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.
We would be very grateful if you could make a donation of $100, $50, $25, or $10 today towards our work producing these Friday Fives and fighting for your values on the public square!
1. NAMB: ⛪️ The Education Reformation
In many counties across NC—especially the rural ones—parents face a lack of alternatives to public school. With the state’s commitment to making school choice possible for families across North Carolina, there’s a great need to see churches capitalize on the opportunity by starting their own Christian private schools.
Perhaps you may be in such a position, or know a pastor who would benefit from starting a school at their church. If so, we wanted to share with you a great resource put together by the North American Mission Board, entitled “The Education Reformation: Why Your Church Should Start a Christian School.”
Read more: https://ncvalues.org/education-reformation/
2. HERITAGE: The Education Freedom Report Card
We wanted to share with you a great resource from the Heritage Foundation: The Education Freedom Report Card. It informs parents of how their state ranks in empowering parents and enabling school choice.
North Carolina came in 16th. However, once the full funding for the Opportunity Scholarship program (which passed initial votes in the General Assembly last week) is signed into law and goes into effect, the State’s ranking should go up quite a bit.
“In 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill wrote to his Australian counterpart, Robert Menzies, that ‘success always demands a greater effort.’ America is—mercifully—not engaged in a global conflict, but the country remains absorbed in a longstanding struggle to prepare the next generation to be informed, engaged citizens. K–12 students in the U.S. have chronically low reading and math scores and whistleblowers continue to uncover ideological attempts among educators and interest groups, such as unions, to discredit America’s founding ideals of freedom and equality under the law. The longstanding achievement gap between students at the top and bottom of the income distribution remains a significant indicator of the U.S. Department of Education’s failure to meet the needs of a diverse student body nationwide.
Fortunately, state officials across the country are creating, sharpening, and expanding innovative options for elementary and secondary school students and their families.”
Read more: https://www.heritage.org/educationreportcard/index.html
3. VOTE: Absentee ballots will be arriving soon
Today marks the deadline for counties to distribute absentee ballots to military and overseas citizen voters who have requested them.
“A spokesman for the North Carolina State Election Board (NCSBE) told Carolina Journal in an email Tuesday that everything has been going as planned as the new deadline of Friday, Sept. 20, is quickly approaching for the state’s 100 counties to mail out absentee ballots to eligible military and overseas citizens who requested them. The new schedule ensures that North Carolina will meet the federal law requirement to distribute ballots to voters under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) by the 45th day before the election on Sept. 21.”
Absentee ballots will be distributed to all other voters on September 24th.
If you are one of the more than 166,000 voters who have requested absentee ballots, we wanted to keep you updated about your incoming mailer. We also invite you to check out a number of resources we put together that help you to find which candidates share your values: https://ncvalues.org/vote/
4. NC VALUES:🏡 Help us write our neighbors
Did you know that 1 in 3 Christians don’t vote?
That’s about 25 million people!
For months, our grassroots team has been busy across the state hosting “Write Now” campaigns to try and change that awful statistic.
In cities like Statesville, Charlotte, Kannapolis, Rocky Mount, and more, our grassroots coordinators and supporters have been meeting in homes and churches to reach out to neighbors and encourage them to vote. These “Write Now” writing events equip individuals to send personalized hand written notes to North Carolina Christians unlikely to vote in the upcoming election.
We invite you to join us for these important get-out-the vote events!
Read more: https://ncvalues.org/writing-our-neighbors/
5. YOU’RE INVITED: Arise from Ash: Purpose Birthed from Pain, featuring Ashley Shuell
We wanted to invite you to a special event sponsored by Raleigh 40 Days for Life, St. Joseph’s, and Our Lady of Lourdes, featuring Ashley Shuell:
“Looking for love in all the wrong places, wounded and insecure, Ashley made a mistake in her choices. In paralyzing fear, she succumbed to the lie that abortion was her only option. That encounter, and the pain that came with it, has driven her to become a voice for the unborn and the mothers who have lost them. Listen as she tells her anointed testimony, in her own words and with her own voice, amplifying God’s faithful and redemptive love that healed her broken heart and birthed purpose from her pain.”
The event will be on Thursday, October 3rd, from 7-8:15pm, and located at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church’s Fallon Center (2710 Overbrook Drive, Raleigh NC).
We hope you consider joining them and hearing Ashley’s amazing story!
weekly prayer: freedom
LORD, 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.
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.
“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)
Amen
Tami & Team
NC Values
