The Beauty and Blessing of Fatherhood — Paul Lloyd

Good morning. Are you glad to be here? Are you expecting something from God today? Why don't we stand together and pray? Just lift up your heart to the Lord and express your love and your desire to hear from Him.

Father, we do just love you, Lord, today, and we thank you for your Word. We thank you for speaking to us already, and we just pray, God, that you would come by your Spirit in a special way to open our eyes to see what your heart is today.

We pray, Lord, that you would bless each one that's here. We ask you, O God, to speak to every heart. Speak to my heart, Lord. And Father, we pray that we would be changed today. We pray that we would be changed into your image and your likeness as our Father.

We ask you, Lord, to push back the enemy and every evil thing that would want to hinder your truth from going forth in power today. And Father, may you take my words and order my thoughts and wing them to many a heart, I pray.

Lord, I confess my need of you and my desire to speak the Word of God and not the words of men. So, Lord, come and thy people bless and come give thy Word success. Spirit of holiness on us descend. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right, you may be seated. Welcome, everybody. Welcome, all the visitors and regulars. As probably most of you know, today is kind of a special day. Anybody know what day it is? It's Father's Day. And I'd like to speak about fatherhood today, about the beauty and blessing of fatherhood.

Fatherhood Under Attack and Its Biblical Importance

You know, fatherhood is something that's under attack. I don't know if you notice that. Fatherhood is under attack in our world. Fatherhood is something that is being maligned, being disrespected, being minimized.

It's not that important. And especially in the media and so forth, you can criticize or let's put it this way. You're not allowed to speak bad about anything in our society except Christians, manhood, fatherhood.

It's OK. On TV and whatever, in public, you're allowed to talk bad about those things. But if you talk about anything else, you know, you're not allowed to speak bad about women. And that's good. You're not allowed to bash gay people.

That's good. We shouldn't be doing that, should we? But it's OK to make dad to be a buffoon. You know, the TV shows, when I was a boy is when they started, the dads were always a fool. He was always this guy who just really didn't have it together.

The sons and the daughters, they were cool. They had to teach dad how to do it right and so forth. But before, years before I was born, it wasn't that way. The fathers on those shows were presented as, you know, wise, wise men and good men and men that you would respect.

And so we've had this this thing going on in our society for years, 50, 60 years and probably a lot longer than that, really, where fatherhood is something that is disrespected and not honored like it should be.

So what I'd like to do today is really lift up the beauty and the blessing of fatherhood. That's what the Bible does. I looked up, I wondered how many times his father mentioned in the Bible, how many times you think it's in there?

Take a guess. Four hundred seventy three. You're close. I appreciate that you're willing to give it a shot. Eight hundred. All right. Getting closer. A thousand times fatherhood is mentioned. So so let's put that in a little context.

How many times you think forgive is mentioned in the Bible? Pretty close. Fifty six times. How about believe? How many times do you think that's mentioned? Not too close. A hundred and thirty. How about love?

How many times do you think that's in the Bible? Five hundred? Close. Three hundred. Let's see. How about pray? Three hundred times. Heaven. Six hundred times. The one word that I found that was really, really mentioned a lot was Lord.

That was eight thousand times. So I guess maybe that'll be another sermon some other day. But we're talking about fatherhood today. Fatherhood is mentioned a thousand times, whether it be God is the father or whether it's talking about earthly fathers.

So it's a major thing in the Bible. It's something mentioned over and over and over. And it's a very important thing. And I would say that the breakdown of honor and esteem for fatherhood is directly tied to the breakdown of society itself.

Do you believe that the breakdown of honor and esteem for fatherhood is directly tied to the breakdown of society itself? When a society no longer honors the father, no longer lifts up fatherhood as something great, something to be desired for and something to be pursued with all your heart as to do it well, that society is headed to the decline.

We all heard the statistics about how many, you know, the prisons are full of people who didn't have a father in their life. When, you know, when you go to a prison, if you ask somebody about that, almost all the prisoners are men that didn't have a father.

They didn't have a dad who was there to show them how to do things, to show them what life was all about, to help them to understand, you know, the way to be a man and the way to be a productive person in society.

And that's a major loss. When men fail to be responsible fathers, it puts a tremendous load on all of society. Isn't that true? I mean, we already mentioned the prisons. That's a huge load. That's billions and billions of dollars every year that have to be spent to take care of these people whose dads weren't there.

So it puts a tremendous load on all of society. Fatherhood is one of the greatest privileges of men. Do you believe that? I believe it. That's my greatest joy in life, other than knowing the Lord, is being a dad.

And our society, though, doesn't celebrate. Thank God we have a day called Father's Day, right? That's that's good. But as a whole, our society does not celebrate fatherhood. What are men honored for in our society?

What's the thing that's really lifted up? You tell me. Business. That's right. Being successful, making lots of money. What else for men? What are the things that are lifted up real high? Have what? Athletic success.

Exactly. Somebody else? Your position or your rank or your title. Exactly. And so that's the thing. What a society lifts up is what people aspire to, right? And, you know, sports is actually a good example of antifatherhood, because what we do is we pay millions of dollars to these guys who are really good at shooting a basket, let's say, through the hoop to pay them to leave their families all the time and go travel all over the country and all over the world to shoot their baskets and neglect their families, because that's exactly what happens in pro sports.

You can read all about it if you if you want. And so we lift up that we lift up the making the big bucks and we honor those people who can do certain athletic things better than everybody else. But yet we're actually setting those men up for failure in the most important thing of life, which is fatherhood.

It's pretty sad. Our society celebrates self. Not fatherhood. Fatherhood is not about self, is it? By definition, it's about me serving others, me laying down my life for these these little people that God has given me and who are growing up and getting bigger and bigger.

And so it's a very opposite thing to what our society, we lift up freedom, right? Freedom to go and do everything we want, freedom to pursue your dreams and your hobbies and your whatever you like to do.

And fatherhood kind of cramps the style of that because you can't do everything you want to do if you're a dad, if you're going to be a good dad. So I want to really lift that up today. I hope we're more excited about fatherhood after this message today.

I hope I hope everybody on this side of the room is more excited about it. And I hope everybody on this side of the room is more excited about it because fatherhood is a beautiful thing. You know, fatherhood is the attack on fatherhood.

Think about it. Is it not really an attack on God? He's the father of everything, everything good, everything. He made everything he created. He's the father. And, you know, let me just look at I looked up the word father.

I mean, we all know what father means, right? But he who begets a child. OK, that's that's what we all think of father. But it also means he who creates, invents, makes or composes anything. We talk about the father of, you know, the Bible talks about the father of musicians.

Right. Jabal was the father of such who dwell in tents and jubile of musicians. Those who found a company or found a movement of some sort or whatever, they're considered the father of that movement. So fatherhood is about.

The ones that come first, the ones who lead out, the ones who found, who make, who create. And in that respect, I'd like to also just say right now that, you know, some of you on this side, you're not fathers yet.

And maybe you won't ever be a father of a child, of a son or a daughter physically. But I believe all men are called to be fathers. Do you believe that? Every man is called to be a father in the biblical sense.

You know, it says in First John, there are little children, there are young men and then there's fathers. That's not talking about, you know, that's talking spiritual. There's little children spiritually.

Then there's young men who are strong and have overcome the wicked one. And there's fathers who have known the father. And I believe that every one of us is called to be a father like that. And so, you know, you can be a father in someone else's life, men, whether you're ever a father to a child, you know, an earthly child.

And God's called you to that. So as we go through this message, keep that in mind if you're in that place. I've known a lot of men who never had a child, but I look at them and I say, you know what? That man is a father because of the way they minister to people and the way that they bless people through their life.

So being a father is more than just having a child. Are you excited about being a dad or are you more excited about making money? Which gets you more excited? I'm excited about being a dad. Are you glad you have a dad?

As I was getting ready for this message, I was praying, you know, and I was just I was seeing everybody's faces. I was seeing all the men's faces and just, you know, it just brought me so much joy as I looked at the men's faces, you know, and I kind of went through the pews in my mind.

And I was just looking at the faces and I was praising. I was thinking, God, that's a father. That's a father. I was thanking God for the older man, you know, and his hands are kind of, you know, gnarly and rough and maybe the faces are more wrinkled and maybe the beard's gray.

And thank God, thank God for that brother. You know, there's a beautiful thing there, something that's special. And so I saw some of those older brothers and I saw some of the younger men, you know, with their little children.

And I was thanking God for you all and thanking God that you have a father heart. Do you have a desire not just to have a child, but to be a father? And so I just thank God. I prayed for praying, praying for all of you and thinking about you.

I'm so blessed and pleased that this room is filled with fathers, men who are taking seriously. The high calling that God has given us, that's such a blessing when we live in a world where so many men, they just that's an accessory.

That's just an extra thing, you know, just sort of happens in my life, but I don't really put a lot of energy into it. But no, I'm so blessed that this room, in this room, there's many, many a man that you say, you know, I want to be a good father.

I embrace fatherhood. It's something important. And that just gave me such joy. I wrote a letter recently to two young young fathers. And I just read a little bit of it because it kind of tells my heart.

Intentional Investment in Children and the Richness of Relationships

I said, dear brother, I am excited for you as you have become a father. Now, your love for your wife has resulted in a new creature of God being formed in her womb. That will be in your image and likeness, what a privilege God has given to us.

We get to be someone's hero and role model and source of information about life, purpose and eternal reality. You're going to learn so much about yourself and about God in the days, months and years to come.

Lord willing, through being a father, your children will be great mirrors to show you who you are. And how you act. There's many times where I asked, where did they learn that? Only to shortly thereafter discover that I've been doing that very same thing all along.

You're great mirrors. They learned it from me. The richness of life doesn't come from money or achievements, but it comes through the quality of the relationships that we have. God is enriching your life by adding another relationship where you will have the opportunity to make it one that's good and loving and blessed.

Choose to be such a dad that your relationships will be close and rewarding for everyone. Like you, I'm someone who enjoys teaching. That's one of the things that I've enjoyed most about being a father as well.

You get to be the one who sees the light bulb go off, go on in their hearts and minds. Sounds like an old worn cliche, but it's true that they grow up so fast. It seems slow and monotonous at first, but as life gets busier and responsibilities grow, so will your children get busier and grow.

Too many fathers wake up too late and realize that they wasted those earlier years that could have been invested more intentionally in the lives of their young children. Don't be one of them. Strive to set up regular patterns of life that will be repeated over and over each day and week, cheerful greetings, book readings together, dates, songs, family devotions, bedtime blessings, loving interactions with your wife, the small things that are done on a regular basis add up to big outcomes over time.

I know you'd love to be a student, and this is an area worthy of a lifelong pursuit of your master's degree in, like anything else in life, to become knowledgeable and skilled and being a good dad takes lots of hard work and purpose and vision.

Go for it. Go for it. I wrote a little bit more about stop with that. It's so sad, isn't it, that so many of us spend our life for that which satisfy if not. You know, God was so kind of lamenting that in there in Isaiah.

Why do you spend your labor for that which is not satisfied? And recently I came across this study. It was done at Harvard University. It's called the Grant Study. Anybody ever hear that? Seventy five years.

This study took place over seventy five years. Somebody came up with the idea back in 1940. This wouldn't it be great to study men? Let's take men that are twenty years old in Harvard University right now.

There was five hundred of them who agreed to do this study. And they said, we are going to study their entire life. We're going to measure their bodies. We're going to write down everything about their eye colors and their hair color and their this, their that, just all these crazy things.

They wrote down everything they could about these men. And they said, we want to find out what makes for a rich, satisfying life. So for seventy five years and twenty million dollars later, can you guess what they came up with?

What's that? No, they didn't come up with nothing. They came up with what we really know inside all along, the thing that makes for a rich, a healthy and a satisfying life. And again, this is a worldly study, so you don't give it so much credit for what it is, but it is the richness of the relationships in your life.

As they studied these men over seventy five years, that's what they discovered. It says, listen to what the people said. When all is said and done, a man's relationship with his father very significantly predicted his overall life satisfaction at age seventy five.

In other words, the young guys at twenty who said, you know what? I got a good relationship with my dad. You know, we get along well and I appreciate him. He's a good father. At seventy five, those were the people.

Oh, not every, you know, not perfectly so, but for the most part, those were the people who at seventy five said, you know what? I've had I've had a really blessed life. My life is good. I'm a blessed person.

And all those years later, as we shared that last night, as I shared that my one daughter, she said, well, that sounds like a verse in the Bible. I said, really, which one do you think? I said, well, honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord giveth you and that you may things may go well for you.

And it said in this study, men with poor fathering were much more likely to have poor marriages. I mean, some of those things are kind of, you know, you don't need to spend twenty million dollars on that.

Right. But but it's interesting that that's what the world came up with after all this time. And listen to this one. Men who who lacked a positive relationship with their father were much more likely to call themselves pessimists.

They're much more likely to say, yeah, you know, I'm a pessimist. I just think that the bad things are going to happen, you know, and everything's you know, I don't have a positive outlook on life. And it said they were also too much more likely to report having trouble letting others get close to them.

Men who had did not have a positive relationship with their dad. So this is such a huge thing. They didn't study women in this. This was just men, but I'm sure it'd be similar. And listen to what the one of the conclusions was.

It said wealth, fame, career success won't bring health or happiness. It was it's the work that men put into maintaining connections with other human beings, their family and friends. That brings a man to the end of his life saying, I've had a good and successful life.

Now, that's in the earth. You know, a lot of those men probably were going to die and go to hell. But it's a godly principle, isn't it? Isn't that God's will for every man? It is. And when they say maintaining connections, they're not talking about Facebook.

Those connections do not enrich your life. I'm just going to say it again. I'm not saying there's no value in it, but those are not the connections they're talking about. They're talking about real people relating personally and maintaining good connections with them.

So so after all that study, that's what these worldly people came up with. It's the richness of the relationships in your life. Do you love the people that you know, do you love your wife? Do you love your children?

Do you love your parents? And they cause people actually even to live longer. What are the things that most people think of today when they think I want to be healthy, live a healthy life so I can live longer?

What are the things that people think of? You name it. Exercise and eating right. Those are the ones I came up with. Right. And, you know, there's some value in both of those. But how many people think of, you know, are on this health, health nut thing that I got to have good relationships?

When in reality, it's the good relationships they found in this study that made people live longer. That's right. So if you're going to focus on one thing, choose that one. And if you need to want to get some exercise and eat right, that's good, too.

But but it's actually the relationships. That's so it was so interesting to me because I'm kind of into health, healthy things. And so anyway, that's a little side thing. That's just a free free extra there.

But there's a lot more about that study that was very interesting. But I want to say that being a father is the most is the most rewarding thing in my life. Usually when when people ask us who we are, what we do, and we're thinking of our identity, normally, what do we say about our job?

But is that really should that be our highest point of identity? Other than first of all, obviously, that I'm a Christian, that's our number one. But isn't isn't fatherhood a better thing? You know, a more maybe we should look that one up a little more when somebody asks us, what do you do?

I'm a father. I'm a dad. Oh, really? OK. And yeah, I have a job to, you know, help me be a dad and help me be a good dad. That's part of my life. But my first thing is I'm a dad. That's the biggest thing in my life.

That's the most important thing that I could give my life for other than, you know, serving the Lord and being being Christian. I think that's a good way to think. Psalm 127 says, happy is the man that has his quiver full of children.

I'm happy. I think mine's full and I feel so blessed. The world looks at you like you're crazy. When I tell some of my customers and things, they ask how many children I have and their jaws drop and they they're like.

Especially, well, yeah, even the men or the women, they all they both think like, man, you're crazy. That's insane. I'm crazy blessed. I'm crazy blessed. Let's think about this manhood, fatherhood. Does God have a standard for that?

What would it be? I thought about it. You know, I thought about God himself. He is the father. I mean, isn't that where we get our model, our role model as dads? And so I kind of like to look at that.

Joe kind of alluded to that in his, you know, in his worship. This is Father's Day. And he kind of was I noticed he was picking songs. I don't know if he did that on purpose or not, but just picking songs to honor the father.

And, you know, shouldn't we honor him first of all today? He's the greatest daddy, the greatest father there ever will be. And I think he's I think he'd appreciate that. Of course, Jesus is our example.

But, you know, Father God, the the the father, that's the name he chose for himself. Above every other name he could have chosen to be identified, he said, I'm father, I'm father. And so what is a dad like?

What is a father like? What does a father do? Well, I thought of a few things. Let's just think about it. We want to lift up today godly fatherhood. A dad, he's a giver, not a taker. Amen. You know, a lot of fathers over the ages have used their position that God gave us as being the head of the house to do what take and get the best for me, get what I want, use the people that I can use.

That's not biblical fatherhood. No, God's a giver. He's a giver for God so loved the world that gave every good and perfect gift comes from who? The father coming down from the father of lights. And, you know, if you if you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more so your heavenly father give good things to them that ask.

One of the greatest joys we have is being a father is giving. How many of you love to give a gift to your child? Isn't that a blessing? When dad gives something, it means something. It does. So God has called us to be givers.

Fatherhood as Encouragement, Reward, and Leadership

Another thing I thought of is encourager and rewarder. You know, Jesus knew that his father loved him, didn't he? But, you know, the father chose two times to say with a voice in front of everybody around Jesus and Jesus himself, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.

He did at the beginning of Jesus ministry and he did it in the middle or maybe more towards the end. He wanted his son to know this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. And I want to encourage us in that, you know, dads and moms, let's let's be encouragers.

That goes so far. We're going to talk a little bit later about correcting and things like that. That's part of being a dad, too. But the encouraging comes first and comes. It should come a lot more than the other.

We if we if we're always correcting that we're in a we're in a bad mode, aren't we? We're in a wrong rut. Something that really blessed me to my thinking was when someone mentioned several years ago, they said we should we should catch our children doing something right and bless them for it.

You know, we started to do that a lot more seriously after we heard that and we actually got a book that we called The Blessing Book. And we write down whenever we catch them doing something good, we write it in The Blessing Book and then on their birthday every year, then we pull out The Blessing Book.

And it's such a blessing to read. You know, he made this choice. He blessed his little sister, you know, by doing this or he chose to, you know, go out and cut the grass when nobody asked him or this, you know, just whatever it might be.

And I want to encourage us all. You don't necessarily have to do that, but I think that's a great thing to do. Catch them doing something good and bless them. You want to talk about motivation to do more good things that'll motivate way better than saying, why didn't you cut the grass without me asking you?

You know what I mean? That just doesn't inspire people, does it? So but no, God is an encourager and he's a rewarder. It says in the Bible over and over, he is a rewarder of them who diligently seek him.

When you fast, you know, do it in secret that your father who sees in secret may reward you openly. God is a rewarder. So one of the one of the great blessings and one of the attributes of fatherhood is being a rewarder, reward our children.

And amen, some of you, I'm sure, could share a lot of things about this. How about being a leader? Fatherhood is being a leader. By example, I read this book, this book about John Patton or Peyton missionary.

Anybody ever read that? This guy was a missionary to the headhunters down in Papua New Guinea. What is Papua New Guinea now? It's called something else back then. And he grew up, you know, this guy didn't just come out of nowhere.

Like he didn't just appear to be this guy who was fearless to go right in the middle of the headhunters. And when the first two missionaries that were sent down with, they were killed, cooked and eaten in one day upon their arrival.

The first two missionaries that went down there and this guy back in England said, God has a claim on those islands because the martyr's blood has been shed. Those islands are for God. And he said and he purposed, I'm going to be someone who goes back there.

And he went to that very same area and led thousands of them to the Lord. But how did this guy, where'd this guy come from? How could a man be, how could a man become like that to have such courage in our day to day?

That would be the equivalent of a guy, let's say, going to going into right into the middle of ISIS. Let's say, you know, out in the Middle East, maybe something like that where it's like everybody looks on and goes, you know, he's not going to make it back.

He's not going to survive. That's what they said to him. They said, you're going to die. And he said, well, I'm willing to die. But look at his home life. They lived in this little cottage. His dad was poor.

His dad made socks for his living. And he learned how to do that. They did it in their own house. They had a small house and they had a little closet that was the prayer room. Listen to what he wrote about this experience as a man.

He said the closet was a very small apartment. He twixt the other two, having room only for a bed, a little table and a chair with a small window shedding a little bit of light on the scene. This was the sanctuary of that cottage home.

Did their daily and oftentimes a day generally after each meal, we saw our father retire and shut to the door, quote unquote. And we children got to understand by a sort of spiritual instinct, for the thing was too sacred to be talked about, that prayers were being poured out there for us as of old by the high priests within the veil of the most holy place.

We occasionally heard the pathetic echoes of a trembling voice pleading as if for life, and we learned to slip out and in past that door on tiptoe not to disturb the holy colloquy. The outside world might not know, but we knew whence came that happy light as of a newborn smile that always was dawning on my father's face.

It was a reflection from the divine presence in the consciousness of which he lived never in temple or cathedral on mountain or in Glen. Can I hope to feel that the Lord God is more near, more visibly walking and talking with men than under that humble cottage roof of thatch and oaken waddles?

And listen to this here, though everything else in religion were by some unthinkable catastrophe to be swept out of memory or blotted from my understanding, my soul would wander back to those early scenes and shut itself up once again in that sanctuary closet.

And hearing still the echoes of those cries to God would hurl back all doubt with the victorious appeal. He walked with God. Why may not I? You know, he said, if everything else was stripped away from me and just a spirit of unbelief would come upon me and I would be questioning the very existence of God, he said, no, I would have to go back to them.

And I would say, no, there must there is a God, because my dad walked with him. What a testimony that's leadership, isn't it? That's part of what produced that fearless young man who was willing to risk his life.

He's a leader by example. You know, we think of and many of us have this verse on our on our house somewhere. How many of you have the verse of Joshua? As for me in my house, we will serve the Lord somewhere on your house.

How many of you? Lots of us, right? Amen. That's a great verse. Well, Joshua was a man who spoke that and he fulfilled that. It was true. He and his house did serve the Lord. But, you know, not everybody who says that that's what happens, is it?

Not everybody that says that that happens. So why did Josh, why did that happen with Joshua? I was thinking about that yesterday and just I came to that verse. I wanted to find it in the Bible. It's where is that?

It's back back in Exodus 33. And see, Moses and Joshua used to go into the tabernacle together to hear from God. And it says here that let me let me read that Exodus thirty three eleven. It came to pass as Moses entered the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle.

And the Lord talked with Moses and all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door. And all the people rose up and worshiped every man in his tent door. That's quite a scene. And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend.

And he turned again unto the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of none, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle. I think there's a connection there. He stayed in that tabernacle. Seeking the face of God, he loved to be there.

And he was this as he was a young man, he was actually 40. So God says that's young, that makes me feel pretty good, not too far away from that. But. I believe he could say, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord with authority because his house knew that he really did serve the Lord.

He was a man who heard God's voice. And we don't have you don't have to stay in prayer, you know, in your closet eight hours a day, you know, to do that. But it's rather it's a it's a habit of life. We go to God regularly, whether it's five minutes or 10 or 20, you know, we go to God with our problems.

We go to God with our children's needs. So we're a leader. Our father's a leader and first and foremost, a spiritual leader. The father's connected to God. Here's God's voice. I was so blessed by hearing the testimony of my friend.

His wife was at our picnic on Friday night. This was the man that I've told about before, who was my self-appointed accountability partner back when I was a new Christian. He like came and said, I'm going to be your accountability partner about this, this lust problem in your life.

And OK, you know, I was he did it in a way that was, you know, not a turnoff to me, but he was that man. And he was a hippie. Him and his wife, they didn't know anything. She was telling me she was from New York City.

She didn't know how to cook. She didn't know how to grow anything in the garden. She didn't know anything. Her words was, I didn't know anything about anything except city stuff. And so they were in Colorado now, these hippies who got saved and trying to find their way.

And Ron is his name. And one of the things that really impressed me about Ron was that he would, he would hear God's voice. He would he knew how to pray. He taught his boys that. And I stayed with him a few times and he always he would have family devotions before the boys went off to school.

And it was you know, he was real. He was for real. He'd share what God was speaking to him and he teaches boys that. But anyway, his boys now are 30, I think she said 37, 35 or 37. Maybe maybe they're both of that, the two boys.

So they're getting they're getting older now. And what blessed me was, you know, Ron, OK, like I said, he's this hippie who didn't have a lot of education. He dropped out of high school early and he was on drugs and messed up.

But he raised his boys in a godly way, his boys, then they went to school, they went to college, they got their degrees and whatever it was. And they're doing these big things, you know, making computer programs for cities and all kinds of stuff.