The following articles have been selected because they are informative, instructive, entertaining, or simply interesting. Articles appearing in Your Friday Five do not represent an endorsement.
Does technology change church forever?
Will the Church’s Digital Wave Continue after the Coronavirus? by Trevin Wax
Even as technology makes communication easier, it can make community harder. For all the advances we’ve made in finding new and better ways to communicate, we cannot replicate flesh-and-blood community online. If anything, watching a livestream of a worship service online only reminds me of how insufficient technology is. A FaceTime call with my brother in Korea makes me want more and more to see him in person.
A little history about the well-known charity.
World Vision’s Forgotten Founder, by David R. Swartz
With businesslike efficiency, ushers collected the pledges, moved the crowd out, and brought in a new one. Then Pierce gave the presentation all over again.
The money collected in Chicago went to a brand-new organization called World Vision. Like Billy Graham and growing evangelical institutions such as Youth for Christ and Christianity Today in the 1950s, World Vision nurtured a strong dedication to spiritual revival and a strong opposition to communism. What made it different was its emphasis on humanitarian relief. But this too was attractive to many American Christians, who propelled World Vision to prominence. The ministry grew from 240 sponsorships of children in 1954 to 1 million in 1990 and 3.5 million by 2015.
Have some states gone too far coronavirus lockdowns?
Easter Churchgoers Defy KY In-Person Ban, Sue Governor, by Stephanie Martin
The three plaintiffs say Kentucky isn’t enforcing similar orders at stores, factories, and other sites “where far more people come into closer contact with less oversight” than at churches. Because the quarantine can’t be appealed, plaintiffs also say they’re being deprived of due process. The purpose of the lawsuit, according to court documents, is to have Kentucky’s pandemic-related orders deemed unconstitutional and to prohibit their enforcement.
As if a worldwide pandemic isn’t enough…
New fires fanned by strong winds flare near Chernobyl in Ukraine, Reuters
The state emergency service said three new fires had broken out but were “not large-scale and not threatening”.
“The radioactive background in Kiev and the Kiev region is within normal limits,” Volodymyr Demchuk, director of the Emergency Response Department, said in a video statement.
He said more than 1,000 people were involved in trying to extinguish the fires.
America isn’t the only country with political back-and-forth.
Israel’s factions fail again to form government, raising possibility of fourth election, Washington Post
While the result was the same as previous missed deadlines, the issues in dispute have been very different in the weeks since Gantz stunned the country by dropping his year-long quest to oust Netanyahu and agreed, in principle, to serve with him in an emergency unity government to fight the pandemic.
The move split Gantz’s Blue and White party, a coalition of factions assembled at the start of this endless political season with the express goal of ending Netanyahu’s decade-long grip on Israel’s top job.