Bryan gets his Black Sheep Colors
Nifty Noodles
Nifty Noodles/ Well, Well The Well...................
Nifty Noodles/ New Sheep
2/25/07 Calimesa, CA…
The Well is a new church that borrows another church’s church for church!. As it is a seventh day Adventist facility there’s nothing happenin there on Sunday. One of my fellow Black Sheep members attends there and asked me to play for Sunday morning. It’s only 30 minutes from my place so I met Sunday morning with a few friends at Denny’s to ride up on Motorcycles… upon arrival we were joined at the church by another 20 bikers from other chapters of Black Sheep… and following the service and a quick stop at the local leather goods store to have patches sewn on, we rode over to Mike Julierette’s house for a BBQ. Mike is a Kevin Costner looking guy with the handlebar mustache ie “Dances with Wolves”. He rides with the Riverside Chapter even though he’s not nearly in our neighborhood.
But he surely made our group look good with this little BBQ hang… there were some 50 people there at least, mostly from Black Sheep ranks and it felt like a family reunion.
I love riding to gigs on Jezebel… can’t carry a lot of stuff but with only a three song set I figured I wouldn’t need much. A lot of folks there seemed to be older fans of my early work… so I opened with Blue Skies and then gave them a taste of the new things.. with Second Chances.. and finished with Strollin on The Water.
I love being this close to home too… the ride home over the back roads was like slipping the bonds of earth.. twisty two lane newly paved black top through the foothills that opens into a clear view of the California desert valleys. It was threatening rain and mostly cloudy but it framed the landscape and cast a wonderful light on an otherwise drab desert.
Ridin motorcycles even in the cold is like floatin in a dream world (when there”s no traffic). God has my attention in those moments under the helmet … where it’s just me and him!
O.k. so there’s that… bryan d
2/19/07 Riverside, CA
This weekend I became the 13th member of the local Riverside Black Sheep motorcycle ministry. I had to “adjust my attitude” a little. My first show of interest came before I realized there were “rules”…wasn’t sure I wanted to join something I could actually get kicked out of… that’s been a reality for me most of my life… that list includes a string of churches, the Ontario Airport, a Bible college, the entire state of Florida Assemblies of God at one point, a boy scout operation called Royal Rangers when I was 12… and I’m sure there are more…places that didn’t have me back in concert because of ‘stuff I said’…
I like my “non conformity” alittle too much perhaps… individuality is nice for creativity but when it comes to following Christ or working Recovery… I just can’t be the Lone Ranger.. and I have to admit there’s a certain manly “bravado” to being “independent”… but shortly after deciding that I didn’t need to be a member of anything… I read Oswald Chambers’ comments on “independence”.. .. “man sees it as an admirable quality... God calls it Obstinate Weakness” he says roughly paraphrased here… ouch.. the more I contemplated the ramifications the more I realized there was a lack of humility and a heavy dose of personal arrogance going on here.
“What are you doing to heal?” was the question put to me by the National Black Sheep president Marty Edwards, when I spoke candidly about my disillusionment with church and all things “religious”. My bitterness and anger was still evident to scrutiny. “You wear your anger like a crown” he said on the phone. He’s not entirely wrong about that… but I might have “let my hair down” in front of him alittle more than I would elsewhere… feeling the biker community would be more understanding about my resentments.
I have been really proud of my “honesty” on one hand but the truth is… to stay resentful as a point of honesty is not beneficial to me or anyone I come into contact with. “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ” I told Marty…”I’m just embarrassed at the way it’s presented sometimes” … so what am I doing to present it better I thought… sometimes I just wanna pass out apologies to pagans for the insensitivity of Christians… I think we’ve all hurt somebody in the name of God somewhere. Trouble is, I’ve tended to offer my resignation from the flock at times of “embarrassment” .. I don’t mind being identified with a group as long as they make me look good! 8)… but to stand with people when it might sully my reputation is another thing. It’s something I’ve hurled insults at others for but did not see how I practiced the same reality! (cause it was all ‘justifiable’ in my case) 8).
Bottom line is that I have met some great people in Black Sheep and Bikers For Christ in the last two years. People I wanna stand with cause they are genuine with no more than a willingness to serve others in all humility. What better calling is there? Black Sheep HDFC is about being of service and I have happily joined. I met on Saturday with the entire Riverside chapter (except for one) and was also joined by several biker visitors.. 5 independents and 5 High Desert chapter members… it was the largest gathering for a Riverside chapter breakfast ever. The Camaraderie was wonderful and six of us rode to Calimesa to have my patches sewn on that afternoon. I rode home in a wonderful state of gratitude for what God is doing in my life as I surrender to his will. (Still, he makes me nervous 8)… but man what an adventure my life has become! ) this day almost felt like a baptism.
O.K. so there’s THAT… Bryan D / Soul Viking… Black Sheep member
Nifty Noodles/ Positive Professor
2/13/07 Biola University / La Mirada, CA
I was asked to speak to a music class at Biola just forty minutes down the road… I took Jezebel even as it was threatening rain. They were asking me to deliver some of my experience in Christian Music. Wow here’s a new twist I never thought I’d see. I gave them a list of my achievements in Music…the platinum records I have songs on and the double platinum and the gold.. and selling a million records of my own..the Dove awards and nominations and other life achievements.. “the music business has nearly ruined my life” I said..”I lost my passion in the pursuit of success”. Awards are simply an acknowledgement of what has already happened but it can become a distraction to your purpose in the moment. I found myself trying to please the needs of others at the discount of what I really wanted to do.
Nifty Noodles/ Ready for Redding
Nifty Noodles/ Biker Church
Nifty Noodles/ Front Row 4 a Tornado!!!
Redding, CA 2/9-11/07 Neighborhood Church/ Celebrate Recovery
It rained everyday all day… till we left on Sunday… I’m pretty sure barometric pressure plays into emotional fatigue . I was hoping to ride Motorcycles while I was up here in this Northern California paradise. The rain clouds left me feeling just a little exhausted all the time. But the primary effort was supporting a conference for training leaders who are building a recovery program at this church. I played six times in three days including three morning services and one Friday night concert and participated in the “seminar” speaking on “why we need a sponsor in recovery”.
It’s a small band of “Renegades” doing most of the work to begin this program. Support is still needed for the long haul. But the time invested in the “staff” at this church was refreshing. I was invited along with Charlie Graham who works now with Sober Living By the Sea and has implemented a Celebrate Recovery program within the facility at Newport Beach California… he came up with his wife Vicky to conduct the seminar. Charlie is nuts frankly 8)… Lots of laughter between “to do” lists and workshops. Amazingly we fit right in here, Dan (a John Baker look alike) and Dave and their wives and U.S. Grant (his real name) were all quite affable… they were all easy to hang around.
I stayed at the home of a Dentist who was out of town for the weekend..given the run of his expensive home and car while I was here… and I was commenting on how upscale the place was. Everything was so neatly laid out , I couldn’t figure out how to turn off his big screen and I was afraid to leave the towels out of place! 8)… “maybe he could sponsor your next record project” someone laughed…”he might be willing if you zoomed in on everyone’s teeth and put his name on the cover” someone joked… “yea we could name the record “bite me”…I added… and the laughter was over the top and out of the chairs… don’t know if I’ll ever think of the new project with NehoSoul without thinking of it as the “Bite me” project now.. “we’d sell a lot of t shirts” I laughed. These were the moments between the moments that I enjoyed the most. It’s the life that happens while we’re making our plans.
The planning that goes into a long term ministry is overwhelming when you look at what has to be done just to reach out effectively and deliberately. It’s goes a lot further than feeding someone on the street once…and yet gets none of the attention that a simpler act would. Dave is leading the charge it seems and told me of a term I hadn’t heard, about the elderly in the throws of dementia… some are called “Sundowners”… having the behavior of being very active in the middle of the night… getting up and packing their clothes, or rearranging the furniture… he spoke of a woman who went outside and pulled up all the sprinklers in the front yard in the middle of the night… “I couldn’t do that in the daytime” I thought … how does a 80 year old do it?
Sat through the last service in the café next to the sanctuary.. the sermon was on “Four Letter Words” the biggest was “OBEY”… get it? pastor was very down to earth during the service… someone left their cell phone on the drum riser and it went off in the middle of the preachers talk… he answered it! 8)….I liked him from there out!...
O.k. so there’s that… bryan d
2/7/07 Muscoy, CA
Muscoy is home to much violence. Shootings here are more common than perhaps anywhere in southern California. There is a small church here called Set Free. It would make the perfect “movie setting” for the story of dramatic “Street evangelism” if we were telling the bigger story… but this is a daily grind kind of ministry… I was met at the freeway by “chief” (the real deal in bikers) and another member of Bikers for Christ. They “escorted” me into the neighborhood. Six or seven members of Black Sheep showed up too on their bikes for a Wednesday night church meeting.
There were several men in a recovery program on the grounds of this little white “Schoolhouse” looking, one room sanctuary. I was smiling as I sang to thirty people on a little spinet piano.. perfectly out of tune so that it sounded like a chorus effect. It felt like real mission work. The visual could not be improved on in a movie really. I sang “chains come in every shape”.. and “If only I”…but the track stuff seemed out of place to the environment… so I moved to the piano for “No words” and “don’t Help the devil” and “If you pray for me”… it was more what was needed here… I talked about blaming others for your circumstances as it has related to my own failures in the past.
I have always looked for a way to shirk my own responsibility to act on my own behalf regardless of who has hurt me… only just now realizing how true it has been in my “refusal to accept my strength”. I can complain about where I’m not singing and who doesn’t like my lyrics and how I’m discounted by other believers for lack of “true” passion for Christ… and stop doing what I love because of it… or I can go where I am celebrated and find my own passion in my own efforts and see where it goes… I was telling my story again to thirty people who were listening.. but I was the one really hearing it.. and I was satisfied in the experience.
There’s very little to pretend about in this environment, realities are stark, but the smiles seem bigger when there is less to protect.
O.k. so there’s that… Bryan D
2/2/07 The Villages, Florida
At 3:15 a.m. I was awakened in my hotel room in Lady Lake, Florida by a vicious crack of lightning and thunder. I love the sound of rain when I’m sleeping so I had the window open and the curtains parted wide so I could watch the lightning. The power went out at 3:20 and I was standing at the window trying to take a picture of the lightening. I had no idea at that moment a tornado had touched down just a quarter mile away. Several hundred homes were annihilated and at least nineteen souls lost.
It could have affected the concert next day at Village View Community Church where I was to play for a 4th year anniversary of their Celebrate Recovery. But it was still a full house. The concept of “recovery” had a fresh face in the light of a lightning fast change of fortune for some. That afternoon we met a few people who were directly affected by the devastation in the local neighborhood.
Fred Theroux was the organizer of this CR event.. he has a Boston accent so to hear him say it .. he’s the “agonizer” of the event! 8) in his seventies, he lives in the “Villages”.. a retirement community of some seventy thousand, with their own t.v. and radio stations… there are more golf carts on the local streets than there are cars almost… reminded me of “it’s a small world” .Fred was downright “evangelistic” in his praise of the local community.
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