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 Friend, Welcome to the Friday Five! Every Friday we share our top five
articles, stories, and quotes for you to read and share with your
friends and church families.
 1. NC VALUES VOICE: Live with Kelvin Cochran and his Carolina Values Summit 2020 speechEarlier this week we had another episode
of “The NC Values Voice”, a weekly 30-minute interview by Executive
Director, Tami Fitzgerald, with a special guest. The NC Values Voice
aired on Facebook Live and www.ncvalues.org/voice
on Wednesday night at 7:30pm. Our goal with these programs is to
inform and motivate our statewide coalition members with current,
relevant information.
At this week's program we streamed Dr. Kelvin Cochran's Carolina
Values Summit 2020 speech about how his 34-year career as a
firefighter and Atlanta Fire Chief was extinguished for writing a
devotional book for his men’s Bible study. After his Summit speech, we
also had an exclusive sit-down interview between Kelvin Cochran and
Tami Fitzgerald.
Watch live and past episodes at: www.ncvalues.org/voice. You can also watch the other Carolina Values Summit 2020 speakers as well as the event in its entirety at www.carolinavaluessummit.com.
 2. NORTH STATE JOURNAL: Christians sound alarm on religious freedom at 2020 Carolina Values SummitAmong the overwhelmingly positive feedback we received from
our 2,000 viewers about our July 7th Carolina Values Summit, the
attendees seemed to share one repeated request: "Can you make the
Summit video available to my fellow church members and the
public?"
Christian leaders felt that the speakers were so powerful, and their testimonies so relevant to the current threats against religious liberty, that we felt moved to make it accessible to the general audience. For the next couple of weeks, we'll be livestreaming several of the speaker's speeches as our weekly episodes of the Voice at www.ncvalues.org/voice. We're also going to include exclusive sit down interviews we conducted with them that dive even deeper into the issues they're facing and the battles they're waging. Please pray these testimonies go far and wide, and consider sharing them with your family and friends on Facebook! If you weren't able to attend, and would like to watch and share the online event with your pastors and fellow church members, you can visit www.carolinavaluessummit.com to watch the Summit in its entirety. You can also check out this excellent article from the North State Journal for an in-depth summary of the event and its speakers: "On July 7, the North Carolina Values Coalition held a virtual summit, with many of the speakers presenting from Graceway Baptist Church south of Charlotte, to equip Christian leaders to “resist growing attacks on religious freedom.” Multiple speakers who have lost jobs for their religious views, or were even imprisoned for sharing their faith, as in the case of Pastor Andrew Brunson who spent two years in Turkish prison, spoke on what they see as a growing hostility to Christianity in mainstream American culture."
 
3. WSOCTV: DA: No evidence to charge Mark Harris in NC District 9 election fraud investigation"After more than a year of investigating ballot fraud
in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District, the Wake County DA has
concluded that there is no evidence that would support a criminal case
against Harris."
4. CIVITAS: Cooper’s dreaded Plan B part-time school return now a reality"Gov. Roy Cooper finally announced that North Carolina’s 1.5
million public school children will not return to school full-time
this fall, and will spend much of their time at home, learning via
computer.
Cooper’s decision to adopt the 'Plan B' part-time school option
in the fall means half empty school buildings and scrambling parents
trying to not only figure out childcare options but also determine how
and if they are able to keep working, putting many parents in a
horrible dilemma of choosing to either provide for their family or
staying in a safe environment while their child is being educated
remotely.
'We know that many of the traditional public school’s remote
learning options were not effective for students. They did not succeed
in delivering a sound, basic and uniform education as required by the
North Carolina Constitution. Now we have parents that will not be able
to work and employers who will lose good employees, amid a struggling
North Carolina economy,' said Civitas President and CEO, Donald
Bryson."
5. SPEAKER TIM MOORE: N.C. Churches Denied 2nd Amendment Protections as Democrats Switch Votes to Support Governor Over Worshipers"Churches in North Carolina were denied 2nd amendment protections
by House Democrats in the General Assembly this week who switched
their votes to support the Governor’s veto after originally supporting
the protections.
House Bill 652 Freedom to Worship Safely allows concealed carry
permit holders to lawfully carry on the grounds of a place of worship
that also serves as educational property, as long as such possession
does not take place during any time of school curricular or
extracurricular activities.
Six House Democrats who originally supported religious
worshipers’ right to protect their congregations switched their votes
to instead support the Governor’s veto, even though similar
protections in Texas saved lives this year."
 WEEKLY PRAYER: LIBERTYLORD, you have blessed us with a spiritual liberty that is so wonderful and beyond description, that it can only be understood through experiencing a life-giving relationship with Christ. However, we also recognize that in your grace, you have blessed our country with a political liberty that enables us to openly proclaim the experience of a life lived in the freedom of the Gospel. In the past 100 years, we have continued to hear the cry of the martyr and believer whose lives are ravished in countries that rob them of this natural and fundamental right. We mourn with the brethren in China and other abusive countries when their churches are demolished by bulldozers, and their families are imprisoned for the Christ-focused profession of their lips. LORD, as individuals and as a nation, may we never take the inalienable right of religious freedom for granted. Right now our country has faced a rapid increase in the number of attacks made against this cherished right. We have seen groups across our public arena increase in boldness and frequency their smears against religious liberty. They claim it is bigotry, when we know it is the security of the greatest of all possible loves. Be with your people and our country as it continues to protect the constitutional right protected by our nation's Founders. Be with legislators and the Supreme Court, as they determine through their actions the protection of this particular and fundamental freedom. In particular, we lift up all those Christian leaders who attended our Carolina Values Summit. We pray that they may have left the event encouraged and equipped to join the campaign to defend religious liberty. “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery." (Galatians 5:1) "For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another." (Galatians 5:13) "Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God." (1 Peter 2:16)
Sincerely, North Carolina Values Coalition
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