achieve this great goal. We truly appreciate your support and the impact you are making on students’ lives!
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