I Graduated

It's been eight long weeks coming, but I finally did it. I graduated. I'm sure you're saying, you're 61 years old, you should have graduated a long time ago.
Oh, yeah, many years ago, I graduated from high school and apprenticeship school, but now I have graduated from Obedience School. No, Susan didn't take me there. Winston, my six month old Boxer/Great Dane mix completed obedience training. We ran through our accomplishments as he responded to the commands of "come", "sit", "down", "stand", "leave it", and "stay". That all sounds pretty simple until your in an enclosed wire ring with all kinds of strangers walking by distracting your dog.

All in all, it was a great experience, as one of the ladies who was in the class with me commented on how she could really tell a difference in how Winston has grown and how the bond between us have developed. So, now, as soon as I can get the next class fee saved up, Winston and I are off the the Intermediate Class where they will again instruct my dog, and train me. Winston came through with flying colors. I, on the other hand, still have trouble getting the right commands to come out of my mouth.

It's nice to say that I have finally accomplished something.

He just lays there

My son walked in a few days before Christmas with a ball of fur in his hands and said "Merry Christmas". As most of you know, I am my wife's caregiver, and we already have a 12 year old blind Cock-a-poo dog, so the thought of adding a puppy wasn't real keen to me. Since you can't really say NO to a Christmas present I took on the added responsibility. Of course as much as I hate to admit it, "Winston" and I have bonded and are now pretty much inseparable.

When I do leave the house he lays at the front door waiting for me to return. BTW, dd I mention that this cute little 8 pound furball that my son brought in, is not 5 months old and weighs 60 pounds. So when I try to open the door, I have to shove 60 pounds (and counting) out of the way. I got to thinking how nice it is too have someone or something love you that much, that every time you leave, their absolutely lost in the thought of waiting for you unti you come back. What an honor. What dedication. What love.

As I was pondering over this situation the other day the Lord seemed to point out to me, that every time we walk away from Him, He is patiently waiting for us to come back home. No matter if we've just left for some "fun and sun" and just decided to stay on the beach on Sunday, or if we have let what someone said come between us and Him, He's there waiting for us to come back home. What love, what dedication that our Heavenly Father cares so much about us that He never gives up on us, but rather just lovingly waits for us to return. What an Honor to serve such a God, a God who created this whole universe, who designed every organ in us to make such an outstanding, intricate machine as the human body, and yet, He waits patiently for us to come back home to Him.

I can tell you that Winston is not perfect, he's just a dog. He still has accidents, he still barks at times when I don't want him to, but he still shows me unconditional love. We serve a great God who is perfect and though we are just human, he shows us unconditional love. I take care of Winston by feeding him, making sure he has water and a nice warm bed to lay in, and giving him as much attention as I can, so I guess I could say that I sort of earn part of that unconditional love that he gives to me. With God, it is a different story. There's nothing that I can do to be worthy of His unconditional love. He just loves me, because He does, so I think that from now on, every time I see where I've let the world get between me and God, I'm going to get back home to Him as fast as I can, because I know that He is waiting for me to come home.

My new President

There is one thing that goes right through me, concerning Presidential elections. When George W. Bush was first elected a very Democrat Southern Gospel singer and I were discussing the election and this fellow explicitly told me that Bush was NOT his President. During this campaign season, I was at a McDonald's Hamburger joint and found myself in a political discussion and again a fellow told me that Bush was NOT his President. I couldn't hold I back any more, I bluntly told this guy that we only have ONE President and at that specific time George Bush was his President as much as he was my President.

Well, now the shoe is on the other foot. The man I pretty much disagree with everything he stands for has been elected President of our great Nation. I didn't vote for him, but let me tell you Barack H. Obama is MY President, and as a result of that fact, I am going to support him when I can, and disagree with him when I feel he's wrong, but he will be for at least the next four years, MY President. Because he is MY President, I am going to pray for him every day. I have found that I cannot show disrespect to a man I am praying for.

Some Lessons I’ve Learned From My Cock-A-Poo puppy

Here's is just the first of several brilliant things I have learned from my Cocker/Poodle mix.
1. I can't supply all my needs for myself.
Philippians 4:19 - But my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in Glory by Christ Jesus.
The first thing that I learned from my little Cock-a-poo Higgins is that he cannot supply even the most minute things in his life without my help. The fact is that I have to supply him with his daily food. Higgins is a house dog. He can't run down and chase anything to eat. Besides that, have you ever seen a Cock-a-poo? They are little dogs. A whole pack of these little rag muffins couldn't bring down a deer if the deer was just standing there looking at them. No, everyday, not every other day, or just once in a while, or even just whenever I feel like it, I have to make sure that he has his daily supply of food waiting for him.

What happens if I let his food dish get low on food? Higgins has learned that if he comes to me and paws at my leg, I usually figure out that he is out of food and needs to have his supply replenished. When he communicates to me that he has this need, I most always stop what I'm doing and and go see if he's needing food or water.When I am at his food or water dish, he gets so excited and so thankful that he can't stop wagging his tail and dancing around the area where his food is. He is truly appreciative when I get him his food.

It's the same way with me and God. He supplies all my needs. Especially here in the U.S.A., but throughout most of the civilized world, many times people get themselves in trouble. When I begin to think that I can fend for myself, after all, I live in the most prosperous country in the world. I go to work everyday, I make my own money, I buy my own food, pay my own bills, and yes I pretty much take care of myself. It's not long before I find myself in trouble, because I've gotten sick and can't go to work, or the car broke down, or I was just careless and spent too much money on something stupid and I find that I am sinking and realize again that I have to have God's help. Then I once again realize that He was the one supplying the job, my health, and my wisdom. Suddenly it becomes all too clear again, that I cannot supply my needs for myself.

Thankfully, He has never failed to supply my needs. I have never missed a meal that I didn't intend to miss, I've never gone thirsty, and I've always had a shelter to lay my head down at night. Truly, my God DOES supply all my needs according to His riches in Glory.

YouTube, Not a pretty picture

Last Sunday we had some very high winds in Nashville an my Direct TV dish was blown over interrupting my television service until the service technicians could get out to reset my dish. It took four days, but now I have television so things are better. Since I had all this "down" time, I thought I would use it to see what all is on YouTube concerning Southern Gospel Music. What I saw was not a pretty picture. I went to YouTube and searched for Southern Gospel Music and to my dismay I found very little quality. What's disturbing about this is that I know that Dean Adkins and Harold Timmons have put some very good, quality videos on this site for us to enjoy. Unfortunately after ten pages of searching I found very little quality music. Now don't get me wrong, I think that YouTube could be a powerful tool for letting the rest of the world know what really good Southern Gospel is like, but they need to hear quality singing and playing.

What I found was maybe half a page of decent music out of the ten I looked at. This is not what we want people who are not familiar with SGM to see. Aside from the music and singing that isn't very good, the other thing showing up was a ton of interviews from last years NQC. Now I think that Rob Patz does a phenomenal job with what he does on the radio, but I don't really want to see fifty interviews when I'm trying to find music to listen to. The interviews we done really good, but that's just not what I want to see when I'm searching for SG on YouTube.

After venting here and stating what I don't like, I have to admit that I don't have a clue on how to fix it. All I know is that the picture people are getting who aren't familiar with SGM is not a pretty one on YouTube.

With a Capital “C”

A friend of mine just sent me a youtube video of a group called Go Fish Guys. No, these guys aren't Southern Gospel, but I think you can bear through one song that is just a little more progressive than Ernie Haase and Signature Sound, besides, there's a Bass singer in the song. The song is really neat and it talks about how our culture is not wanting to say Merry Christmas, but rather Happy Holidays. The song is humorous, but has a great message to it. Take a listen to it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAckfn8yiAQ .

I like the song so much that I'm including it in my compilation CD that I make up every year of Christmas songs to listen in the car.There is one part of the song that really hit me hard. There is one phrase, not even a complete sentence, just a phrase that struck a nerve. The phrase is "this is my country too". I am sick and tired of having to walk on glass for fear of offending some little minority group. We have gone so far in trying to not offend the minority groups that we have offended the masses who make up this great nation. Hey, it's our country too, and over 80% profess to be Christians, so get over it. We're were here first, and we're here to stay.

I am NOT going to be ashamed to say Merry Christmas to everyone I see, and in every store I am in. My kids think I am fanatical, but every store wants me to spend lots of money with them for CHRISTMAS presents, but some don't want to put the mention of Christmas in the store or in any of their advertisement for fear that they might "offend" someone. Well, they do offend someone, ME, and they should offend every Christian in the land, so I do NOT shop in stores that refuse to put any mention of Christmas in teir stores or advertisements. You can say that I am being childish or immature, or as mykids say "stupid", but I call it standing of priciples. Enough is enough! Those stores have it right, they are offending someone, and it's ME.

You can agree with me or not, but I'm not spending my money in stores who will not mention Christmas or those who tell their employees to NOT say Merry Christmas at their checkouts. So come on and be just a little rebellious with me.

It Boggles My Mind

I've been doing a little reading in 2nd Chronicles lately, that's in the Bible. It seems a real theme is coming through everything that I'm reading. For those of you not familiar with this part of the Bible (it's in the Old Testament), it's telling about the history of Israel and Judah, and the actions of their Kings. Most Bible scholars will tell you that the Old Testament is a foreshadow of what was to come in future times, so I think that we can safely compare the actions of then to the actions of now. Let's compare the leaders of back then and what they did to the leaders of today.

I sort of stand in awe as I'm reading what happened to both the Nation of Israel and the Nation of Judah at how the people are led off into losing the favor of God so easily. I noticed that when the King followed the commands given to the people by David, they lived in peace and had prosperity in the land. I mean these were no had things to do, things like honoring God, keeping the Sabbath days, and most importantly, NOT worshiping other gods. I mean what could possibly convince these people who were so blessed by God to turn and worship other gods? It just blows my mind. Whatever the reasons were, when they turned their backs on God and started worshiping other gods, the God that they knew to be the true God would lift His hand of protection and blessing from them. What really boggles my mind is that this didn't just happen once, but over and over.

Upon looking at the situation a little closer, I did notice that it was when the leaders of the nations started seeking the advice of of foreigners, or in some instances younger people, what they got was bad advice.Sometimes they got in trouble because the Kings would marry women outside of their faith. This is never a good idea, but that's for another blog. Soon we see that the wives who didn't believe in the God of Israel and Judah influenced the Kings to lead the people into worship of foreign gods. Then once in a while a young King would ignore the advice of the wise advisers of his father and go with the poor youthful advice of his friends, and this caused problems too.

If I can bring this all up to date, I can't help but notice that this great nation of ours was formed with the Christian principles that seemed to bring God's blessings with them. With the exception of God's judgment on slavery, causing us to war between ourselves in the Civil War, we have been extremely blessed from the 1400s through the middle 1900s. Then we ran into the "if it feels good do it" generation of the 1960s and from there we have run amuck with the god of self satisfaction. Since the 1960s we have had wars that just won't seem to go our way, families that just can't seem to stay together, and finances that we can't seem to get in order. We can't seem to understand that it's because we have left the faith of our fathers, and for a large part have left the God of our fathers. We have adopted the god of tolerance, which says that we can no longer be a Christian nation, but we must put all religions the same.

We serve a jealous God, and He is not going to be tolerant of us sharing His glory. What will turn this nation around? Revival!!!!!

A missing voice

I was watching a pretty good documentary on HBO the other day. Considering it was on HBO, it was almost fair, though it did leave Christians looking a little shifty. There was one thing that really jumped out at me though. Jerry Falwell had a much bigger voice in our Nation than I realized.

After having gone nearly through this election cycle it has dawned on me that we have no voice crying out for the Christians. Pat Robertson seems to have faded away into oblivion and now that Jerry Falwell has passed away the deadening silence of the Christian is frightening. Where is the next leader to represent Christianity? Who is the next Jerry Falwell. Now that Jerry is gone, I can see that we do not have to agree 100% with a Godly man's theology to appreciate his importance as a loud voice to represent the morality of Christianity that this country was founded on.

If you find this new Christian leader, and can convince him that his Nation needs him, please let me know, because I want to encourage him. I want to encourage him to take up the mantle that has fallen to the ground since Jerry Falwell was taken from us. Maybe we need to pray for God to lift him up.

It’s The Economy, Stupid

I've got some good news and some bad news. The economy is going down the tubes. Is that the good news, or is that the bad news. Well if the nation stays in the mode of thinking that we got here by ourselves and we can work this thing out by ourselves, then this is going to be a bad thing. If, however the nation figures out that we need to get back to God to get out of this mess, then it will be good news.

Often in times of distress, our nation will turn it's eyes back to God. In the Great Depression, people saw their frailness and their need for God's help. The people of that era turned to God, began to help each other, and looked to God to help them out of their troubles. They returned to the church and their recreation and music turned to that of Christian interest. When 9/11 happened, people suddenly turned their thoughts needing supernatural help. When the problem was greater than they could manage, they needed a Savior. For the next year, Christian music sales rapidly increased. Concert attendance grew as did church attendance.

The good news is that oil prices are dropping, so those buses can hit the road again. The bad news may be that the offerings are lower and you may not get as much money to put that cheaper fuel in your tank. The good news is that as times get harder, many may start looking for the inspirational message that we share. The bad news is that the devil may miss out on grabbing those souls.

Now the economy may be giving good news and bad news, but it's up to us to capitalize on the times that we have and get this Gospel message to as many as we can.

Advice on practicing

There is a thread on the Message Boards about practicing with ear monitors and sound systems. I want to talk about this in a little more detail than I could on the Message Boards. There are several areas that practicing effects, so it's not just a time of singing your songs together. It effects how you hear each other, how you hear yourself with the group, and how you hear yourself and the group with the music, be it live or track.

First, let me say that the attitude in which we approach practice effects our attitude on stage. Now don't get me wrong, I believe in having fun at practice, but it can't be all cutting up and having fun. At the same time, practice shouldn't be all work and a drudgery to go to. Practice sets the stage for how your group will perform in every area of your existence. Practice is to be a relaxed place where everyone is free to learn. When you quit learning, it's time to quit. Practice is where you learn not only new songs, but new styles, new techniques. Practice is where you hone the talents that you have and learn to enhance them. Practice, not on the stage is where you experiment.

As I said in my post on the Message Boards, I don't like to practice with a Sound System. I don't really care what you use for monitors (well I do, but that's another topic altogether) when you are on stage singing, but at practice you need to hear the natural voice of everyone around you. Let's remember what Sound Systems are for. The were not designed or purposed for singing in a small room. Sound systems were designed so that many people in large rooms and auditoriums could hear singers from a far away distance. When a sound system is used for it's designed purpose, it is a wonderful thing, but a small read where people are practicing is NOT what it was designed for. So, why not use a sound system for practicing? First when practicing without amplification, you must listen closer to hear each individual. This makes you pay much closer to the detail of what you are doing. It also makes for a much more intimate setting. When you have to be close enough to each other to smell each others breath, you have to let your defenses down and relationships being to happen. When you are standing close to each other practicing, you begin to notice the little movement in each others voices and you begin to follow them causing a brilliant blend that is not accomplished standing ten feet away form each other using a sound system. There is a carry-over of this intamacy from the practice room to the stage, and the audience will see it and hear it. Get rid of that sound system at practice, you'll never regret it.

I've got more to say, but I'll save it for another time.