NationBuilder

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.

If you enjoy receiving these emails every week, would you consider making a $100, $50, $25, $10, or even $5 donation towards our ability to create them?

1. NC VALUES: Pro-values victory: Bishop and Murphy win congressional races

We have been very busy working towards ensuring that candidates who share your values are sent to represent you in congress. For the past couple of weeks, we have orchestrated a series of digital campaigns that reached over 100,000 voters in the 9th and 3rd districts. It seems our hard work paid off, as we're happy to announce that Dan Bishop and Greg Murphy are the next congressional representatives for the 9th and 3rd districts.

Would you consider making a $100, $75, $50, or $25 donation today towards our work ensuring that candidates who share your values are elected to local, state, and national government?

2. WBTV: NC House Republicans override Gov. Cooper’s budget veto

North Carolina House Republicans called a surprise vote and overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s budget veto on Wednesday morning, Cooper said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

Governor Cooper has held up the state budget for months, insisting that he will not sign it without expanding Medicaid. Leaders of the General Assembly are opposed to expanding federal entitlements that only increase the federal budget deficit and lead to dependency. The state has been operating on last year’s budget for over 2 months, and only if the State Senate overrides the budget veto, will the State have a current budget.

3. LADY LIBERTY: Exclusive: Letter instructs #WCPSS teachers how not to violate student privacy with ‘Diversity’ lessons

"On the heels of public outcry over highly controversial assignments asking deeply personal information from students, a letter penned by two Wake County Public Schools outlining the legal parameters for what teachers can and can’t include in '“diversity' lessons was obtained exclusively by this website.

The letter opens citing 'recent media reports'” involving the Diversity Inventory worksheet at Heritage High Schools and that 'there has been some public discourse over the past week regarding an assignment at one of our schools.'”

Complaints from parents to WCPSS officials and our awareness survey campaign that directed parents to ask their teachers whether they were teaching the Social Justice Standards in their child's classroom seem to be working. The school system has acknowledged that its Diversity Inventory violated federal law and privacy rights of students.

Is this happening in your child's class? It's going on across K-12 classes, and across school districts. We need you to email and ask your child's teacher if they are teaching the Social Justice Standards—it's your right!

We then need you to visit www.ncvalues.org/social_justice and tell us what they said.

4. LADY LIBERTY: “Circle Time” at Apex Middle School has students and parents upset

"An activity at Apex Middle School which is tied to the controversial concept adopted by Wake County Schools called 'social-emotional learning' or 'SEL' has students and their parents upset.

The activity that apparently all students at this middle school are being subjected to is called 'Circle Time,' and it is slated to happen every single Monday for 30 minutes with everyone literally sitting in a circle. The students are then ‘welcomed’ to the space of the Circle then they are told to “pause, breathe and listen to the sound.'"

5. THE STEVE NOBLE SHOW: Social justice / LGBTQ training in public schools interview with NC Values

Check out this interview on the Steve Noble Show with parental rights advocate Dr. Leonard Goenaga, and two parents whose child underwent an invasion of privacy when she was asked to perform activities at a Heritage High School English class that implored her to share her sexuality, religion, disability, and socio-economic status with her teacher and the class.

WEEKLY PRAYER: FAMILY

LORD, we cry out to you as Father. You are a model of the love, mercy, and authority of the perfect parent. We thank you for modeling for us what every parent should strive for, and for creating this wonderful institution called family.

LORD, we thank you for creating us with a basic nature designed to not be alone. You made us to desire the intimacy of relationships, and it is here where we experience joys indescribable: the joys of marriage, the joys of having children; the joys of seeing our children have children. What a blessing and mercy you gave us in the family! In it we find our first teachers, our first guardians, and our first authorities.

LORD, we recognize how deeply you love your children, and how deeply it pains you when they go astray. Alongside our adoration and thanksgiving, we pray in confession--as individuals and as members of larger communities--over any sins we may have committed that undermine your beloved institution. Forgive us when we endanger your institution through selfishness and arrogance. Forgive our communities and nation for attempting to redefine some of the most basic and deepest parts of being human--being made male and female, having lifelong marriage vows and responsibilities, and having parental rights over educating one's children.

"Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." (Colossians 3:12-17)