My Sean is Graduating!!! AAAGGGHHHHH

Okay - For those who may think this entry is a bit selfish I have one thing to say to you...YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY CORRECT! In the 16 years I've been involved in youth ministry I have heard many reactions by parents concerning their kid's departure for college. Everything from joy to sorrow with many combinations thereof are the typical responses I hear from Mom's and Dads each year. With this in mind I was nervous and curious to see how I would react to Sean's departure (which, by the way, is August 21st at 6:00 AM in the morning, sniff sniff).

My awareness that his presence in our house was coming to a close was made clear in December of 2006, his junior year at about 11:30 PM on a school night. First, let me set this up for you. For those who don't know, Sean is a putzer, (pronounced "putt-zer" in our family) meaning he can make the 5 minute task of getting ready for bed (wash face, brush teeth, floss, pajamas, etc.) last for 45 minutes. In my ongoing mission of making sure he gets enough sleep I would constantly hound Sean to "hurry up and get to bed, what's taking you so long?" It was very typical for him to hover in the darkened doorway of our bedroom (long after everyone had already gone to bed) asking the whereabouts of his favorite socks, shirt, or shoes for the next day. On this particular night I heard him "putzing" around in the hallway outside our bedroom and then open the door to our room and ask a question...I felt mt usual response rise in my throat when I suddenly heard a "voice" share with me that "he won't be in your doorway much longer..." This reality became so clear to me that I immediately got up to help him find what he was looking for and get him to bed. Ever since that night I have had an almost constant desire to take advantage of every opportunity to "be present" with him. Don't get me wrong now, this isn't supposed to be a warm fuzzy fairy tale (I have had opportunities to share many more words of wisdom since then and will have more I'm sure), but I was certainly blessed at that moment to gain insight into what a gift my son has been to me and Jen and what a great brother he has been to Nate and Sarah.

Can we be honest for a minute? The kid is more handsome than me (is it okay for a Dad to use the word "gorgeous" when describing one of his sons?) a better student than I was (which admittedly I didn't set very high standards back then), has better social connections, and demonstrates more positive influence in his circle of friends than I ever did. Did I mention he was Captain of the lacrosse team for 2 years, a Region 2 First Team Selection for 2 years, and All State honorable mention lacrosse player, recruited to play Division 1 lacrosse? (sorry to brag, but hey, it's my blog, okay?)

Now some of you may be saying to yourself "Ron, what about Sarah and Nate?" Their day is coming and don't worry, they get the same love from Dad right now, (at the pace Nate is on, he will be a better lacrosse playerand a better student than Sean, just ask Sean). I never hesitate to tell others that Sarah is the smartest one in the family and is pretty skilled at saxaphone, viola, and soccer as well. But like I said, their day is coming.

So as of today (the day before he walks across the graduation stage), we have about 80 days until he leaves our house for the next chapter in his life and I am taking advantage of every opportunity to be "with him."

If this entry hasn't bored you to death already I decided to include a video/picture history of Sean for your viewing pleasure. This actually was an excerpt from a DVD I made for Jennie for Christmas which had all of our kids in it. Enjoy!

Ron

Memorial Day 2008

Hey All - I hope everyone has big plans for the Memorial Day weekend! Traditionally we hook up with my family for a Blue Family Reunion on Memorial Day Weekend. Our family is joined by my three brother's families (Dave, Dan, and Brian) as well as a few cousins, aunts, grandmas, etc. for a weekend of games, visiting, camping out (too many people of the house so we sleep in the pop-up camper outside), big campfire and my parents famous barbecue chicken (the recipe for the sauce comes from the old Ohio State Fair recipe from the 50's. It is delicicous). We do goofy games, ride a go-cart, eat too much and visit with everybody. A good time had by all! I hope everyone enjoys their weekend, really nice weather ahead from what I hear!

Let me take a few lines of space to ask everyone reading this to not forget to stop and honor all of the brave men and women in our military who died in defense of our nations freedom! I have a special place in my heart for those folks after having spent almost 9 years in the military. As a college student I was a member of a Military Police National Guard Unit in Toledo Ohio. After graduation from U.T. Jen and I went active duty Army where I attended flight school to be come a helicopter pilot. I flew UH-1H "Hueys" for 4 years and came out of the Army as a Captain (right after Sean was born). Thanks and God Bless!

Why The Youth Group Takes May Off

If you have ever noticed that the Heartland youth group seems to be dormant in the month of May then you are very observant. Keep reading and I'll share our thinking behind this. This past May 1st I celebrated my 7 year anniversary as Heartland's youth pastor. I was involved with the youth ministry as a volunteer for 2-3 years before that (back when the church started in '97). In those 9-10 years we have experimented with doing different activites throughout the month of May and have found that it tends to be a very busy month for various reasons. The second weekend of May is always Mother's Day and we typically don't ever want to compete with a "family oriented" holiday because we want kids to spend time with their Moms. The other holiday in May is Memorial Day. I have found that many families travel or have family visiting for the weekend and like Mother's Day we don't want to compete with a family type holiday. We found this out one year when we were meeting at A.I. Root for our Sunday programs and we decided to have our own youth cook-out. We planned to cook burgers, dogs and have a picnic feast for the kids. We got all the supplies, secured a grill, planned games and got ready for a crowd. We were typically drawing 40-60 kids a night so we were expecting at least that many if not more! When 6:00 PM rolled around we had 2-3 kids show up...at 6:30 we had 6-7 kids there plus many of our adult youth workers, (who incidentally cleared their calendar for the pic nic that night). For a couple of years after that we alos noticed that attendance dropped off as the nice weather invaded Northeast Ohio. Add to the equation that Seniors are ready to split and their families are getting prepped for graduation activities and you have a very busy month!!! This "senior thing" has really hit home for me this year as my own son Sean is getting ready to graduate and is also finishing up his senior season in lacrosse. Sooooo, based on these experiences we decided to roll with the culture and focus our efforts on a series that goes from the middle of April to the first weekend of May. Last year we did our famous "Best Sex Ever" series for the Senior High and a series for the Junior High called "Exposed." Both series focused on dating relationships, purity, and how to live in a culture that is saturated with sex. This year we wrote our own series called "Keep It Clean" which I addressed in my first blog entry. We save the last night of the year for an extra fun event - this year we did a video scavenger hunt (check out Wil singing to the video camer) and pig out on pizza. At the end of this event we say goodbye, enjoy May and we'll see you in the summer for some awesome outdoor events.

An added benefit to taking off May is that it allows me to give our hardworking youth workers a little time off to rest and recuperate with their families (hey - spending 30 Sunday nights with someone else's kids is exhausting - just ask my wife!).

In any event, I though I'd give you a little history of how we have done things in the Heartland youth ministry over the years. It's probably different at other churches or in other towns, but for our church at this in its life this seems to work the best for us. When the building goes up we will have to rethink how we can best do ministry to fit into the culture and ministry needs of our kids.

Enjoy your May! We'll see you around Sunday mornings.

Where did Ron's hair go?

If you are new to Heartland and don't know the story behind my hairless head then this blog's for you. In 2006 we were doing our second annual dessert auction to help raise money for the kids to go to workcamp. We had done a great job and were at the very end of the auction when I was getting ready to thank everyone for their help. As I began to speak Chuck Stiver (our incredible auctioneer) interupted me and said we had one more item to auction off. I looked over to the dessert table and was a little confused when I didn't see any more items to auction off. Chuck continued and said that some people in the audience had "conspired" to raise money to shave my head! I was a little hesitant but when a small roar of approval erupted from the audience I found it very difficult to "just say no" (I think that's called peer pressure). Chuck started the bidding and before I knew it the price was over $300!!! The bidding ended at around $350 and I soon found myself making plans to go to the Clardy's for the students to shave my head. And now you know the rest of the story...

Chronicles of Narnia:Prince Caspian

Hey parents...a movie in the Chronicles of Narnia series is coming out this week (May 16th). It's called "Chronicles of Narnia:Prince Caspian." I am ashamed to say that I have not read the Chronicles series and therefore am not an expert on the matter...I tried to read the series to my kids when they were a lot younger but I apparently wasn't a very engaging speaker...(sigh). If you would like some information about the movie go the Plugged In Online Website to read about Prince Caspian. They will include information on the positive elements, spiritual content, sexual content, violent content, crude or profane language, drug and alcohol content and other negative elements which may exist in the movie. Basically they provide a list of things you may want to know about the movie before you let your kids go see it. One of the reasons I like the site is because they objectively list the various elements without making a judgement call on whether your kid should go...in other words they make you make the decision. The review won't come out until after the movie, typically within the first day or so of release. I hope you enjoy the site.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Thought I'd take a moment and wish all the Moms a Happy Mother's Day! It just so happens that I was born on Mother's Day in 1963 (what an awesome present, eh?). It'll be a fun day at the Blue household. Typically we like to go to Hinckley Park and hang out but this year we have different plans. No youth in the evening makes for a "free" night for our family! Thought I'd enclose a picture of my mother just so eveyone knows I have one. For the record, she really likes me! (This was 1980...she and I were in the community drama team's rendition of "Music Man." She was one of the singer ladies and I was the Sheriff. Oh what a memorable performance!

Behind the Scenes of the "Keep It Clean" Series...

On April 27th we finished a 4 week series called Keep It Clean. This series was a collabrative effort from the volunteer staff of the Heartland Youth Program. We began planning this series right after Christmas and eventually came up with a list of items we felt were necessary to address with the kids. The three basic themes we wanted to address included 1.) Honest Talk About Dating Relationships, 2.) Cyberspace Integrity, and 3.) Guy Stuff/Gurl Stuff.

Honest Talk About Dating Relationships - In this series we wanted to explore the heathly ways guys and girls should interact with each other as they begin the "dating" process...oh yeah - don't use the word "dating" with teenagers. "Dating" is what you and I did as teenagers, today they don't use that word (Try..."seeing each other"..."talking"..."hanging out with"...etc.). The main teaching points on this night were 1. Know your standards, 2. Make your standards known 3. Choose wisely, 4. Avoid sexual situations, and 5. Make Christ your most important relationship. The "popular saying" the kids took away with them was under the first and second teaching point about standards. They include Keep the Lights On, Keep Your Clothes On, Stay Upright, and Don't Be Alone. Pretty basic ideas but if you apply them it would be very difficult to get into "trouble" with the opposite sex." For the Senior High group we added a Rob Bell video called "Flame" where he talks about three types of love..."-riyah", "-ahava" and "-dode." These ancient Hebrew words describe a component of love which when all combined result in a powerful and fulfilling love which comes closer to the type of "love" God intended for us to experience with our spouses. We received a lot of positive feedback from the kids and adults who attended this event.

Cyberspace Integrity - In this message we focused on the many ways we can get into trouble on the internet (to include cell phone usage, texting, surfing, and chatting). Bryan Simmons took over the Jr High program and shared some of his expertise on internet safety. We were all impressed with his knowledge of the topic. If you have a question about internet safety, talk to Bryan! With the Senior High we got into the same topics but also addressed the topic of pornography. I believe most of our kids understand that pornography is bad thing, but they didn't understand why. We hit this head on. One of the highlights of the evening was a video testimony from a guy named Donny Pauling who was a former film producer in the pornography industry for 9 years. Donny shared why he got out and what he is doing now. It was certainly eye opening for the kids to hear him share via video. For the record, Donny is now a student at a seminary finishing up a degree. You can see this testimony by going to Youtube and typing in Donny Pauling.

Guy Stuff/Girl Stuff - This was the biggest night of the series. For this night we decided to combine the Junior and Senior High youth groups (which is usually a mortal sin) and divide them into guys and girls (which makes up for combining them together). For lack of a better name we decided to call our theme "How to be a Manly Man"...but it was a thinly veiled diversion for the real theme which was "How to Get the Girl Without Losing God." We had lots of fun stuff to do like an hour of dodgeball, burgers and dogs on the grill, giveaways, and a average message by Ron which covered three points...(it was average because it's the end of the year and students are just tired of hearing me speak!). The points were 1.) Treat the girls the way the Bible says we should, 2.) Girls are not a substituion for God, and 3.) Be a leader in the relationship. Thie girls had a taco bar, and got to listen to a video message by Chad Eastham...a hunk of a good looking guy...and his main theme was that girls can control how a guy thinks of them by the way they dress - they can dress like a treasure or a target. It was dead on target and well received. The big activity of the night was their fashion show, which was sponsored by Marshall's in Medina. Janie Holley did a great job asking various stores around Medina if they would allow our girls to come into the store, check out some clothes and model them for the show. Marshall's was more than willing and it turned out fantastic. Attendance for the night was high (45 guys, 66 girls and 18 adults) and a good time was had by all! Lots of people put their energies into this series and you could tell by the results...many many many kids...a great message...and high energy! Good job Heartland Youth Staff...Thanks a ton!

Ron

Whoopee - Summer's Almost Here!

Welcome to my Ron's blog! This blog thing is going to be an experiment. I've been racking my brain to think of ways I can communicate with parents in the church and I think this may be a way to do that. Of course the really important part of this is you (the parent) getting here to read the comments and hopefully getting value out of it. We'll give it a few months to see if it works or not...okay?

We just finished the 07/08 school year youth program this past Sunday night with a video scavenger hunt for each group. What a blast! We had two separate groups (Junior High and Senior High) and within each group we divided them into smaller "car groups" or 6-8 kids each. Each car group went with an adult driver and had to videotape 10 items on a list. After they videotaped the events they came back to the starting point (Jr High was at the REC Center, Sr High was at the Clardys) for food and to watch the video masterpieces! WOW, was this fun! These kids have incredible imaginations and did some really funny stuff...awesome!

Of course this event wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for the help of the adults helping out. Tonya, Jen, Rebecca, Tina, Bryan, Bill, Steve, Brian, Jen, Wendi, Kathy and Nate all made the event possible by contributing 2-3 hours of their time on a Sunday night. Good job everybody!

I am busy working on a schedule for summer activities, complete with dates and events. In the past we have typically scheduled many events for kids to participate in throughout the summer. The actual participation has been up and down due to a variety of factors (summer vacation, sports camps, summer jobs) and I have often wondered if we were overdoing it with the events. This summer I plan on encouraging kids to participate in some of our bigger activities taking place. The first event taking place is the Mega Sports Camp at A.I. Root Middle School from June 22nd to the 26th. It basically is a sports themed vacation bible school where kids can participate in a number of sports activities. Jen Rymer will need lots of help from teenagers so feel free to plug in there. The next activity will be the Junior High mission trip to Cincinnati, Ohio from June 30th to July 4th. Two weeks after that the Senior High are are traveling to Piqua, Ohio from July 20th to 26th for their 8th annual workcamp. As soon as we get back we'll be getting ready for our 4th year of Medina County Fair Parking from July 28th to August 3rd. This last event is one that acts as a fundraiser for the following summer's mission trip. Many kids are able to work enough shifts to pay for most, if not all of their trip!

Check back soon...I plan on making a few comments on our "Keep It Clean" series we finished two weeks ago...

Later

Ron