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. YOU’RE INVITED: 🎉 Meet Rosaria
We wanted to invite you to meet Rosaria at our upcoming Celebration of Carolina Values event on October 17th in Raleigh.
With September upon us, we are rapidly drawing closer to our Celebration of Carolina Values event. This important event is a time where our friends gather together to celebrate the pro-values victories of the past, and inspire the pro-values victories of the future.
We would be honored to have you be part of this wonderful evening, and we wanted to introduce you to this year’s incredible speaker, Rosaria Butterfield.
Read more: https://ncvalues.org/event/celebration-of-carolina-values-raleigh/
2. NC VALUES: Good news: it passed
Good news: the General Assembly has kept their promise to the 58,400 families waitlisted in the Opportunity Scholarship! On Monday, the Senate passed HB10, a measure that allocates funding to clear the Opportunity Scholarship waitlist, and then on Thursday the House joined them. The bill applies to students who applied for the Scholarship by March 1, 2024, and are enrolled by October 1, 2024. If tuition has been paid, parents will be reimbursed up to the scholarship amount.
Read more: https://ncvalues.org/good-news-it-passed/
3. CAROLINA JOURNAL: After House vote, NC is on the cusp of universal school choice
“The North Carolina House voted Wednesday to pass a bill that will clear the waitlist for the state’s voucher program and bring true universal school choice to the state for the first time.
The measure, House Bill 10, has one hurdle remaining: A likely veto from Gov. Roy Cooper.
The bill passed the House in a 67-43 vote with the support of all Republicans who were present on the floor plus three Democrats: Reps. Carla Cunningham of Mecklenburg County, Shelly Willingham of Edgecombe County, and Michael Wray of Northampton County. Both the House and Senate would need a three-fifths majority vote to overcome a Cooper veto.”
Read more: https://www.carolinajournal.com/after-house-vote-nc-is-on-the-cusp-of-universal-school-choice/
4. NC VALUES: Additional endorsements for 2024 General Election
Earlier this week we released additional endorsements for the 2024 election. Interested in how candidates in your federal, state-wide, and local races performed? Check out this press release, and our endorsements page for a list of who we endorsed. You can also check out our NC Values Voter Toolkit for important upcoming election dates, tools, and information.
Read more: https://ncvalues.org/pr-nc-values-releases-additional-endorsements-for-2024-elections/
5. DAILY SIGNAL: Late-Term Abortion: 5 Facts Harris, Liberal Media Want to Conceal
“Predictably, the issue of abortion was one of the first to come up during Tuesday night’s presidential debate on ABC.
And predictably, both the moderators and Vice President Kamala Harris wouldn’t let pesky facts get in the way of their shared agenda.
Harris refused to identify a single limit on abortion that she would support. And what she did say was sometimes outright false. She implied, for instance, that pregnant women can’t receive miscarriage care in pro-life states. That’s not true.”
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)
Amen
NC Values