456 | What Your Kids Will Remember: One Weekend a Year, Bedtime Prayers, and a Dad Who Kept Showing Up (The Blum Boys)

Raising Jesus FollowersRhythms & HabitsAdventure & Creating Memorable Moments
Written By Jeff Zaugg

Episode Description

What will your kids actually remember about you? In this episode, three brothers in their twenties, Matt, Mike and Tommy Blum, sit down separately and describe the same dad: a man who prayed at their beds every night, read a devotional every morning, chose the hard path on purpose, and never missed the yearly canoe trip to the Boundary Waters. Nothing they remember cost much money, but every bit of it took a dad who kept showing up.

  • Matt, Mike and Tommy Blum are three brothers in their twenties who grew up in the Twin Cities area under the roof of their dad, Chris Blum. Matt is the oldest and a new dad to a baby daughter. Mike is the middle brother, and Tommy is the youngest. All three follow Jesus and credit their dad's steady prayer, playful presence, and love of hard work with shaping who they are today. For close to two decades the Blum family has made an annual trip to the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota, and that trip is where Matt gave his life to Christ at age eleven.

    • Your kids remember the small things you repeat. A short prayer at the bedside every night and a three minute devotional every morning shaped three sons more than any big event.

    • Choose the hard path on purpose. Saturday work days, chopping firewood, and wet cold weekends in a canoe taught these boys that discomfort is where growth happens.

    • Protect one trip a year. The Blum family sacrificed sports, money and convenience to make the Boundary Waters trip every year, and that one weekend gave the boys a hidden place to connect with their dad away from distractions.

    • Keep praying and keep inviting during the years they pull away. Each brother describes a season in middle school or high school when he hid from his dad, and each one says his dad stayed consistent and kept the door open anyway.

    • Faith was invited, not forced. The brothers say they never felt Jesus was pushed on them. They knew they had their parents' love no matter what, and that made the invitation safe to accept.

  • Transcript lightly edited for readability. Timestamps are approximate.

    Cold open (0:01): Being a great father takes a lot of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I want to be an amazing dad and a decent leader. The God of the universe gave you this assignment, which means you must be ready for it. As a dad, I get on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads who stop the generational pass down of trauma. I want encounters with God where He teaches me what to do with my kids. I know I'm going to be an awesome dad because I'm going to give it my all.

    Matt (0:39): I believe, plain and simple, he's the best.

    Mike (0:41): He's insane in a good way, Chris Blum.

    Tommy (0:45): He is something else.

    Jeff (0:46): Welcome back to DadAwesome. Today, episode 456, I'm interviewing three young men in their twenties, three brothers, and this interview is all about their dad, Chris Blum. This one is emotional for me because I pray about four young men who are being raised today who will someday marry my four daughters. When I spend time with Matt and Mike and Tommy and hear from them about the journey of their dad being dad awesome, I'm moved. Today's conversation moved me in a huge way.

    Jeff (1:36): And today's conversation was an accident. I actually spent an hour and forty five minutes hiking the Minnesota countryside on a mountain bike trail recording a long conversation with their dad, thinking I'd interview Chris Blum about himself. Audio issues, corrupted audio files, and that conversation was irrecoverable. So as a plan B, I decided to interview the three brothers, and it turned out this is exactly how today's conversation was supposed to be. Their insight into their dad is so valuable. So today, episode 456, the Blum Brothers. Mike, Tommy, and Matt unpack their perspective, their lived journey, with their dad, Chris Blum.

    Tommy (2:38): My dad has been my friend. I don't know if Matthew or Michael talked about this, but he has different personalities he can go into. Growing up he would put on costumes. He dressed up as Spider Man one time and went on the roof. He had this whole Captain Excito bit where he would dress up as a superhero who looked like the Flash. All in all, he's been a godly father who has raised me. So much of my walk with God and me coming to Christ I credit to my dad, him consistently praying with us, raising us up in the faith and the scriptures, and the Lord using him to bring three sons to know the Lord.

    Mike (3:33): I would describe him this way: everything becomes a workout, everything becomes a challenge. He's intentional and steadfast. When I imagine steadfast, I imagine the dad who says you have to stick with football because your yes is your yes. That was partially the case, but because of his intentionality we had the freedom to explore new things and try new things if he understood that something really wasn't a fit for us.

    Matt (4:14): I believe, plain and simple, he's the best. He's calm, he's patient with us, he's extremely funny, and he can never hold back cracking a joke, which makes things really awesome. And he always wants to be with us.

    Mike (4:29): We grew up in one of the nicest, smallest bubble suburbs of the Twin Cities. Even then, we had a fireplace, and my dad wouldn't let go of the idea that we would have to work our way toward some things. One of those was keeping the house warm with firewood. We had heat going through the house, but that didn't matter. And we weren't going to pay for wood. That was a terrible idea to him. So we would go into the little parks in the city, walk into the woods, and saw down trees that were roughly dead or ready to be burned, which was totally not legal. We didn't have a truck, so we would put it in the back of our SUV, trunk open. Everyone knows everyone in that town, and I know people were driving by thinking, there are the Blum boys with an entire tree hanging out the back of their car. Then we'd get home and have weeks of chopping and sawing to do so we could keep the fire going.

    Jeff (5:48): That's amazing. I can picture your streets. You just don't do that in that suburb. But you guys did.

    Matt (6:00): When I got married, my wife's family could not believe how long my family dinners last. They'll go three hours or more. It's because my dad will sit and we'll laugh and joke and tell stories, and by the end of dinner we'll have moved into a more serious conversation. He encapsulates it all. Our life has been so fun, but it was still really purpose filled, and he was super intentional.

    Jeff (6:35): When I was on a hike on some mountain bike trails with your dad, we came up to a sign that said easy path, hard path. Which path did your dad choose? And why does he choose that one?

    Tommy (6:55): The hard path, I'm sure. He knows the imperishable value of hard work and discipline. His dad was a hard worker. He went to med school and was a doctor for a while. And he grew up going to a camp called Camp Kooch-i-ching in the woods of northern Minnesota, near Canada. In middle school he would camp there for a month and do canoe trips in the backwoods of Canada. I think that really shaped him to know the importance of stripping yourself of the comforts, the things that make life easy, and putting yourself in a hard environment where you're pushed and challenged. The way he raised us, that bled into everything.

    Mike (8:09): Every Saturday was work day, and occasionally that meant Chipotle, because we did not eat out much growing up. If you worked hard, you got Chipotle for lunch. I loved that consistent pattern, even though those days were hard. And I'm remembering now a lot of experiences with him around tangible life things, guy things, husband things, and he would always invite us into them. The water heater's broken, which happened often growing up. He'd say, come here, before I pay attention to this, pay attention to it with me. Watch me solve this problem, or let me show you how to solve this problem. Here's what's happening in the car, walk with me. Here's how to use a drill. Very simple things. Now that I have guy friends and I'm experiencing life, I notice that not everyone knows how to do this. I may not know how to do something, but I feel comfortable figuring it out. I'm comfortable getting on YouTube and knowing I can probably resolve the issue.

    Jeff (9:26): Matt, what's your earliest memory of the Boundary Waters, the canoe adventure as a family, the yearly tradition?

    Matt (9:40): Sitting on a log with my dad next to him at a fire. That's probably the earliest memory I have, and the only way to describe it is warmth. Being shoulder to shoulder with your dad around a campfire, way deep in the woods, after a long day, just happy to be there next to your dad. Swimming with our dads is another one. The water up there in northern Minnesota would be so cold it would take your breath away. When we were really young, our dads would have to really work at it. Come on, come on, get in the water. And when we would, it was always the best.

    Matt (10:36): The story we commonly tell when we go back up to the Boundary Waters is about my dad, Mr. Mostrom, and his son Nicholas, who is eleven days younger than me and one of my closest friends. The first year we went, we went on a portage, which is when you take the canoes out of the water and walk through the woods to another lake. We were five year olds, so our dads thought that at the very least we could carry four paddles, two paddles each. Our dads were carrying the packs, the food, everything in the canoes. We did maybe three quarters of a mile of a walk. Not a hike, not challenging. We get to the end, our dads are packing the canoes, and they look at us and say, well, where are the paddles? And we said, it was too hard, we dropped them. That was what life was like for them, carrying two five year olds through the northern woods of Minnesota. But it was sweet. Every moment I remember from being a small child to a teenager to high school to even now in the Boundary Waters is very sweet.

    Jeff (11:40): My heart jumps to how God feels about us as His sons when the things we say are so hard, when we say we're struggling, when we feel these emotions. So we leave the paddles halfway up the hike, when in comparison to what He's carrying, lifting, and doing in my life. I've never thought about that parallel, but it jumps into my heart as you share it.

    Mike (12:06): We did an adventure every year up to the northern waters of Minnesota. That just happened to be ours. And honestly, I didn't even really enjoy it. I remember a lot of those weekends. It was the end of the winter, so it was often raining. It's Minnesota, so nights were 50 degrees. A cold, wet weekend away, canoeing on a lake. But the experience of having an expected time with my dad and brothers every year, an experience that wasn't necessarily fun or easy, a space we had every year, was valuable. I think I'll continue to learn more and more why it was valuable. There's a trust between my dad and me, between my brothers and me. At minimum, it gave us memories and experiences to draw from, which is super valuable. And a step further, we had at least one space a year where we knew we would be hidden away together, away from distractions.

    Tommy (13:14): My dad would do a challenge every year for the trip. He and the other dad would plan some sort of challenge before the trip that he would relate back to the Lord. One year we had to carry around backpacks full of stones that we would find and carry them around the whole day. At the end, we got to take them out, and he said, this is the weight of your sin. This is what it feels like to have the burden of sin. Take these stones out. That's what Christ does for us. We have it good because Christ has taken it. A couple of years ago, we built a giant cross. One year we had to walk through the woods without a flashlight and find our way back to camp, and he made an analogy to the word of God as a lamp for your feet.

    Matt (14:16): My testimony begins on this trip. When I was eleven, I gave my life to Christ alone in the woods on one of these trips. That has changed my life forever. I was only eleven, but it has stuck with me as a massive stake in the road of my life. There was no question that when I chose to follow Jesus that day, it was something I truly wanted to do. And I was on one of these trips when it happened.

    Matt (14:44): I think this is a big thing too. When I picture myself with Jesus, I picture myself in the bow of a canoe and Jesus is right behind me. He's the one steering the boat, and I'm sitting there with Him on a perfectly glassy lake with no one else around. That's my spot with Jesus when I picture myself with Him, and that is one hundred percent shaped by these trips. For the last twenty years I was either in the bow of a canoe with my dad or in a canoe with the oldest of the Mostrom family, Nicholas. That has totally shaped my picture of Jesus. Jesus loves being outdoors. It shaped me in a lot of ways, and it's just a couple of days every year, which is kind of crazy.

    Jeff (15:46): There are a couple of themes that keep bubbling up. One is being steadfast, doing hard things. Another is the playful moment maker, willing to be a little crazy to make a sweet moment or bring joy. But prayerfulness is another thing that has bubbled up, him praying for you guys. What did that look like from your perspective, even when you were younger, or in the distant seasons, the middle school and high school years when you were pushing him away a little? How did you perceive his prayer life?

    Mike (16:39): A tangible answer is that every night he would come down to our rooms. At one point we were in the same room, then we split up, and he made it a point to go to each of our beds and pray with us before bed. Simple. But he would actually grab our hand, which is hard to explain, but in boyhood you're crossing lines there and it's uncomfortable. He would grab our hand and pray simple prayers, ask for wisdom. I know the things my dad repeatedly prayed for us, and when I read the Bible and see those things he prayed for, I think, yes, he interceded on my behalf. So there was the consistent prayer, and there was also the prayer I know my parents had before we were born, with their friends and on their own. And just the moments, and this is a gift I've been able to see, of accidentally opening the door to dad's room and he's praying. The biggest thing is consistency.

    Tommy (17:57): And reliability. Unwavering. He would pray with us before we went to bed at night. He'd come into each of our rooms, sit down, and pray quickly. Sometimes it was a couple of minutes, but sometimes it would spark into an actual conversation. He has done that since as early as I can remember to now. He still does it. We prayed last night. That's evidence that no matter the walk or season of life I was in, he'd still come into my room and we'd pray. He did that with me, Matthew, and Michael. It shows he has been so consistent in the faith, bringing the word and prayer into our spaces even in times when we weren't following the Lord. That's something that comes to mind for me. I want to be a rock for my kids. They know Christ is our foundation and it's going to stay that way.

    Matt (19:22): One thing he did that I remember as long as I've been alive is he read a devotional to me and my brothers every morning before we went to school. Three to five minutes, short, but it started our day. And he would read the storybook Bible with us when we were kids. We'd sit in my brothers' bunk room on the bed and he'd read that storybook Bible. We now have that storybook Bible in our daughter's room, and we've read some of it to her already. She can't totally understand it yet, but I want to do those things. It was a consistent small thing.

    Matt (20:22): Sometimes if I woke up early enough and crawled out of bed, I'd find my dad. We had an old church pew in our living room against the wall, and my dad would be there every morning reading and praying. I wouldn't even be conscious yet, but I remember my dad being there and seeing that. So I want to be consistent in those ways. He was really good at showing up and continuing to do that with us. Even when we go on trips, and sometimes when we're all home, he'll still do it. I've really loved and appreciated that. I didn't feel like following Jesus was pushed on us. It was an invitation. And we knew we had our parents' love regardless, which was really special. So I hope to copy those things.

    Mike (21:22): A house of boys is typically a lot of attempt and not a lot of return from the boys, especially emotionally. Me and all my brothers love Jesus, and the Lord captured all of us in high school on our own at different times. But even then, he would make attempts, whether right before bed or on the weekend, to enter into something deeper with us, and we would not. It was a difficult game of volleyball, lots of balls in our court that we just left sitting on the ground. But he was steadfast with us and intentional despite our bad return rate.

    Mike (22:02): When I think of my dad from the inside, I don't think of him as a strong, big guy first. I think of him as a soft guy first, honestly. He is strong and he can hang. He can endure and walk through challenges and lead through challenges. On the manly scale, he crushes it. I remember when Matthew graduated high school and all of his buddies were over, and my mom took a photo of all of us, and all of Matthew's friends took their shirts off. They said, come on, Chris, take your shirt off. He did, and it was the first time they all saw his six pack. They were all shocked. But I honestly think my view of his manliness might be shifted if I didn't also see his gentleness. I've been in the room many times getting to walk with him as he's cried and been intentionally emotional or opened up vulnerably about feelings. We were blessed. I wouldn't say that my brothers, my dad, and I connected well emotionally throughout middle school and high school, each for our own reasons, but the opportunity was always there and was consistently presented.

    Mike (23:48): I was experiencing my own things. I felt like I was failing a lot in my life and was working through an identity crisis, and because of that I wanted to pull away. So I hid from my parents. They really made the effort to give me space, space of my own to be away, but also space to connect. Now my life is learning more and more how to enjoy that, knowing my dad could be gone tomorrow. It's been fun over the past few years trying to enjoy my interactions with him and learning how to connect with my brothers and him emotionally, because it's such a gift. It's a well that has always been there, and I'm trying to tap in more and more with the time I do have.

    Matt (24:42): My dad has always been really close with us. It was in moments of our own sinfulness that we departed from that intimacy and that safe space with our dad. For me, that was late middle school and early high school. I was living a two faced life. I wanted to be a Christian, but at the same time I wanted my sin and I wanted to hide it. In hiding that, I lived with a lot of shame, and my shame is what kept me from talking to my dad. It wasn't his character, how he spoke to me, or the questions he asked us. It was my own shame and my sin as a fifteen year old. I didn't want to tell my dad about this. I didn't want to tell anyone.

    Matt (25:40): What's funny is, I remember times when I was doing things in the dark and my dad would still bring things up, asking, prying, and peering into our lives. He has always had that open avenue. My dad is relatively soft spoken, and that makes him so easy to talk to. Anyone he talks to ends up sharing life with him. So he has always been a safe space for me. Once I started to realize, later in high school in my walk with the Lord, that the devil intends to hold me back from life with my family and my friends and keep me in darkness, I knew these were things I should confess and talk about. Once I started doing that with my friends, I started doing it with my dad. Dad, I struggle with these things, this has been going on, I don't know if you knew. Those moments were really healing.

    Tommy (26:51): Something he did later in high school, our senior year, was take us out to lunches. We had five to eight scheduled lunches, and each lunch was a different topic. One was finances, one was college, one was relationships, one was sex. The big topics to know before we headed out into college. Those were nice, knowing this is a planned conversation where we're going to talk about this. He had a random number generator, one through eight for the topics, and he'd spin it. Whatever it landed on, that was the topic for the week.

    Mike (27:52): I've realized that most people don't have this, even people with great parents. We got to grow up with a wonderful village. I know that's what people say it takes, and it's true. I have a large group of men I could text on any given day for one reason or another, whether life is going good or bad.

    Jeff (28:18): There's the phrase, show me your friends and I'll show you your future. I'd take it to the next generation. Show me your friends as a dad, and I'll show you your kids' future. There's a lifting, a propelling, like you said: opportunity, experience, wisdom, accessibility, strength. There's even a safety net. If something were to happen to me as a dad, my friend circle brings strength. What are you putting focus on now? Anything you're thinking, this is how I want to grow, or this is how I want to bring more of my full heart to my daughter and into fatherhood?

    Matt (29:08): I don't think I would be asking these questions if I didn't have the dad I had, but I'm already starting to ask what the small things are that I can do weekly, monthly, and yearly with my daughter that will have an impact. I'm just starting to brainstorm. I have a Google sheet on my phone. When I think of an idea or hear something awesome, I write it down, because as she grows older I want to have an avenue like my dad had, something that was so special with me. For a girl, it's obviously something my dad didn't do with us because he didn't have daughters, but when my daughter gets old enough I want to take her on dates and be intentional with her in that way. I want some sort of trip where I can take my daughter to do something fun every year. What can I do to separate from day to day life at home and go do something intentional, fun, and focused on Christ? What will this look like in a couple of years, in ten years, in fifteen years? I don't want to miss out on that. My dad did a great job at that. We always sacrificed that one weekend. No matter what, sports, money, whatever it was, we were going. So I want to have those small things that I do with my daughter.

    Tommy (30:29): I wrote a letter to my dad about a year ago, a thank you letter for his role in my life as a father. I'd love to read a paragraph from it.

    Tommy (30:43): I have innumerable memories and experiences to look back on and learn from. All the stages of life I've walked through, the highs and lows of high school, the marks of my childhood, whatever they may be. When I look back on all of it, there was a rock that was immovable and grounded, one that would pray with us every night no matter the season or turmoil he was going through, one that would keep work at work and bring care and warmth into the home. That rock, an unwavering presence of a father that I didn't know I needed. Truly, a man must be reliable and consistent in order to be depended on, and you displayed that well. Thank you.

    Matt (31:28): The biggest thing for me is that I'm leaving an industry now where I worked sixty hours a week. I've only had a daughter for eight months, and I saw the impact on my wife and on my daughter. My dad worked a lot too when we were kids, but in some way, shape, or form, he always found a way to be there. If he missed our hockey game, he would still read with us before we went to bed. He'd still sit down and pray with us. He always showed up. If we were coming home late from something and wanted to eat, he'd sit there and have a late night snack with us. If we were sitting on the couch all day being couch potatoes, he would ask us to go walk the dogs. He was always involved, and that's the dad I want to be. I know it's going to take a lot of intentionality, because you work, you have a family, you want to do all these things right. But he just kept showing up, and that changed a lot for my brothers and me.

    Matt (32:48): I remember conversations where I was struggling with something, and just because my dad asked me to go on a walk, it all came out. I'm really thankful for that. It's such a simple thing that he's done, but that's what I think makes him the best. He shows up. I'm really thankful for the way I've grown up as his son, and I really want to be like him. I really do.

    Jeff (33:16): Matt, I want to call something out. Your daughter is going to say this about you when she's twenty five. She's going to say, he was the best. It's a treasure that we get to steward and hold and love well in this role. So thank you. Would you say a short prayer of thanksgiving for your dad, and then a prayer of blessing and encouragement over the dads listening?

    Matt (33:45): Sure, I'd love to. Lord, thank you for another day to have life in our bodies. It's a gift to be walking, running, playing, and laughing. Lord, I'm so thankful for my dad, and you know this. I'm thankful that he's been a fantastic picture for me to see you. He's shepherded me, he's been patient with me, he's laughed with me, he's played with me. Lord, I'm thankful that I can see you through my dad. I pray that you'd bless him with joy when he gets to hear these words. And Lord, I pray the same for my own children, that I would be hearing these same words from them twenty years from now. Lord, that we would be families that impact generations, not just by our own tongues but by our children's tongues, that they would be surrendered to you. I pray for the families and the dads listening to this podcast, Lord, that they would desire the same, that their children would have a tongue to spread your gospel and your name, and that it would be by the love given from their fathers. Lord, we love you, and we thank you that you're a good father to us and that you're the picture, the image, that we get to follow. We pray this all in Jesus' name. Amen.

    Jeff (35:02): Thank you so much for joining me today for episode 456, this three part conversation, three perspectives from the three Blum brothers, Matt, Tommy, and Mike, and their perspective on their dad, Chris Blum. Thank you for listening. There were a lot of specific things shared, specific takeaways, and most of the ideas were not expensive ideas, but they require us bringing our full hearts and following through with execution, with action steps. So I want to encourage you to check out the show notes in whatever podcast app you're listening on, or on YouTube, and prayerfully ask, what's my next step? May I not be a dad of intent who settles for intent. May I be, and I choose to be, a dad awesome, a dad of action who takes steps forward from today's conversation. Thank you for listening. Praying for you guys. Thanks for being dad awesome.

    1. "There was a rock that was immovable and grounded, one that would pray with us every night no matter the season or turmoil he was going through." (Tommy Blum, reading his letter to his dad, 30:57)

    2. "It's such a simple thing that he's done, but that's what I think makes him the best. He shows up." (Matt Blum, 33:00)

    3. "It was a difficult game of volleyball, lots of balls in our court that we just left sitting on the ground. But he was steadfast with us and intentional despite our bad return rate." (Mike Blum, 21:48)

    4. "When I picture myself with Jesus, I picture myself in the bow of a canoe and Jesus is right behind me. He's the one steering the boat." (Matt Blum, 14:46)

    5. "I didn't feel like following Jesus was pushed on us. It was an invitation. And we knew we had our parents' love regardless." (Matt Blum, 21:06)

 

Connect with DadAwesome

  • Get the book! DADAWESOME: Dad Discoveries to Activate Awesomeness (releasing March 17th, 2026)

  • Follow@dadawesome on Instagram

  • Make a Donation to DadAwesome (tax-deductible)

  • Receive weekly encouragement by texting "dad" to 651-370-8618

  • Learn about the 6-week ACCELERATOR Coaching Cohorts

 

Listen on any of these platforms

Jeff Zaugg
Next

455 | You Don't Have to Figure It Out, Fierce Mastery, and Exploring Your Child's Heart (Pablo Ceron PART 2)