Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast - Remembering Brad Arnold: The Rock Star Who Chose Jesus Over Fame

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

What does it look like to have a faith that's impossible to keep private? In this special re-air of Culture & Christianity, Pastor Allen revisits his conversation with Brad Arnold, lead singer of 3 Doors Down, whose remarkable testimony became the inspiration for Pastor Allen's Dangerous Faith sermon series. Brad shares how God met him at one of the darkest moments of his life, transformed his future, and gave him the courage to boldly share the hope of Jesus with thousands of people.Brad passed away from cancer in February 2026, and his story lives on as a powerful reminder that faith isn't meant to stay inside the walls of the church. It's meant to be lived boldly wherever God has placed us. We pray this conversation encourages you to trust God's transforming power and inspires you to share your own God story with the people around you.

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. The idea really didn't originate with me. The podcast was Brad Arnold. Some of you may remember, Brad was the lead singer for Three Doors Down, a music group. He was a friend, part of our congregation, and we sat down. as I said 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 really 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, but because of the time difference, nobody was answering the phone. the only person that picked up was Charlie Daniels. And Charlie asked him some questions, gave him some good advice.

He said, Brad, you need to get home. Get your faith straight. Get your family straight. And then he asked him a question that changed his life. He said, Brad, do you love your wife? And he said, Mr. Charlie, you know I do. And then Charlie said, well, then why are you trying to kill her husband? Well, Brad came home and got his life straight.

When he captured my heart was 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, and in a quiet, gentle voice, he would share his God's story. And 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. Well, 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 it 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, and he was willing to take it to work with him, to 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. Folks, it seems to me that our goal is to have 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 prayers it will give us the courage to have the integrity to tell our own God's 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're 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. So I'm excited today.

My guest is Brad Arnold. Brad's a good Middle Tennessee guy now. I am. Started out of Mississippi. Yes, sir. I'm from South Mississippi. I'm from down on Mississippi Gulf Coast from a little town called Escataba. And I grew up there.

And I moved to Tennessee 17 years ago. I lived in Smyrna for a little while and now I've lived here in Murphysburg for the last 10 years. And I love it here. Well, welcome to culture and creativity. 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. I'm Brad Aodor. I'm the lead singer for the rock band Three Doors Down. And I started the band when I was 15 years old, me and a buddy and are a couple of buddies. And we just liked having fun. We basically started playing music together, you know. And music's always been a part of my life.

I'm the youngest of seven kids. And I grew up in the Assembly of God Church down in South Mississippi. So I didn't grow up in a shy household. It was never out of the, out of place to run around the house singing whatever song, you know. And I always love beating on the drums as I started out our drummer. And I only became our singer because we didn't have a singer. And I need that for a band, I guess. You do.

And for the entire time before we got signed, I was the drummer. the singer. And when we got signed, I came out from behind the drums and I just started singing. And that was quite the awkward experience at first and still took me. It took me a while and it's still sometimes I wonder what to do with my hands. But I've been blessed to be in this band for 30 years and God has blessed us so much. And he has kept his hands around me when I was so foolish. so many things that were just that I knew better than. And, you know, because I'm not one of those people that you can say that I didn't know any better because I always knew better. You know, I come from a good family.

And I'm so thankful for my family and my brothers and sisters and my mom and dad. And glad to be, glad to be sitting here. That's a, I can't believe you even play music that long. It goes by in a hurry, doesn't it? It really, really does. I told a group of our first hit Cryptonite. I wrote it when I was 16 and I'm 46 now. And I was singing to a crowd a couple of months ago.

And I was like, well, y'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, though. Yeah, I'm old enough. Now the groups I was listening to when I was a kid, they're still touring in wheelchairs and they limp out. So you got a lot of thread left on the tire.

Oh, man. I feel like I do sometimes, and then sometimes I can get up on the stage and I run around and have fun. And I'm going to walk down those steps. I'm like, man, my knees hurt so bad. You know, this podcast is made possible because of sponsors. And one of our sponsors is Preserve Gold. And I appreciate their partnership with us. And I pray it's a blessing to you.

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in free gold or silver. Well, if you want to learn how precious metals could help protect your savings, text Allen to 50505 today. You'll receive your free wealth protection guide. Well, I had a dear friend that I think had an impact in your life, Charlie Daniels. Absolutely. I did a podcast with Charlie once upon a time, it seems like now. But I think he really was a voice in your life that made a difference.

Can you tell me a little bit about that? Absolutely. He was, and I was so fortunate to get to meet Mr. Charlie, and I was so blessed. I got a chance to write with Mr. Charlie. I was trying to think before I came of what year that was that I actually wrote with him. And I want to say, if I had to guess, it was like 2005 or six. It was before I moved to Tennessee even. And he was a great man, and I knew right then that he was one of the greatest man I'd ever

sat down and talked to that day, because he was. It was just, he was Mr. Charlie, you know, and time went by and we'd done different things together. And we kept in contact and we played the volunteer jam a couple of times with him, which is a great thing. And to explain the impact that you had in my life, I have to acknowledge first that I was an alcoholic for, you know, I started drinking down in Mississippi when I was a teenager with all my friends, like teenagers do. and we got signed when I was 20, 20 years old, and I stepped on a tour bus when I was 20 years old and started touring the world. And that's a lot of the first deal with.

Universal Records. And we stay within the entirety of our career. And we're not, we don't technically have a record deal now. But it's kind of a different world now in the entertainment industry, you know. But they were always great company to work with. But it was just a lot to hand a 20-year-old, you know. and we've done okay. But, and, you know, there was no catastrophe in my life that pushed me to drinking so much.

It was just kind of the lifestyle and 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 the road before I realized that I was drinking pretty heavily, you know, and things in my life did, like, start to suffer from it substantially. and there became a point in my life that I could almost 95% of the problems, I could point to that bottle and that was the source. And my mom had prayed for me to quit. My brothers and sisters had prayed for me to quit because they've seen the road I was going down. And your family was Pentecostal, so they knew how to pray. They sure did.

They didn't play. Just polite prayers. They sure did. And I have two brother-in-laws that are pastors. Okay. And so there was. a lot of prayers being said for me, and I'm thankful for every one of them. But, you know, finally, I was in Japan one day, and we were playing the show for the troops. And I was just kind of having

a night. And, and, but I could feel myself slipping away that it wasn't me anymore. And I could also feel that this wasn't going to last a lot longer. And I tried to call a friend and I tried to call a friend and looking for somebody, I guess, just to okay at or whatever to validate my feelings. And I couldn't get anyone on the phone. And I FaceTime Mr. Charlie. And he and his wife were sitting there on the couch. And it was late at night there and it was about mid-morning maybe here or however the time worked out.

You know, it was a big time difference. And I was sitting there just sobbing and just telling him how unhappy I was in my life. And he was a great. counsel to me before this time. He always had great advice to tell me. He said, son, he said, you know, he said, if you love your wife and you love a guy like you say you do, you need to come home and you need to go rehab. He said, there's a good place in North Nashville there, Cumberland Heights, and you need to come on back home and sit back getting in there. And I was like, well, I'll do that. And I would like to say that I got off the phone and was like, and called my wife and said,

baby, I'm going to go to rehab. I called her. I was like, well, I'm going to rehab. I guess that makes you happy. You know, because, I mean, it was, but nonetheless, I came home and I went and I was ready for it. I was willing for it and I was open to it. And I went in there like I was going to learn something. And we were working the steps and all those things.

And I honestly forgot what step it was, but that was a man that came in. there to kind of hear your, hear your kind of talk and hear you pour your heart out. And he asked me, he said, he said, Brad, he said, do you love God? I said, yes, sir, I love God. He said, why are you serving yourself? He said, you're serving God but this. He said, you're serving yourself. I mean, it hit me hard.

And 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? And it hit me between the eyes. and I, that's been the 19th of this month that have been nine years ago. And those nine years have been the best years of my life. And we started coming to church here and I think about five years ago. And your sermons have helped me tremendously, tremendously.

And they've encouraged me to leave with my faith and to not be a, a conversation. Christian that sits on a pew and goes out and lives how they want, you know. And it's brought me to the best place I've ever been in my entire life. So thank you. No, you're welcome. God changes lives. Yes. He just uses us to help one another along the way.

Indeed. You know, and Charlie, he'd taken a walk. Absolutely. Before he got his life in the place he wanted it to be. Absolutely. And Hazel, her, she came from a Pentecostal family. So you've got some common roots back there with this agent now. Absolutely.

I think that's one of the, you know, like the Zach Williams song, right there in the broken pieces, there was Jesus. You know, I was listening to that song this morning when I was working out. And even when I didn't know it and couldn't see it, there was Jesus. And 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. Right.

And I do understand because I was there. I was there. And that's one of the reasons I listened to Mr. Charlie because I knew that, you know, there was the 60s and 70s, Mr. Charlie. And there was the Mr. Charlie that I knew, but I knew he knew what I was talking about. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I learned, I really learned it from Charlie. Charlie, I mean, most people associate him with country music,

but Charlie just let music. I mean, all genres of music. In fact, he was hard to put in a category, which made it tough for him, I think, for a while professionally. Absolutely. So I'm curious, music, how did you get into it? And I won't make you talk about records the whole time, I promise. I'm going to come back to your faith.

I never remember, like, not being in the music. And I kind of listen to whatever my brothers and sisters listen to, and I'm the youngest of seven, and my oldest sister is probably 18 years older than me, and so we're kind of spread out. And kind of. We are. But my middle sister probably had the most influence over me, and she listened to all the 80s rock, but she also listened to all the 80s Christian. So at the same time as we listened to like Bon Jovi and stuff,

I grew up listening to Michael W. Smith and Petra and Stephen Curtis Chapman. And I loved all those bands. And I think one of my first concerts I ever went to was Carmen with my church. And that was a great time. That's fun. But you know, 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 mean, I've listened to several of the statements you've made on stage. I mean, talking about Jesus and your faith. And, I mean, just being real, you've been more straightforward with your concert audience than a lot of pastors, I know. Well, thank you for that. That's not an accident. I am so, I am so thankful to have the chance. And it's kind of, well, it was a couple of years ago. And I was just kind of sitting in the quiet.

one night and like you said Saturday night in church. You said, do you hear a voice as clear as you've, as if someone was speaking to you? I heard Jesus say to me, he said, Brad, I want you to tell them that I love them this summer. And I was like, okay. And shortly before that, I learned not to question when Jesus said something because I'll try to make this just as quick as I can. We're good. But I had a wet spot in my yard that kept getting wetter and wetter and wetter and wetter. He was out by my field lines.

So I was like, well, field lines leaking or water lines leaking or something. So I had a plumber come over. And if you're a city person, that's the sewer system for his house. It was leaking in the yard. Yes, sir. Or he thought it was. I thought it was. And all signs pointed it to either being that or the water supply line coming in.

And so I hired a plumber, and he brought it back over, and we started digging. And we dug two feet wide, two feet deep that way until it started getting dry. And so we went the other way, and it started getting dry. We're like, where is this water coming from? It's like, it's not the fill 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.

And I was seriously sitting there contemplating, I got to put in a new water line out to this house. And so about a week before that, I had $150, I think, in my pocket. And I was somewhere, it might have been here at church or I might have been down in Mississippi at my parents' church. And I just put the hundred. God said, put it all in there. And I said, well, I might need that 50 for something later today, something I was going to do. And so I put it in there.

and it didn't feel right at my heart. And so we had searched this, and this was a couple of weeks later that we were out here digging this fill line up, and I got up under my house. I was like, I'm going to see, I'm going to see if I could find where this is coming in the house. And there's a little pool house. I don't have a fancy pool or anything, but there's a little bitty house out there by it. It's got a little restroom in it.

And I was in that house looking, and I was at a loss. I said, God, please, I was like, help us figure this. out, please. And because I don't think there's anything too mundane to ask God for help with. And he said, next time I tell you to do something, you're going to do it? I say, yes. He said, go check the toilet and outlaw bathroom. And I went in there, and this is a toilet was leaking. We went, and it stopped. And that's where all that water had come from. So it taught me not the question when God told me to do something. So he told me that night, he said, Brad, I want you to tell them that I love them this summer. And I said, I absolutely will.

I said, but I don't know how to go about that at a rock concert in front of people that are standing there, half of them, a quarter of them standing there with a beer in their hand, you know? And he said, I'll tell you what to say. Don't worry about it. You just do it. And I said, I will. And so I did it all summer. And the response to it was, overwhelming. I expected some pushback. I really honestly did. I got none. I mean, 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, people would send me messages. It's like, that was so refreshing to hear somebody say that. And because I firmly believe that the world is so hungry for it. And before this past summer, I wish we went out

with creed, which is a, and Scott's a pretty spiritual guy himself, and he grew up with Christian home, and he's a great dude, and I was writing with Ben Fuller, and we were, we were praying before we got to writing and talking about it. He said, I bet you'll be more bold this summer. And I was like, well, how can I do that? And I was seeing an Instagram post about John saying that I am the one that Jesus loves, how he described himself. And I was like, that's a good something that I can build on. And all this while I firmly realized that we fight against principalities in this world, and I think a lot of those principalities are very, very, very, very, very involved in music.

And we say and 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 the stage that aren't praying to him. And I believe that people go into concerts and they put themselves in a position that they don't realize that they put themselves in. And because they go in there willingly. And, you know, we pray for the crowd. We pray for her band. We pray for all the crew.

And we pray for everything. But I thought, you know, if our words are the most powerful things that we have, how can I get people to speak a blessing over their life? And so I just talk about like, you know, and we constantly have our phones and our face and they're showing us all the things that we don't have and that we're somebody richer or prettier or stronger or this or that. And they're constantly showing us that we're not enough.

And so I started the message with like, you are enough. You know, you are enough and you're enough because Jesus Christ loves you. And I talk about, I said, you know, and one of the disciples described himself is the one that Jesus loves. So you just speak of a blessing of your life with me. And just repeat after me, just one sentence. And I get the crowd to just say, I am the one that Jesus loves. And probably at least three out of five people say it like fervently.

And at the end of this tour, I counted up as close as I could off some kind of merch receipts and stuff that we have from headcounts of the shows that I got to say that in front of about 680,000 people this summer. And so I figure at least 300,000 of them said it. That is awesome. And, you know, even if it was, even they didn't realize it, they're still speaking of blessing over their life. And 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. Almost everybody I know wants to be healthy or healthier. And I think most of us would like it to happen to us by accident. But that hasn't been my experience. So what do we do in a world where there's so many options and diets seem to be like fashion trends? They change with every season. How do we respond? Well, I want to tell you about something that I trust.

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and not just the pills we take. You know, 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. And I tell the church a lot of times, you know,

that I feel like a talking donkey, that every time I read Balaam's story gives me hope that God can deliver a message through a donkey. So I'm in for the weekend. And when I hear your story, I mean, you grew up in a Christian home and you knew the story, you took a walk, that doesn't make you particularly unique.

And God put the voices you needed to help you get back on track. Absolutely. And so he recruits. a 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.

And you're willing to be more honest and more truthful about yourself and the Lord, unfortunately than a lot of pastors I know. But that sounds exactly like God to me. Good work. Thank you very much. I just, it's strange that I was thinking about this earlier today to, and I've thought about it a lot of times, but, you know, I think God, I mean, I know God, he,

plan our steps, he plans the course, you know, and he has a course for set out. But God put a thought in my head when I was a little kid, and if there's, I don't even remember being a little kid that much, but I remember, and it's before I played music or before anything, and God had to have put this prayer in my heart because I said it as a little kid, little bitty kid. He's like, and I said, God, if I'm ever in a position that people see me, I want them to see you. And I know that he put that thought there then. And, and I thought for so many years, why. And over the last couple of years, it got answered. Like the biggest why, one of the biggest whys in my life was answered. And I mean, he's blessed me so much. And he's,

and, you know, I know he watched me take that walk, and I know that he was disappointed me in a lot of the decisions I make and have a lot of the decisions that I still make. But I'm, if, I know that he put me in this position that I'm in to say that two minutes, you know, because I don't go on and on. I know that I have a very short window

before people start shutting down. And people aren't at a rock show. to be preached at, you know, but I want to share that with them. And I know that he put me in this position to do exactly that. And I don't care if it costs me my career. I don't care if it costs me my life. Honestly, I can honestly, 100% say that I don't care. It's the greatest thing I've ever got to do.

But, and I went into it with that attitude, even though I was a little bit kind of apprehensive because I just didn't, I didn't want to misdeliver a message and I didn't know how, 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. Well, that works out really well because I don't sing on stage.

I just talk. So we make a team. Well, I, you know, you said something that I want to come back to for just a minute because I think there's a, there's an attack. 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, I mean, just, it does it to me. And you get this choice whether I can avoid it or overlook it or act like I didn't hear it or if I don't ignore the feeling that this is what I should do, or you own it. But I'm of the, in my life at this point,

and I'm still really a young guy, so I get some road to travel. But to this point, everything, every place I've been obedient with the Lord and I have told the truth, the Lord has honored it and blessed my life. Yeah, I've been uninvited or, I mean, there's been, but the good has far outweighed any cost that I could see. Have you found that to be true? Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, we've been more, I mean, if there's a,

I see the response from people. I've got letters from, you know, I said from the beginning, if it helps one person, it's worth saying it a thousand times. But I've got letters from people online and physical letters that people have handed me. One of them is framed in my office. And nobody goes in my office. Nobody really comes to my house. But, I mean, it's framed in my office where nobody else really sees it, but it reminds me.

And 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. And he said, you said that? And I went and I read my Bible. And he said, it changed my life.

And the first 10 times I read that letter, I cried. And I put it somewhere where, you know, I don't want it in a brag spot. I want in a spot where I want in a spot where I can, when I'm having a day that I can look at that, and just be thankful that God allowed me to help that person. And you're absolutely right. The positive has so outweighed the negative.

I mean, you know, like I said, you see an eye roll here or there, but you see people more eye rolls than I see right in the middle of a rock concert. I see this toward the stage. And I love it. love it. Oh, that is awesome. And, you know, 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 feel like so many times it were so far down away from the sun, you know, in the song, it's spelled S-U-N, but it could so very easily be the S-O-N. And, um,

we've always, you know, I've always tried to make songs that, that help people through situations. But again, it's just, it's just led me back to just being thankful to help them, just to acknowledge them, to acknowledge that, that Jesus loves me, you know, and that's such a powerful, such a powerful, it's the most powerful thing in the world, is just to know that Jesus loves you. And being obedient. Absolutely. I mean, we all work in different arenas and have different assignments.

But you, on purpose, intentionally, took your faith to work. Absolutely. And 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 of your career or you're going to lose audience. And the opposite happened. The Lord blessed you. It did. He really, really has.

And I mean, honestly, you know, I was like, well, you know, you can kind of tell how good you did sometimes it shows by the merch count, you know? And since I started talking about that on stage, I'd say quite honestly, we sold more merch than we've ever sold in our entire career. I mean, it's just, I mean that completely honestly. And people like from so many different arenas of life had messaged me and like, man, that was the highlight of my show.

I like, I mean, your show was great, but that was the best thing about it. And from people that you click on their page and it's not necessarily what you'd expect to come from that person. And he has blessed us so tremendously. Well, I want to say thank you. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

And you really, really encourage me to do that in your sermons of whatever, when you said, whatever arena of life that you work in, take it there. That's it. And you encouraged me to do that. I mean. And you didn't do it because you were perfect or you never made a mistake or you did it in spite of that.

And that was- We all do it in spite of that. Amen. And that was the biggest hurdle for me was realizing that I didn't, that I'd never be worthy to carry that message. You know, and because I was like, I'm not really worthy to get up there and say that. But, I mean, you know, it's like, it doesn't call the preparedness. You're right. You're not worthy.

I'm not. But we're bragging on the one who made us worth. That's right. You know? We're not telling our story. Absolutely. We're not there because we're smart or bright or talented. The Lord has blessed us.

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wherever you may go. This outdoor blanket and canvas tote bag are simple reminders of God's goodness and a way to spark meaningful conversations about faith and the hope we have in him. Request your limited edition tote bag and outdoor blanket today with your gift of $100 or more. or more at allandaxon.com or call 800 8805102. So we started this a few minutes ago.

You said after you facetimed Charlie and he told you need to get straight, you called your wife and maybe you weren't in the best frame of mind. No. So how's that unfolding these days? What's Jen have to say about your faith? You know, she's such a, she's such a great girl. My wife is so great. And actually, she and I, not this past October, but the previous October at the last

fall festival, we got baptized here. And we had both then baptized as children. But we were coming up. I was like, let's get baptized tonight. She's like, okay. And I think we might have been the last two people through the pool because we were kind of running around, had to go back to our car and get a jacket because I think was kind of cool that night.

and 95% of the problems in my life, they're gone. And I think God's so much for putting a woman in my life who I've known since we were little kids. And we spent a lot of time that she lived in a different town than me. And our families know each other in things. And that she and I stand side by side. and Jesus is in front of us. And I can say that. And I'm so thankful to have her in my life

because she is an anchor for me in so many ways. Absolutely. I love your baptism story. Thank you. We were so happy to get to do it again. And I'd been baptized as a kid in this end of the God Church, and she got baptized. I'm not sure what denomination of church it was that she got baptized in.

But she used to go to church with one of her friends. And sometimes she'd walk to church by herself when she was a little girl, which was just right down the street from her house. And she'd got baptized then. But we wanted to do it together. We wanted to get baptized together. And it was awesome. And God has changed our life.

I mean, when we used to search for happiness, now we have joy. And, you know, I see it. I was talking about before we got started her being a barrel racer, and she's a great barrel racer. And 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 cold broke them,

just because she didn't, you know, if they were going to buck. That's special. Absolutely. When you raise them and you know their personality and they know yours. Absolutely. There's a relationship with that that doesn't come any other way. It really doesn't. And she loves those horses.

They are, I call them her little delicate flowers. Not if they're running barrels, they're not. But she's done it all from the beginning. But, you know, they're still on their way up. And there's just now, I mean, they're very, very pattern. She's taking it very, very slow and got a very. pattern before she's picking up on the speed and now they're starting to go a little bit faster, but you know, you're not, you're not placing yet, but used to when we would leave a barrel race,

and when she had, I'm top-knocked horses and world champion horses, if she didn't finish in the top of the 1D or right there, I mean, the ride home was not that awesome, you know, and now, because, and we talked about it before, you know, because that was searching for happiness. And those two boys and the change in our hearts has taught us the difference between searching for happiness and having joy and doing something. Because now she's there because she loves those boys and she has joy in her heart about it. And she just enjoys the process of it. And it's such a difference. Such a difference.

It is an awesome story. I'm confident the best is still in front of you. You keep using your voice for Jesus. Thank you very much. I believe it is too, and I'm just thankful that he asked me to do it. I won't find a time in place. We get three doors down on some sort of festival on campus. I'd be fun.

I believe we can make that work. That'd be very, very fun. I think at some point, and don't hold me accountable if you're listening to this, do not. But you can pray. I grew up with Charlie doing his volunteer jam, and I know you've been a part of that. I've been there for some of that. But I think at some point in the future, there's so many people in the industry that we've gotten to know through the years. I think it would be a hoot to do a version of that on our campus with our new outdoor worship spaces.

That would be awesome. We will honor the Lord and honor some of our heritage and the different forms and genres of music. That would be awesome. I'll come be a part of that day. I would thoroughly enjoy that. Well, you pray. We'll see if the Lord will work that out. Yes, sir.

I want to mention one more thing. Yeah. And this is something that I've done in the last two years, and I've been really, really, like, just really strict about it this year. And I know that it's sometimes, it's definitely, you know, having two brother-in-law's pastors, I've heard them have conversations at my mom's house. And I know that it's sometimes hard, hard to,

to talk about, like, tithing and stuff in church. And I know that that's something that people like really, and I've heard about my brother-in-law's talk about it and things. And so I want to say it. And I've, you know, you said last year in a sermon, you said, put your, put your money where you faith is. and I promised I promised this year that I would be faithful with my tithe. And 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. And before I mean, when I get paid, it's the first thing that I do is pay my tithe. and it's helped my faith more than so many things. And you can't out-give God. I mean, he returns it so much, and I know that it might be easy for some people listening and say, well, if you get plenty of money and that's easy for you do, sometimes I'm in a bind.

Well, I mean, get a good paycheck and take the charge, and take the chunk out of it that comes out of it. And that's just 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. That's right. If you can make an excuse in one place, you'll make one on the other.

Amen. That's the truth. And I just wanted, I was thinking about that, and that was just something that I wanted to mention. And that has helped me, and I encourage anybody listening that if you'll lead with your faith, with your tithe, I mean, you can't out give God and it strength in my relationship with him so much. That is awesome.

Brad Arnold is my guest, lead singer for three 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 birth that's ever come on and told the people they need to tie. So you're going to be a frequent flyer. We'll get you back. You know, 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. Yes, sir. Okay. God bless you. God bless you. Thank you. Thanks for joining me today.

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