After 10 years of being a bi-vocational school teacher and youth pastor, Founder Benny Proffitt had seen a generation unfold before his eyes. America’s decisions in the 50’s and 60’s to remove God’s word and prayer from our culture had left a spiritual vacuum and a harvest of immorality, addiction, and abandonment in our schools..The vision of uniting the churches in a city around the cause of reclaiming a generation for Christ gave birth to the First Priority vision.
Click on the dates above for a glance at the history of First Priority of America.
Irving was the first city to see a group of youth pastors to unite around the FP vision. FP Irving was formed by 12 churches and a board of Christian businessmen, focused on reaching the students in the 3 high schools and 6 middle schools in the Irving School District.
When Shades Mountain Baptist Church called FP founder, Benny Proffitt, to become their youth pastor, FP was introduced to the churches in the southern communities of Birmingham. A network of youth pastors united to strategically link their youth groups in the area’s secondary schools. These students accepted the challenge and began to organize on their campus to reach their schools for Christ.
(Now in their 17th year, FP Birmingham has expanded to most of central Alabama with hundreds of churches involved and student led ministries in more than 250 middle and high schools.)
First Priority in Birmingham held its first See You at the Pole prayer event involving more than 10,000 students, parents, and ministers from Birmingham’s FP network. This event was covered by the national media and was followed with a barrage of calls from all over the country asking how they could see this vision happen in their cities.
After 27 years as a local church youth pastor, Benny Proffitt launched First Priority of America inc. in Nashville in order to respond to the hundreds of calls. Benny began the movement with the first year goal to share the vision with 12 cities; due to overwhelming response Benny trained over 100. Since 1995, FP has trained over 1,000 cities covering all 50 states.
At the leading of the Holy Spirit, Benny committed the end of the century as a year of research and discovery to find out the condition of the youth of America first hand. In January of 99' he left Nashville with 40 students and 5 families on a one year journey to all 50 states and state capitals covering 182 cities. These studentsconducted a national research project called the National Student Hope Census and surveyed over 10,000 students. Benny published the story and research results in Looking at America through the eyes of our Youth.
After 10 years of implementing FP in cites, a new strategy was fashioned to be more effective in the city organization building approach. The 4 phase, 7 step process was created as a measurable and structured FP city implementation strategy.
After over 10 years of transforming cities Benny felt led to relaunch the FP vision across America. It is the strategic plan to establish 40 regional training teams that will each launch 10 multiplying cities. With the Lord’s leading and blessing we hope to see the power of the gospel transform 400 cities across this nation.
FIRST PRIORITY OF AMERICA 115 PENN WARREN DR, STE 300-205 NASHVILLE, TN 37027
