Preface

Whose blog is this?

In December of 2011 I celebrated the 30^th anniversary of my 40^th birthday.  I was born three days after Pearl Harbor.  In the maternity ward, the woman in the next bed said to my mother: “Our sons won’t go to this war, but they will go to the next one.”  It was not true.  I was eight years old when the Korean War broke out.  And while I was in Air Force R.O.T.C. in college, I was one of the lowest classifications of the draft for the Viet Nam War – IV-D.  This was the classification for clergy and seminary students.

My grade school and junior high years were in Northern Kentucky, across the river from Cincinnati.  Those were the days of “reality” segregation.  We moved across the Ohio River in 1955 and my Kentucky classmates suggested I would have trouble with the black minorities in my high school.  The one black student in my class was a good friend.  Twenty-five percent of my high school was Jewish – a minority that generated no friction as I remember.

The early 1960s at the University of Cincinnati were relatively calm.  The worries of the day revolved around missiles in Cuba, was the assignation of John Kennedy a mob conspiracy and the bad call that cost the Bearcats the NCAA Basketball title in 1964.

Donna and I were married in 1964, after graduation from the University.  We packed up a trailer and headed off from McCormick Seminary in urban Chicago.  For four years we lived 100 yards from the “L” on the near Northside.  Donna completed her Masters in Mathematics at Northwestern and went to work editing math textbooks.  I received my Master of Divinity and Master of Arts in Education in 1968.

Changes were everywhere in the 1960s, including accepting a call to a small church in a town of 500 in rural Indiana – quiet a difference from urban Chicago.  Our older son was born in that town and I learned “reality” ministry as a solo pastor.

A move in 1970 took us to the western shore of Lake Michigan with long winters or snow and ice.  We were indeed lucky if summer came on Sunday.  Our younger son was born there on one of those summer Sundays.  On staff of a larger church, there was even more to learn about “reality” ministry.

We thought in 1973 that our move to Kansas City would result in a short tenure of five or so years.  Thirty-nine years later, we still live in the first house we ever owned.  We raised our sons here, hosted an AFS exchange student from French Canada and sponsored a Chinese piano student.  Our sons are now married to lovely ladies and we are blessed with a granddaughter and grandson.  Our older son, wife and children live in Minnesota.  Our younger son and his wife live in Kansas City.

In 1985, after four years of study, I received my Doctor of Ministry degree from San Francisco Theological Seminary.  My thesis is titled: “Television: A Practical Tool for the Local Church.” 

My ministry has included longer than expected tenures are three very different churches.  The expected five years became over thirteen years serving the oldest continuing institution in Kansas City – Westport Presbyterian Church founded in 1835.  I was asked to take care of Christ Presbyterian Church (Italian) temporarily and retired from there 17 years later.  I joined the staff of Village Presbyterian Church as Parish Associate to help out for a year and completed that work almost three years later.

And so I am H.R. (Honorably Retired).  Or as one member of Village Church added H.R.A. (Honorably Retired Again).

Dr. Ron Patton, H.R.