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None of our ministries have been altered more significantly during covid19 than New City Kids. I'm so proud of our New City Kids staff, for all the content they created for children in weekly home church lessons, virtual VBS, and Youtube stories and songs. This is definitely not what they had in mind when thinking about our spring and summer ministry, but they've adapted wonderfully and continue to do so as we look ahead to the fall.

I go under the knife again this week for my sixth eye surgery. At least, I think it's the sixth; to be honest, I've kind of lost count. Truth be told, I'm not too worried about it -- I am an old pro, after all. But those first few surgeries were "moments of deep unrest" for me, to borrow a phrase from the 19th century song writer, George Matheson. Matheson was well acquainted with moments of deep unrest, and I find myself returning to a prayer of his when I can't quite figure out what to pray

I was reading a book recently that makes that case that traditional cultures have always believed that too high a view of yourself is the real root cause of most evil in the world. Crime, violence and abuse all stem from people having too high a view of themselves. So what is the remedy? You clamp down. You modify external behavior. You tell people they’re bad.

My dad turns 81 today. Sadly, Parkinson’s Disease has robbed much of his latter years of what he and my mom hoped they would be. And yet, my dad has described this terrible disease as a kind of “severe mercy” for him. For the first 55 years of his life, my dad saw little need for God, at least not a personal God. We were connected to a church community, but that was more tied to our Italian and Irish heritage than a personal faith in Jesus. My dad saw himself as a self-made man: business owner, happily married (on the second try), a good father, a marine. This poor kid from Boston had carved out for himself a piece of suburbia in the Midwest. He had the life he wanted.

In 1 Corinthians 4:6 Paul says, I don't want you to be "puffed up." Some translations say, “I don’t want you to be proud. I don’t want you to be arrogant.” But here Paul doesn’t use the normal for hubris, or pride. The Greek word is physioo. It’s an unusual word. Paul uses it 6 times here in 1 Corinthians, and then once in Colossians; and then it’s not found anywhere else in the Bible, which leads the commentators to think this is a special theme of Paul.

On Sunday we continued our Love series, meditating on Paul's phrase, "Love is kind" (1 Corinthians 13:4). We may tend to think of kindness as a slender virtue (nice and all, but not that big a deal). However, not only does Paul mention kindness as an attribute of love, it is also a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). This means that kindness is not an optional add-on to our lives, but rather is essential to Christian maturity. What follows below is not so much a coherent essay as much as mashup of a few extra thoughts on kindness.

Way back in March (which seems like a decade ago), Paige and I packed up the kids and made the long 12 hour trek to see my parents. I would not describe my family as particularly "good travelers." Potty stops abound (and seemingly never in any syncronized fashion); we bicker constantly about food stops; and the litany of "I'm bored" registering from the backseat rivals any Gregorian chant both in repetition and volume. But none of those things are my chief concern as we set out on the journey. Paige and I always begin the time by talking to the kids about patience. Particularly being patient with one another.

The extraordinary outpouring of grief, protest and anger over the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd have captured the attention of us all. We hope that you have had a chance to read the statement from our denominational leaders that we sent to you last week. This is a moment in which, as Christians, we can affirm our faith, stand shoulder to shoulder with others who contend for the truth, weep with those who weep, and work toward real and lasting change in our city and in our own lives.