Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast

Allen Jackson: Welcome to Culture and Christianity. Today's a bit different. We're going to re-air a podcast I did 18 months ago, but not because we didn't have other content. It's an important message. I have been working through a sermon series called "Dangerous Faith." That didn't really originate with me. The podcast was with Brad Arnold. Some of you may remember Brad was the lead singer for 3 Doors Down, a music group. He was a friend, a part of our congregation, and we sat down about 18 months ago for Brad to tell the story of how his faith had changed his life.

Brad was 15 when he wrote a song in a math class in high school that went on to sell multiplied millions of copies. It started a rocket ride for him. Brad got to Japan on a global tour, and he was at the end of his rope. He was at the end of himself. He didn't have the courage to face the next day. He needed help, so he started calling home. Because of the time difference, nobody was answering the phone. The only person that picked up was Charlie Daniels.

Charlie asked him some questions and gave him some good advice. He said, "Brad, you need to get home and get your faith straight and get your family straight." Then he asked him a question that changed his life. He said, "Brad, do you love your wife?" He said, "Mr. Charlie, you know I do." Then Charlie said, "Well, then why are you trying to kill her husband?"

Brad came home and got his life straight. What captured my heart was when I listened to the recordings and watched the videos of him on stage. He would stop a concert, a rock concert, and say, "I need to talk to you for a minute." In a quiet, gentle voice, he would share his God story. I would watch those rather rowdy rooms settle down as he told them about the transforming power of Jesus and give them an invitation to have a personal transformation of their own.

Not too long after we did the podcast, Brad was given a very grave diagnosis and succumbed to the disease some months later. I was invited to be a part of his memorial service, and I was sitting in a little country church in Philadelphia, Mississippi, making some notes on the Bible verses I had for Brad that really gave rise to this notion of dangerous faith. I wrote in the margin of my Bible that Brad was a dangerous Christian.

He didn't have a theoretical faith; he had a living faith. He was willing to take it to work with him and tell people that Jesus was a reality. I don't mean dangerous in a sense of violence or belligerence, but dangerous to the principalities and spiritual forces of darkness in the heavenly places. I want to ask you something. Are you willing to have a dangerous faith? Not a church faith, not a timid faith, not a private faith, but a faith that you're willing to live out in the public square and acknowledge the transforming power of Jesus?

It seems to me that our goal has been to be timid and to not cause any disruptions for too long. It's time to have the courage to live out our faith. I think as you listen to Brad and you hear the honesty with which he shares his story, my prayer is it will give us the courage to have the integrity to tell our own God stories in our spheres of influence. If we'll do that, I believe we'll see God continue to move in the most remarkable of ways. Enjoy the conversation with Brad Arnold, and I pray it gives you hope for God's transformation in your life.

Welcome to Culture and Christianity. We are trying to sort out this interface between our faith and the world we live in so that we don't hide in our churches and quote scriptures and then live like the devil when we leave the building. I'm excited today. My guest is Brad Arnold. Brad's a Middle Tennessee guy now.

Brad Arnold: I am. I started out in Mississippi. I'm from South Mississippi, from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, from a little town called Escatawpa. I grew up there and moved to Tennessee 17 years ago. I lived in Smyrna for a little while and now I've lived here in Murfreesboro for the last 10 years. I love it here.

Allen Jackson: Well, welcome to Culture and Christianity. I have a habit when I have somebody that's a professional, and you are, I try to let them introduce themselves. Tell our listeners what you do so I don't mangle it.

Brad Arnold: I'm Brad Arnold. I'm the lead singer for the rock band 3 Doors Down. I started the band when I was 15 years old with a couple of buddies. We just liked having fun. We basically started playing music together. Music's always been a part of my life. I'm the youngest of seven kids and I grew up in an Assembly of God church down in South Mississippi.

I didn't grow up in a shy household. It was never out of the place to run around the house singing whatever song. I always loved beating on the drums as I started out as our drummer. I only became our singer because we didn't have a singer. For the entire time before we got signed, I was the drummer and the singer. When we got signed, I came out from behind the drums and just started singing. That was quite the awkward experience at first. Still, sometimes I wonder what to do with my hands.

I've been blessed to be in this band for 30 years and God has blessed us so much. He has kept His hands around me when I was so foolish and done so many things that I knew better than. I'm not one of those people that can say that I didn't know better because I always knew better. I come from a good family and I'm so thankful for my brothers and sisters and my mom and dad. I'm glad to be sitting here.

Allen Jackson: I can't believe you've been playing music that long. It goes by in a hurry, doesn't it?

Brad Arnold: It really does. Our first hit, "Kryptonite," I wrote it when I was 16 and I'm 46 now. I was singing to a crowd a couple months ago and I said, "You all probably know this song, even though this song is probably about 10 years older than about everybody in this area." It does go by fast. I feel like I do sometimes and then sometimes I can get up on the stage and I run around and have fun. When I walk down the steps, my knees hurt so bad.

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I had a dear friend that I think had an impact in your life, Charlie Daniels. I did a podcast with Charlie once upon a time. I think he really was a voice in your life that made a difference. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Brad Arnold: Absolutely. He was, and I was so fortunate to get to meet Mr. Charlie. I was so blessed. I got a chance to write with Mr. Charlie in 2005 or 2006. It was even before I moved to Tennessee. He was a great man and I knew right then that he was one of the greatest men I'd ever sat down and talked to that day because he was just Mr. Charlie.

Time went by and we'd done different things together and we kept in contact. We played the Volunteer Jam a couple of times with him, which was a great thing. To explain the impact that he had on my life, I have to acknowledge first that I was an alcoholic for years. I started drinking down in Mississippi when I was a teenager with all my friends like teenagers do.

We got signed when I was 20 years old and I stepped on a tour bus and started touring the world. That's a lot to hand a 20-year-old. We've done okay, but there was no catastrophe in my life that pushed me to drink so much. It was just kind of the lifestyle, whether it just be nerves going on stage or just not being able to sleep in a bus. The lifestyle just led me further and further down a road before I realized that I was drinking pretty heavily. Things in my life did start to suffer from it substantially.

There became a point in my life that I could point to that bottle and that was the source for 95% of the problems. My mom had prayed for me to quit. My brothers and sisters had prayed for me to quit because they saw the road I was going down. My family was Pentecostal, so they knew how to pray. They didn't play polite prayers. I have two brothers-in-law that are pastors. So there were a lot of prayers being said for me and I'm thankful for every one of them.

Finally, I was in Japan one day and we were playing a show for the troops. I was just having a rough night, but I could feel myself slipping away. It wasn't me anymore. I could also feel that this wasn't going to last a lot longer. I tried to call a friend and I tried to call a friend and look for somebody just to validate my feelings. I couldn't get anyone on the phone and I FaceTimed Mr. Charlie. He and his wife are sitting there on the couch. It was late at night there and it was about mid-morning here.

I was sitting there just sobbing and telling him how unhappy I was in my life. He was a great counselor to me before this time. He always had great advice to tell me. He said, "Son, if you love your wife and you love God like you say you do, you need to come home and you need to go to rehab." He said there's a good place in the North Nashville area, Cumberland Heights, and you need to come on back home and see about getting in there.

I was like, "I'll do that." I'd like to say that I got off the phone and called my wife and told her I was going to rehab. I called her and I was like, "Well, I'm going to rehab. I guess that makes you happy." Because it was rough. Nonetheless, I came home and I went and I was ready for it. I was willing for it and I was open to it. I went in there like I was going to learn something.

We were working the steps and all those things. I honestly forgot what step it was, but there was a man that came in there to hear you talk and hear you pour your heart out. He asked me, "Brad, do you love God?" I said, "Yes, sir, I love God." He said, "Why are you serving yourself? You're not serving God with this. You're serving yourself."

It hit me hard. He said, "Do you love your wife?" I said, "Yes, sir, of course I love my wife." He said, "Well, then why are you trying to kill her husband?" It hit me right between the eyes. On the 19th of this month, that will be nine years ago. Those nine years have been the best years of my life. We started coming to church here about five years ago and your sermons have helped me tremendously. They've encouraged me to lead with my faith and to not be a comfortable Christian that sits on a pew and goes out and lives how they want. It's brought me to the best place I've ever been in my entire life. So thank you.

Allen Jackson: You're welcome. God changes lives. He just uses us to help one another along the way. Charlie had taken a walk before he got his life in the place he wanted it to be. Hazel came from a Pentecostal family, so you've got some common roots back there with Ms. Hazel. I think that's one of the things. In the Zach Williams song, "Right there in the broken pieces, there was Jesus." I was listening to that song this morning while I was working out. Even when I didn't know it and couldn't see it, there was Jesus. He was there through those times and I realize now that all those times allowed me to be able to talk to people that otherwise might think before I ever said a word that there's no way he understands. I do understand because I was there and that's one of the reasons I listened to Mr. Charlie because I knew that he knew what I was talking about.

I really learned it from Charlie. Most people associate him with country music, but Charlie just loved music, all genres of music. In fact, he was hard to put in a category, which made it tough for him for a while professionally. I'm curious about music. How'd you get into it? I won't make you talk about records the whole time, I promise. I'm going to come back to your faith.

Brad Arnold: I never remember not being into music. I kind of listened to whatever my brothers and sisters listened to. I'm the youngest of seven and my oldest sister is probably 18 years older than me, so we're kind of spread out. My middle sister probably had the most influence over me. She listened to all the '80s rock, but she also listened to all the '80s Christian music. So at the same time as we listened to Bon Jovi and stuff, I grew up listening to Michael W. Smith and Petra and Steven Curtis Chapman and Phil Keaggy. I loved all those bands. I think one of the first concerts I ever went to was Carman with my church. That was a great time.

Allen Jackson: I have listened to some of your stuff now. You've not only made a change, you've made a public declaration of faith. I've listened to several of the statements you've made on stage talking about Jesus and your faith. You've been more straightforward with your concert audience than a lot of pastors I know. Thank you for that. That's not an accident.

Brad Arnold: I am so thankful to have the chance. It was a couple of years ago and I was just kind of sitting in the quiet one night. Like you said in church, you heard a voice as clear as if someone was speaking to you. I heard Jesus say to me, "Brad, I want you to tell them that I love them this summer."

Shortly before that, I had learned not to question when Jesus said something because I had a wet spot in my yard that kept getting wetter and wetter and wetter out by my field lines. If you're a city person, that's the sewer system for his house. It was leaking in the yard, or I thought it was. All signs pointed to either being that or the water supply line coming in. I hired a plumber and he brought a backhoe over and we started digging. We dug two feet wide, two feet deep that way until it started getting dry. Then we went the other way and it started getting dry. We were like, "Where is this water coming from?" It's not the field line, it's not the water supply, and I live pretty far off the road. My driveway is probably a third of a mile long. I was seriously sitting there contemplating whether I'd have to put in a new water line out to this house.

About a week before that, I had $150 in my pocket. I was somewhere, it might have been here at church or it might have been down in Mississippi at my parents' church, and God said to put it all in there. I said, "Well, I might need that 50 for something later today." But I put it in there and it didn't feel right in my heart.

A couple of weeks later, we were out here digging this field line up. I got up under my house and I was like, "I'm going to see if I can find where this is coming into the house." There's a little pool house out there with a little restroom in it. I was under that house looking and I was at a loss. I said, "God, please help us figure this out, please." Because I don't think there's anything too mundane to ask God for help with. He said, "Next time I tell you to do something, are you going to do it?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Go check the toilet in that bathroom." I went in there and the toilet was leaking. We went "pop" and it stopped. That was where all that water had come from.

So it taught me not to question when God told me to do something. He told me that night, "Brad, I want you to tell them that I love them this summer." I said I absolutely will. But I didn't know how to go about that at a rock concert in front of people, half of them standing there with a beer in their hand. He said, "I'll tell you what to say. Don't worry about it. You just do it." I said I will.

I did it all summer and the response to it was overwhelming. I expected some pushback, I really did. I got none. You get the people out in the crowd kind of rolling their eyes a little bit here and there, but the response that I got on social media and from people sending me messages was that it was so refreshing to hear somebody say that. I firmly believe that the world is so hungry for it.

Before this past summer, we went out with Creed. Scott's a pretty spiritual guy himself. He grew up in a Christian home and he's a great dude. I was writing with Ben Fuller and we were praying before we got to writing. He said, "I bet you'll be more bold this summer." I was like, "How can I do that?"

I was seeing an Instagram post about John saying that "I am the one that Jesus loves," how he described himself. I was like, "That's a good something that I can build on." All this while I firmly realize that we fight against principalities in this world. I think a lot of those principalities are very, very, very involved in music. We have said a prayer for years before we went on stage. We pray to God, the God, our God, the living God. But I firmly believe that there are people that say prayers before they go on stage that aren't praying to Him. I believe that people go into concerts and they put themselves in a position that they don't realize they put themselves in.

We pray for the crowd, we pray for our band, we pray for all the crew, and we pray for everything. But I thought, if our words are the most powerful things that we have, how can I get people to speak a blessing over their life? So I just talk about how we constantly have our phones in our face and they're showing us all the things that we don't have and that somebody's richer or prettier or stronger. They're constantly showing us that we're not enough.

I started the message with "You are enough." You are enough because Jesus Christ loves you. I talk about how one of the disciples described himself as the one that Jesus loves. So I'll say, "Will you just speak a blessing over your life with me and just repeat after me just one sentence?" I get the crowd to just say, "I am the one that Jesus loves." Probably at least three out of five people say it fervently.

At the end of this tour, I counted up as close as I could that I got to say that in front of about 680,000 people this summer. So I figure at least 300,000 of them said it. Even if they didn't realize it, they still spoke a blessing over their life. To me, that is the highlight of my career. If I never get to do anything else, I'm so thankful that God allowed me to do that this summer.

Allen Jackson: It makes me smile. God uses unlikely characters. In 1 Corinthians, it says God chooses the weak and the foolish and the people that weren't from noble families to confound the wisdom of the world. I feel a lot of times like a talking donkey. Every time I read Balaam's story, it gives me hope that God can deliver a message through a donkey, so I'm in for the weekend.

When I hear your story, you grew up in a Christian home and you knew the story. You took a walk. That doesn't make you particularly unique. God put the voices you needed to help you get back on track. So He recruits the lead singer of a rock band to deliver a message that is desperately needed in our nation to a group of people who probably aren't going to church, a lot of them. You're willing to be more honest and more truthful about yourself and the Lord than a lot of pastors I know. That sounds exactly like God to me. Good work.

Brad Arnold: Thank you very much. It's strange. I was thinking about this earlier today too. I've thought about it a lot of times. I know God plans the course and He has a course for us set out. God put a thought in my head when I was a little kid. I don't even remember being a little kid that much, but I remember, and this is before I played music or before anything, God had to have put this prayer in my heart because I said it as a little bitty kid. I said, "God, if I'm ever in a position that people see me, I want them to see You."

I know that He put that thought there then. I thought for so many years why that was. Over the last couple of years, one of the biggest "whys" in my life was answered. He's blessed me so much. I know He watched me take that walk and I know that He was disappointed in me in a lot of the decisions that I made. But I know that He put me in this position that I'm in to say that two-minute message.

I know that I have a very short window before people start shutting down. People aren't at a rock show to be preached at, but I want to share that with them. I know that He put me in this position to do exactly that. I don't care if it costs me my career. I don't care if it costs me my life. I can honestly, 100% say that I don't care. It's the greatest thing I've ever gotten to do. I went into it with that attitude even though I was a little bit apprehensive because I just didn't want to misdeliver a message. I didn't know how to say it exactly because I don't talk on stage. We play songs and I say thank you, God bless you, and then we play the next song.

Allen Jackson: Well, that works out really well because I don't sing on stage, I just talk. So we make a team. You said something that I want to come back to for just a minute because I think there's an attack in our minds when we decide we're going to stand up for the Lord, that there's going to be this crippling cost with it. I think the devil does it to me.

You've got this choice whether I can avoid it or overlook it or act like I didn't hear it or ignore the feeling that this is what I should do, or you own it. In my life at this point, every place I've been obedient with the Lord and I have told the truth, the Lord has honored it and blessed my life. Yes, I've been uninvited, but the good has far outweighed any cost that I could see. Have you found that to be true?

Brad Arnold: Absolutely. I see the response from people. I've got letters from people online and physical letters that people have handed me. One of them is framed in my office. It's a letter from a man that said, "You saved my life." With that speech, he said, "I had already decided that I was done and I was leaving this world." He said, "But I wanted to go to a concert before I left." He said, "You said that and I went and I read my Bible." He said it changed his life.

The first 10 times I read that letter, I cried. I put it somewhere where if I'm having a day, I can look at that and just be thankful that God allowed me to help that person. You're absolutely right. The positive has so outweighed the negative. You see an eye roll here or there, but more eye rolls than I see right in the middle of a rock concert, I see hands toward the stage. I love it.

I kind of pair it with the song "Away from the Sun," which was the title track off our second record. But that song has a lot of Christian connotations in it on purpose because I felt like so many times that we're so far down, away from the sun. In the song, it's spelled "S-U-N," but it could so very easily be the "S-O-N." I've always tried to make songs that help people through situations. But again, it's just led me back to just being thankful to acknowledge them, to acknowledge that Jesus loves me. That's the most powerful thing in the world, just to know that Jesus loves you.

Allen Jackson: And being obedient. We all work in different arenas and have different assignments, but you on purpose, intentionally took your faith to work. There's a lot of voices that would tell you not to do that or you shouldn't do that or it's going to be death to your career or you're going to lose audience. And the opposite happened. The Lord blessed you.

Brad Arnold: He really, really has. Since I started talking about that on stage, I can say quite honestly, we sold more merch than we've ever sold in our entire career. People from so many different arenas of life have messaged me and said, "That was the highlight of my show. Your show was great, but that was the best thing about it." You click on their page and it's not necessarily what you'd expect to come from that person. He has blessed us so tremendously. You really encouraged me to do that. In your sermons, you said whatever arena of life that you work in, take it there.

Allen Jackson: And you didn't do it because you were perfect or you'd never made a mistake. You did it in spite of that. We all do it in spite of that.

Brad Arnold: That was the biggest hurdle for me, was realizing that I'd never be worthy to carry that message. I was like, "I'm not really worthy to get up there and say that." But He doesn't call the prepared; He prepares the called.

Allen Jackson: You're right. You're not worthy. I'm not worthy. But we're bragging on the One who made us worthy. We're not telling our story. We're not there because we're smart or bright or talented. The Lord has blessed us.

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We started this a few minutes ago. You said after you FaceTimed Charlie and he told you you need to get straight, you called your wife. And maybe you weren't in the best frame of mind. How's that unfolding these days? What's Jenn have to say about your faith?

Brad Arnold: She's such a great girl. My wife is so great. Actually, she and I, the previous October at the last Fall Festival, got baptized here. We had both been baptized as children. But we were coming up and I was like, "Let's get baptized tonight." She's like, "Okay." I think we might have been the last two people through the pool because we were kind of running around and had to go back to our car and get a jacket because I think it was kind of cool that night.

98% of the problems in my life are gone. I thank God so much for putting a woman in my life who I've known since we were little kids. We spent a lot of time where she lived in a different town than me, but our families know each other. I'm so thankful to have her in my life because she is an anchor for me in so many ways. I love your baptism story. We were so happy to get to do it again.

God has changed our life. When we used to search for happiness, now we have joy. She's a barrel racer and she's a great barrel racer. She's such a talented trainer and she's trained the two horses that she has now. They were born at our house. Nobody else has touched them besides a guy that just broke them because she didn't want them to buck. When you raise them, you know their personality and they know yours. There's a relationship with that that doesn't come any other way.

She loves those horses. She's done it all from the beginning. She's taken it very, very slow and got them very patterned before she's picking up on the speed. They're starting to go a little bit faster, but you're not placing yet. Used to, when we would leave a barrel race and when she had top-notch horses and world champion horses, if she didn't finish in the top of the 1D or right there, the ride home was not that awesome.

Now, because of the change in our heart, those two boys and having joy in her heart about it, she just enjoys the process of it. It's such a difference. That is an awesome story. I'm confident the best is still in front of you. You keep using your voice for Jesus.

I want to mention one more thing. This is something that I've done in the last two years and I've been really strict about it this year. Having two brothers-in-law as pastors, I've heard them have conversations at my mom's house. I know that it's sometimes hard to talk about tithing in church. I know that's something that people really roll their eyes at. I've heard about my brothers-in-law talk about it.

I want to say it. You said last year in a sermon, "Put your money where your faith is." I promised this year that I would be faithful with my tithe. I can honestly say in doing that this year that nothing has helped my faith grow more than being faithful with my tithe. It's helped my relationship with God. When I get paid, it's the first thing that I do is pay my tithe. It's helped my faith more than so many things.

You can't outgive God. He returns it so much. I know that it might be easy for some people listening to say, "Well, you've got plenty of money and that's easy for you to do." I'm sometimes in a bind. But get a good paycheck and take the chunk out of it that comes out of it and that's just as easy to say no to as anything. If you won't give to the Lord when you have a little, you won't give to Him when you have a lot. If you can make an excuse in one place, you'll make one on the other.

I just wanted to mention that. That has helped me and I encourage anybody listening that if you'll lead with your faith and lead with your tithe, you can't outgive God and it strengthened my relationship with Him so much.

Allen Jackson: That is awesome. Brad Arnold is my guest, lead singer for 3 Doors Down. I don't know how many people I have had a chance to talk to, but it's been more than a few. You're the first person that's ever come on and told the people they need to tithe. You're going to be a frequent flyer; we'll get you back. Charlie made an investment in your life and it changed another generation of music. God's going to use you to change generations of music. I really hope so. You keep honoring Him. I trust Him to do that, my friend. God bless you.

Brad Arnold: God bless you. Thank you.

Allen Jackson: Thanks for joining me today. Before you go, please like the podcast and leave a comment so more people can hear about this topic too. If you haven't yet, be sure and subscribe to Allen Jackson Ministries' YouTube channel and follow the Culture and Christianity podcast. You can do that on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast. Together, let's learn how to lead with our faith. We can change our culture. I'll see you next time.