bloggin

July 4th

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 13:53:01 +0100

After moving into a new house and adjusting to a new job schedule, I have had time to reflect over the July 4^th holiday. Men and women everywhere fought and fight somewhere so we can live the way we want to live. We get in the car of our choice and drive to the church of our choice and worship the god of our choice…all because someone decided to fight to protect what was gained in the 1700’s. Anytime you choose to ignore or deny the fact that there is an enemy, you are overtaken by that enemy. That concept transcends subject boundaries. If you don’t understand that here is an enemy to your marriage, your marriage dies. If you don’t recognize that here is an enemy trying to attack your children, your children become vulnerable to the attacks. It is not the same as being judgmental. It is using judgment and discernment to what is safe for your marriage, your children, and your job among other things that could be under attack like your health. One portion of our country has decided that there is an enemy and if we deny that this is there we will be overtaken by it. Therefore, they sacrifice their lives every day to preserve what we know as free. If I went into detail as to exactly how much they sacrifice, it would astonish you. Suffice it to say that they can never be praised enough for what they do so we get to do what we do. Thank you.

Father's Day

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 02:50:37 +0100

As Father’s day approaches, I feel it necessary to cover two sides of this holiday. The first is for us (men) to understand how important it is to be good fathers. God Himself is a Father. He gave us the example of how to be a father. He decided that in order to adopt all the children in the world, past, present and future, He had to sacrifice the only child He had. That’s being a father; when you lay your life down for others. I was extremely fortunate to have a father that was a walking image of how fathers should be and how God intended fathers to be. I’m not saying it always fun. I’m saying that when I got older, the values, traditions, and steadiness my father exemplified kept me out of a great deal of trouble. Not everyone is that fortunate. Our society today is full of weak, spineless men that dodge their responsibilities as fathers for the sake of something very temporary. Our society is also FULL of fatherless children. There’s always the old story I like (uh-oh, another one of my stories) about the card company that decided to promote Mother’s day cards and Father’s day cards to prisoners. Mother’s day comes around in May and they sell out the first day they put them up for sale. In the very same prison, Father’s day comes around one month later and they do not sell one single card. That speaks volumes to the correlation between prisoners and their relationships with their fathers. But there’s hope! One story is the story of James Ryle. He didn’t know his dad growing up and James ended up in jail. God found a way to restore that relationship in a way only God can. James ended up in the “prison his father built”. His dad literally welded the bars that James sat behind. I once wrote a song about that very story years before I met James and the line I like most from that song is “what was meant for destruction became our connection, I lived in the prison my father built.” There’s more hope. God can replace missing earthly fathers. It sounds corny but it’s true. What happens is if you didn’t have a father and you sense the obvious need for a “fatherly’ relationship, as you begin to pursue God as your “Father”, he begins to order your steps (Psalms 37:23) and you find a local church with a faithful Father as the leader of that church. That’s another discussion for another day but the local is vital to your growth as a human being. In conclusion, the two sides are 1- we need to recognize fathers around the world for who they are and what they had to sacrifice to be who they are and who we became (my father once told me when we had our first daughter, “son, you can have things or you can have children but you can’t have both.”) and 2- for the fatherless, GOD IS THERE. He is a gentleman. He will not impose. He waits for you to invite Him in your house. If you had/have a good father, he needs to hear it…NOW!

The Silent Sermon

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 15:01:20 +0100

One subject I have learned a lot about is compassion. It is so easy for those of us that “have it together” to look at others and say things like “I’m praying for you” when we really mean “I’m glad I’m not you”. One definition of compassion is the feeling of distress for someone else. This implies that you feel it as if it happened to you. You can’t possibly have compassion for someone that you are looking down upon. This word can be closely linked to words like comrade or companion; both of which imply “along side of”. We can never truly help someone until we get “beside” or “along side of” them. Often times we look down on someone and are not even aware of it. The biggest tool of the enemy in life is isolation. Compassion eliminates isolation. Looking down on someone promotes isolation. One story that comes to mind is the one of a college kid that attended a tent service he heard about close to school. He decided that night that he wanted to live his life for God. He decided to attend the church across the street from the school. The first Sunday he went, he walked in with his worn out t-shirt on and holes in his blue jeans. He was a little late and there were no seats in the back. The church pews were filled with 3-piece suits, brand new dresses and beautiful hats on all of the men, women and children. As he made his way forward to find a seat, the congregation was looking at him as if to say, “you can’t sit here dressed like that.” The preacher had begun his sermon but the distraction of a poorly dressed college kid trying to find a seat in their church proved too much to ignore. The minister suspended his message to give the boy time to find a seat. The boy made his way to the very front of the church still unable to find a seat. It was at this time he decided to do what he would do if he couldn’t find a seat at school. He sat on the floor right in front of the pulpit. Most of the congregation were beside themselves. Finally, a well dressed elderly man that was an usher began to walk to the front to address this issue that had interrupted their service. After all, the congregation thought, this boy can’t just interrupt our service. The man made his way to the front and just when the church-go-ers thought they were seeing justice being done, the usher kneeled down and then sat down on the floor right beside the college student and smiled at him. A hush came over the church. The minister then spoke and said, “I could preach all I want today and it will never be louder than the silent sermon you just witnessed.” A person in need doesn’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Let’ show compassion and watch how much easier it is to reach hurting people.

Freedom

Thu, 26 May 2011 02:29:39 +0100

As the Memorial Day holiday draws near, I firmly believe that it can never overstated the gratitude we have or should have towards our armed forces. I can clearly remember going to a VFW hall in Nashville,TN when I was in high school. We were told before going that we were going to entertain some veterans. Ashamedly, I have to say that at the time that didn’t mean that much to me other than someone was going to listen to our group sing some songs. That particular year, we had worked up popular songs from the World War II era. The day began like any other and ended like none other. We walk in to find a “bunch of old people” ready for us to sing to them. I was such a punk that I didn’t even put 2 and 2 together that we were singing songs from the era of these veterans. I would find out soon. We took the stage; “K-A-L-A-M-A-Z-O-O”, “Sentimental Journey”, and “I’ll Be Seeing You” were belted out. It was perfectly clear they were enjoying themselves. Then we began to sing “Oh Danny Boy”. Three bars into the song, an old man (seemingly even older than most there) stood up, took his hat off and placed the hat next to his heart. I remember immediately thinking it was odd because no one else was standing. After the concert was over, we were asked by our director to mingle among the veterans and visit with them. I made my way over to that old man. I either had a solo in that song or I was upfront in a way that when the old man saw me coming up to him, he stopped what he was saying and turned to me and said, “boy, that was one of the best renditions of ‘Danny Boy’ I’ve ever heard.” He proceeded to tell me the short version of how he was dropped near the beach of Normandy on D-day. He made his way toward the beach slowly like many soldiers did. He and his best friend looked at each other and said something to the effect of “see you on the other side”. As soon as they hit land his friend was filled with gunfire. He threw himself on the ground, looked around and realized that most everyone around him was dead. He looked back at his friend and, in his words, SNAPPED! He picked up his best friends guns and stood up completely and began shooting blindly into the trees while screaming at the top of his lungs. He lost it. He finished that conversation with a smile on his face like he’d do it all over again. I walked away from that conversation thinking that he went through all that for freedom. He went through all of that so I could freely write this blog and you could freely choose to read it. Think about that. My brother Jonathan served in Iraq and came back to tell about it. So many others can’t say that. Hats off to him and all of the armed forces throughout the world that ensure we live freely every day.

My Surrender

Fri, 20 May 2011 03:43:48 +0100

5-19-2011

My Surrender

I have believed for some time that I should be sharing nuggets of wisdom and humor with anyone who cares to hear it. I have had some recent major changes in life as I know it. I recently read a great book, “Angels & Idols: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of a Would-Be Pop Star” (click on the book title to obtain your copy), by my good friend and producer, Regie Hamm. The book began and ended with the same theme; Surrender. So then, as I’m struggling with some of these recent changes, Regie sends me an email detailing elements of surrender. I politely tell him thank you and tuck the information in the back of my head. I get into my car for a 30 minute drive and put my ipod on “all-song shuffle”. For those of you not familiar with this process, I tell my ipod to shuffle through every song in my ipod (which in this case is over 700) in a random order. It has often jumped from Stevie Wonder to Merle Haggard to Frank Sinatra. This morning would be unique. The first song that plays is “My Surrender” by Steven Curtis Chapman. As you can imagine, I said out loud, “I get it!” One thing I’ve been fighting for quite some time is writing this blog, among writing other things. I’ve had the mentality that there’s no one that wants to hear what I have to say. Not that I’m feeling sorry for myself but I’m simply not someone who is dodging fans because there are SO many. I have, for a long time, believed that God does not hear voices like we hear voices. We judge voices on whether the tone and texture is pretty and pleasant. I believe God judges voices on the position of the heart. If your heart is in the right place and totally after Him, when you lift your voice in song, you can be totally “tone-deaf” by our human standards but God hears a symphony. God quickly reminded me that He is the only one that matters when it comes to an audience. I was singing to Him long before anyone asked me to sing for them. Therefore, I’ll write as unto Him (Matt. 25:40) before anyone is asking me to. This will be a weekly thing. I’m still not sure what day it will land on yet, but it will be consistent as soon as I get a handle on my new schedule. More to come…

We love some Keith Horne

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 18:39:46 +0100

The news on former bass player, Keith Horne, is that he simply wanted to go in a different direction in his life. We are still good friends and love him to death. He is and always will be one of the best musicians this town has ever seen...period!

Newest Member

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 18:38:12 +0100

Shout out to the newest member of 6 fifteen, Sam Hunter. Read the band member page for a bio. Sam is a great addition to what we are doing. We dig him.

New Member!

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:51:12 +0100

We are diggin the newest member of 6 fifteen, Dave Cohen on keys! Kevin Adams remains an influence on our sound and a very close friend. All the best wishes to Kevin, Lynn, Callie and the PacAkraCkers. Dave is a natural fit for what we do and we are thrilled to have him.

New CD out!!

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:26:59 +0100

The Bleve Records compilation album tited “My First Ride” featuring George Strait, Ronnie Milsap, Trace Adkins, Vince Gill, James Otto, John Michael Montgomery, Savanna Smallwood, and YES....6 fifteen among others...is for sale online right now at www.blevemusic.com and if you go to the website, you can view a collage of the songs and acts on the main page before you buy. Get one NOW!

Playing out!

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:54:12 +0100

We are excited to be playing at 3rd & Linsley again on Monday Sept. 28th. Ron has been very good to us letting us play.