Friend,

Welcome to the Friday Five! Every Friday we share our top articles, stories, and quotes for you to read and share with your friends and church families.

Nonprofits like ours are expected to experience significant impacts to our fundraising efforts. If you support our work, would you consider making a needed $100, $50, $25, $10, or even $5 donation to ensure we have the resources necessary to remain financially healthy during these difficult times? <[link removed]>

<[link removed]>



<[link removed]>

1. NC VALUES VOICE: Live with David Benham and Justin Reeder


This week's NC Values Voice program featured David Benham and Justin Reeder, two Christians who have been arrested right here in North Carolina for innocently walking and praying on the sidewalks outside abortion clinics in Greensboro and Charlotte.

Click here <[link removed]> to watch the interview.

You can also visit www.ncvalues.org/voice <[link removed]> to view all of our past interviews, as well as watch the Voice live streamed every Wednesday at 7:30pm.







<[link removed]>





<[link removed]>

2. NC VALUES: We surpassed our COVID-19 Matching Grant Opportunity goal!


We're excited to share with you that—thanks to your generous support—we have surpassedour COVID-19 Matching Grant Opportunity goal! We're blown away by your generosity and support, especially given the circumstances charities like ours find themselves in with this COVID-19 context.

Every dollar donated in April will have its impact doubled towards defending your pro-life, pro-family, and pro-religious liberty values.

If you would still like to donate towards our important work, click here. <[link removed]>







<[link removed]>









<[link removed]>

3. WBTV: Rowan County, Hobby Lobby at odds on store's potential reopening


"Hobby Lobby and Rowan County are at odds over the potential reopening of the retail store, despite the Stay at Home order.





In an email, Hobby Lobby announced its intention to reopen the Salisbury location on Monday.





“We submitted a request with the North Carolina Department of Revenue a couple of weeks ago, and in response they sent us a letter stating that we could operate our store under Governor Cooper’s Executive Order No. 121 and in accordance with the updated social distancing requirements in Executive Order No. 131.” wrote Alicia Crawford Wiley in an email to Rowan County Manager Aaron Church. Wiley is listed as the associate general counsel for Hobby Lobby."

For more updates and insights on the events surrounding the Hobby Lobby and Rowan County conflict, check out Liberty Headlines' articles here <[link removed]> and here <[link removed]>.













<[link removed]>









<[link removed]>

4. NATIONAL REVIEW: Proposals to Ban Homeschooling Are an Attack on Pluralism


"A prison composed of “reading,” “writing,” “arithmatic” (yes, “arithmatic”), and the Bible. That is how an illustration in the latest issue of the Harvard Magazine portrays homeschooling. While other children run and play outside, the poor homeschooler squints out between the bars. (An updated version of this illustration changes “arithmatic” to “arithmetic.”)




The story accompanying this illustration focuses on an argument by the celebrated Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Bartholet that homeschooling “not only violates children’s right to a ‘meaningful education’ and their right to be protected from potential child abuse, but may keep them from contributing positively to a democratic society.” Because of the dangers of homeschooling, Bartholet recommends that it should be presumptively banned either by the courts or various legislatures. According to federal data, a little over 3 percent of American children are currently homeschooled (about 1.7 million). This percentage has almost doubled in the past 20 years. Parents homeschool for a number of reasons, but many homeschool for religious reasons (hence, the Bible as part of the prison in that illustration)."











<[link removed]>








<[link removed]>


5. BLEXIT NC: BLEXIT NC talks with NC Values and SBA leadership


Check out this week's earlier lives streamed interview with BLEXIT NC, Susan B. Anthony List leaders Michelle Ashley (NC State Director) and Tami Fitzgerald (State Chair, NC Values Executive Director). 





<[link removed]>



<[link removed]>


5+. WBTV: NC General Assembly back in session! NC House passes $1.7 billion COVID-19 relief bill in near-unanimous vote





NC Values is representing your values at the General Assembly, even though we are not allowed into the building at this time.  We will continue to monitor legislation and insure that your values are well represented during the legislative session, even given the difficulties presented by COVID-19.

"One day after the North Carolina Senate passed their COVID-19 relief bill, the House has passed their version.





The $1.7 billion relief bill passed 116-1 on Thursday afternoon. The Senate’s version of the bill passed unanimously on Wednesday. It would spend a lower amount of $1.36 billion. Leaders in both chambers spent Thursday afternoon and evening discussing the differences with the goal of passing a compromise bill Friday.





About $3.5 billion in federal funding has been made available to North Carolina, so this initial bill would not spend the entire amount, with legislators anticipating a variety of additional needs will arise as the crisis continues."



<[link removed]>



































ONGOING PRAYER: CORONAVIRUS

LORD, we pray to you regarding the health pandemic facing our nation and the world. Christ—you are the Great Physician—and we bring to you a solemn petition in regards to our physical, social, and economic health.

Protect our bodies and our nation as we combat the coronavirus. We pray that our leaders in office will be blessed with wisdom to make decisions in the interest of public health and saving lives. We pray in particular for the elderly, who are most at risk to experience complications when infected. We pray for all the medical professionals on the front-lines of battling this virus.

LORD, protect all of us from infection, and may you work through your Church in the midst of this crisis to help bring people to acknowledge you are sovereign and good. We pray deeply that people will come to salvation, and that our neighbors will spend their time wisely with their families praising God for our blessings.

We pray that this virus will quickly die out, that our public efforts—as communities and neighbors—will slow the virus' spread and impact. LORD, we ask for you to work through those individuals currently developing a cure, and plead that it may come soon. We also pray for all those who will be impacted by the economic fallout of the measures taken to combat the viruses. Be with individuals nearing retirement who will have their savings ravaged; be with small business owners and employees—particularly those in recreation, dining, part-time employment, and vacation industries—who may face bankruptcy and financial stress related to economic decline; be with our nation as a whole, as it sets itself on the difficult path of recovering physically and economically from this virus.

LORD, we acknowledge you are good, and that your provision for your children is unquestionable. May your inspired words remind us in this time of panic and anxiety:

"Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment? Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto the measure of his life? And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." (Matthew 6:25-34)



Amen



Will you chip in $100, $50, $25, $10, or even $5 to help the NC Values Coalition continue to fight for your rights? You can donate by clicking here. <[link removed]>



Sincerely,

North Carolina Values Coalition

<[link removed]> <[link removed]>



-=-=-
NC Values Coalition - 9650 Strickland Rd, Suite 103-226, Raleigh, NC 27615-1902, United States
This email was sent to [email protected]. To stop receiving emails: [link removed]
-=-=-

Created with NationBuilder - [link removed]