Based in Abbotsford, Brian
Doerksen has been one of the leading writers of
contemporary Christian music over the last 20 years, producing songs such
as ‘Come, Now is the Time to Worship’ and
‘Refiner’s Fire.’ His Holy
God CD was awarded the 2008 Juno Award for
Contemporary Christian/Gospel Album of the Year. In this interview,
Doerksen discusses the many facets of worship.
BCCN: What does it mean
that a secular organization has given an award to a CD about the holiness
of God?
Brian Doerksen: That’s a good question. First of all, I would think
that they were probably more looking at the influence of the music in a
certain genre. I don’t think they would be paying that much attention
to the lyrical content.
I thought it was absolutely telling of the Canadian
music scene that not only was my album, Holy
God, nominated, but there was another one
nominated that was [by a band called] Holy F---. You have profanity connected with the word
‘holy’ and me singing it as an act of reverent worship.
They released a compilation of all the Juno nominees
before the event, and they included the one full of profanity, but they
wouldn’t include my songs.
BCCN: There has been some
discussion in the media and in Christian circles that a recent American Idol TV program had
the contestants sing ‘Shout to the Lord,’ a straightforward
Christian song. Would that happen in Canada?
BD: For Canadians, religion
is private. Your expression of spirituality is private. So I would
definitely not expect Canadian Idol contestants to sing a Christian song.
BCCN: But there have been
some Christian contestants on Canadian Idol.
BD: Absolutely. One of the
members of my worship team . . . made it to the top 50. When she started
going through the process, I kind of rolled my eyes and said, “Only
do this if you really feel strongly about it.”
She said, “It’ll be fun. I’ll learn
some stuff about performance and about music, and it will push me.”
I said, “Absolutely, as long as you know what that is, that the
spirit of performance is the complete opposite of the spirit of
worship.”
The irony for me about winning the Juno or winning any
award is that I never set out to be a songwriter. I never set out to be a
recording artist. I’m super shy. I don’t like performing. I
just want to worship God, and part of how I worship God comes out in these
songs, these creative expressions.
I sing them for God. I don’t sing them for
people. I don’t play the music business game. I’m not on the
road touring all the time. Some of those things happen as a by-product, as
an encouragement, which may lead to somebody – who wouldn’t
necessarily listen to my music – listening to it. Great. But
I’m not pursuing those types of goals.
BCCN: Is there a spirit of
performance that carries over from the world into churches?
BD: It’s one of the
things that breaks my heart the most about the church. One of the phrases I
use that Jesus first spoke is the term “Father’s house.”
It’s a place of belonging that’s not ruled
by a spirit of performance – but by a spirit of acceptance, of
truth. It’s like a family gathering. It’s a safe place. And
we’ve turned it into a place of performance and competition and
religious rules . . . Another way I would express it is
“Fatherless worship” – worship that is built around
performance . . .
Sometimes when the worship team get up on the stage and
start playing these songs, it just feels to me it’s all about the
appearance, it’s all about the performance, and it’s no longer
about the heart. God is interested in our hearts.
The very thing that I’m a part of and that I
helped start – someone said I’m one of the pioneers of the
whole modern worship music thing, about 20 years ago – some of it
scares me to death, because it gets mixed in with how the world does it.
And then we end up with this thing that causes
confusion, causes insecurity, and people say, “You know, I
don’t even want to go to church anymore. I need the rest of God. I
need the peace of God. I don’t need the striving and all of that
stuff.”
BCCN: Contemporary music
isn’t the only kind of music that has performance.
BD: I’m not totally
now referring to contemporary music. I’m referring to every kind of
music. In fact, some classical styles of music are even more susceptible
because you remove yourself from the culture of today.
The best music to lift people’s hearts and gather
people in and give them an expression has to be a type of folk music. I
lean a little bit away from ‘pop music’ right now, because pop
music is becoming so commercialized and so sensual.
By ‘folk music,’ I just mean simple songs
that people can sing together. Classical music and some of these other
styles can be infused with the presence of God and the love of God, but
they can also be totally infused with a spirit of performance. So much of
classical music is about searching for the perfect performance of the
perfect piece of music from Mozart or whoever, and in all of that striving,
we lose our hearts.
I’m sure we’ve all experienced both.
We’ve all been in a church or gathering and we’ve been repelled
by the feeling coming off the platform, of performance . . .
We’ve also experienced the real thing –
where all of a sudden there’s just an honesty, a transparency, and
God is present, and we lift up our hearts to him. It’s an amazing
thing.
God’s people have always sung together. From the
earliest moment that we see in scripture, [of] God’s people
gathering, they have sung together – and I believe they always will,
even in heaven.
Of course, there’s silence, there’s all
kinds of things, but still there’s something about singing together.
It gathers up our hearts and our minds and joins minds and hearts together
in a way that nothing else does.
So, we can’t say, “Oh, there’s
negative things happening, there’s too much performance. Let’s
throw it all out.” How about we just sing some simple songs together,
that are full of God’s truth?
BCCN: Are you saying that
congregational singing should be simple?
BD: Absolutely, and
that’s what I mean by folk songs. They’re songs that the
everyday person can enter into and sing . . . I say to songwriters when
I’m training them: “Simple and bad is very easy. Simple and
great is very hard.” The best songs always have a simplicity, yet in
that simplicity there is a depth.
You start thinking about the best hymns that have stood
the test of time – “My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art
mine” – they’re simple, yet they’re full of depth,
and they’re singable. People can enter into them and own them...
When leading worship in a church context, I want to be
leading worship for the everyday person who isn’t a musician.
It’s not about me showing off what I can create and sing. It’s
about me serving those people who have gathered and giving them voice to
express their heart’s cry . . .
Every single time I teach worship songwriting, I plead,
“Let’s bring the whole experience of life into worship like the
Psalms do. Let’s bring in all of our emotions”. . .
I have to fight with my publisher sometimes to even
include in a recording a song that has any component of lament. We have
such a long way to go in this area, maybe because it’s way easier to
write an upbeat song of praise and thanksgiving. Maybe it’s way
harder to have the kind of honesty and transparency to write a lament.
Maybe we have the words of so many pastors echoing in
our hearts that to sing a lament is to bring a complaint and that we should
stop whining. We don’t understand what a biblical lament actually is,
and so we don’t engage in it in our churches.
The last several years, I’ll gather several
hundred worship leaders and ask them, “How many of you can remember
the last time in your church you sang a lament?” Not one person has
ever put up their hand. Not one. Isn’t that unbelievable?
BCCN: Is part of the
problem that a lot of the modern songwriters are young and they
haven’t experienced enough?
BD: That’s definitely
part of it. In the music business, it’s the young and sexy that get
heard. You’d think that would be totally different in Christian music
– and it’s actually not . . . I hear worship writers saying,
“I’ve got to write some songs for my new record.” I
scratch my head.
“Write songs for a record? Why don’t you
write songs that express your life? Why don’t you write songs to
serve your local church? And then when the fruit is mature, when
you’ve got a bunch of songs that have obviously been connecting with
people, then put out a record. Why don’t you do it that way?”
Writing is a servant act for those that you’re in
relationship with . . . As writers, we are called to hold out God’s
truth and our truth. Some worship leaders say we shouldn’t even
include our truth. It should just be the truth about God.
There are absolutely times to sing a song that has
nothing to do with us or our perspective . . . But when Jesus spoke to the
woman at the well, he said the Father is looking for worshippers who will
worship in spirit and truth.
I believe it’s God’s truth, but he was also
saying to this woman, “I know who you really are, and I want you to
come to me as you are and worship instead of coming as you think you should
be or pretending that you’re somebody that you’re not.”
So, I want songs that are full of God’s truth,
that point us to God. But they have to be expressed from the vantage point
of our truth
– because to not express our truth in the presence of God
completely takes away our humanity.