The Life and Music of Brian Doerksen

If you follow Christian music no doubt you’ve heard or sung “Come, Now is the Time to Worship”. I’m Charles Morris and welcome to Haven Today, a program on many topics, but a program with one goal: to lead you to Jesus Christ every day. Have you heard the song “Refiner’s Fire”? Well on this program you get to hear the music as well as the life story of Christian singer and song writer Brian Doerksen from Abbotsford British Columbia. I had a wonderful time getting to know Brian a few weeks ago and was especially encouraged by his desire to serve the Lord through his music. So let’s get started, with the title song from his newest worship album recorded live in his home town, Brian Doerksen opens Haven Today.

Song: Today
Performed by: Brian Doerksen

The song is called, “Today” on Haven Today, I’m Charles Morris and we’re coming to you from the Genuine Music studio in Abbotsford, British Columbia and with me in the studio is Brian Doerksen, a new friend of mine, the man who wrote that song, but a lot of other songs that you will probably recognize. Brian, I want to welcome you to Haven Today.
BD: Good Morning, Charles, great to be here.
CM: It’s good to have you on the program and I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time. How’d you get started in the music business?

BD: The simple summary would be, I grew up in a wonderful Christian home where my dad led the singing every Sunday at church, at a Mennonite Church here in Abbotsford. I went through my little bit of rebellious stage, teenage years and I said, “Oh, I’m never going to be like my dad!” And then God got a hold of me as a 15, 16 year old. I was pursuing excellence in athletics, and I was an all star basketball player and overnight pretty much the Lord just took away the desire to pursue those things and gave me a heart to serve him. And I never set out to be in the music business, I just really –
CM: It just happened.
BD: It just happened. I just wanted to serve God, yeah.
CM: Sure. When did you first discover that you had a gift from the Lord for writing music?
BD: My mom, you know, people will ask her, “Well, when did you know?” And she looks at them like, “I had no clue”. What happened was, as I led worship and as I looked for music that really served our church and served the various generations that were gathering to worship I would use other people’s songs if they said what I felt like our church needed to express to God. And there got to a point where I would reach for something and I couldn’t find the song that said what I wanted to say already written, so I thought –
CM: What do I do?

BD: Maybe I should try and write it?
CM: Absolutely.
BD: I can’t remember even the exact details, but there was a service and there was this sort of gap and I knew we needed a song about such and such and I thought, “Oh, I wrote that. Oh that’s too scary.” You know I’m a very shy person by nature, but finally I just took the risk and shared it and it seemed to really connect with people.
CM: The Lord really uses life experiences, doesn’t he to, in fact sometimes we’ll use a song that someone has written for one purpose in church but we don’t always know the story behind the song which might even have been for a totally different reason. And I’m thinking about the song that most people know, “Come, Now is the Time to Worship”. And there is a story behind that isn’t there?
BD: When that song came I was at the darkest and the lowest place I have ever been in my life, partly because we had dreamed a very big dream for the Kingdom and we had tried to do, you know, a musical that would convey the Father heart of God.
CM: And you’re speaking of your wife Joyce as well?
BD: Yes, absolutely.
CM: The two of you had prayed and were asking the Lord to bless this musical.
BD: Yeah and we had worked on it for, at that point, for 5 or 6 years and we were short of money so we sold our home, put all our equity from our home into the project, I mean we risked everything on this. And to make a long story short, the musical did not survive, it collapsed. We lost everything. You know we were devastated. And we were also, you know, as Christian leaders at least in this local area there was a lot of quickly withdrawing from me.
CM: Yes.
BD: And it was at that time, right after the musical collapsed, we had nowhere to live. We took a trip to Los Angeles and we had breakfast with John and Carol Wynburn and he looked at me and he said, “You know what? The churches in England are looking for somebody to come along side the worship leaders and train the song writers and worship leaders. Would you have a heart to do that?” Out of that, leading worship on Sundays in London, England, so broken inside, there was times where I even start to doubt the existence of God.
CM: Right.
BD: I’m devastated. One morning I’m out walking, I try to go for a little prayer, exercise walk every morning. We have a very busy house, at that point we had 5 children and out of the ether, out of that sort of atmosphere I just heard this, “Come, now is the time to worship” (sung). And it was like, it was just like this breath, God sounding this call to worship over me, over London, over the nations of the earth. It just sang over me and as I walked I just sang it over and over again and phrases started coming to me, “Come, just as you are” and you know, I thought, “OK, I’ve got it! Because that’s this is all, you know, I’m, I’m a broken person, you know. But I know God’s still inviting me to come just as I am to worship.” And I ran home, and I ran up to the piano, you know and just started –
CM: The words were beginning to form, but the notes were beginning to come too.
BD: Yeah, the words were beginning to form, yeah. It talks about it in the Psalms, how day and night the skies pour forth speech. You know, you were made to be a worshipper of God, will you come and worship? It’s amazing to me how God can take something that was birthed out of such a dark, long valley and bring light to other people and life to other people through it.
CM: And, eventually, the song that we know as “Come, Now is the Time to Worship.”
BD: Yeah, and what was amazing was, within weeks, without the song even being recorded we started hearing stories from other parts of the world where people were singing the song. And part of it was, you know, our church in London, you know London’s a little bit of a –
CM: It’s like a sending center for the rest of the world.
BD: Yeah, it’s a kind of crossroads where people pass through it. So, it just took off. I’ve never had a song, it’s been recorded in so many languages and it’s been an incredible blessing. And even that, you know, God saw us, the sacrifice we made to try and do the musical and we were on the verge of bankruptcy, we were on the verge of everything. And God has blessed that song and you know, even restored my ability through that and some other songs to be able to provide for my family again. And it’s just a God story, something that he could only do.

Song: Come, Now is the Time to Worship
Performed by: Haven

You’ve made your way to Haven Today. I’m Charles Morris with Brian Doerksen and we’re coming to you from Abbotsford, British Columbia. That’s the Haven version of Brian’s song, “Come, Now is the Time to Worship”. And I guess, Brian, we never know when the Lord’s going to give us a song, even those of us like myself who can’t write music. But it’s a humbling thing, isn’t it for the Lord to put a song in our hearts? And, but he does, doesn’t he? When we just are flat out, face down, not knowing where to turn, what to do, God always steps in with his children, because he loves us and he has mercy on us. And that’s what he did with you and your wife Joyce and your children.
BD: I think so many of us, we expect God to abandon us when we go through the hard times and withdraw from us or something, maybe because that’s what we’ve experienced in the world, and yet those are the times it seems like God’s presence breaks in the most. He gives us things to hold onto. He reaches out his hand for us to grab to. And for me songs are just one of those ways, a tangible way you know, where, because for me melody and words that are true truth, you know, they just reconnect me. They awaken my heart again to who God is and who I am. So it’s part of God’s gift to me too, as I’m struggling as he gives me those gifts.
CM: I guess in our darkest moments, and all of us have dark moments, it’s wonderful to know that Jesus is going to just lead us safely through, no matter what comes along.
BD: And so, you know, one of my songs, “Lead Us Lord” that’s on the “Today” project came out of a time where, you know, our pastor at our church here, we’d come back here, and really good friend, wonderful ministry and then he sensed the Lord was moving him on. And people felt at a loss. They were like, “Well, how are we going, everything’s going to change!” and I wrote this simple prayer both from my heart and from the heart of our church to say, you know what we’re going through change, but God’s call and God’s invitation is that we would risk, that we would dream again, that we would, you know, that we would reach out and say, “Lord lead us, you know, make our lives still fruitful” and it sort of ends with this, but this, “We know that you will lead us Lord.” And that’s the example, isn’t it? I mean we could look at everybody’s story in scripture whether it’s Joseph in the Old Testament, and you can, all through, they all went through seasons of change, but they were all led by God. God, just when they needed it, they had the direction they needed.

Song: Lead Us Lord
Performed by: Brian Doerksen

From the “Today” album that’s Brian Doerksen who’s live with us in studio today and “Lead Us Lord”. And Brian, I feel like we just got started and, but time goes too quickly. Would you mind coming back and joining us on the program tomorrow and share a little more with us out of your life?
BD: I would love to.
CM: Back in the studio of Haven Today. Aren’t you so glad to have been here the last few minutes and heard just part of the life story of Brian Doerksen? And I’m glad he’s going to come back with us tomorrow. We also got to hear music from his brand new album, “Today”, that’s what started our time together with worship. You just heard, “Lead Us Lord”, and then also we heard him in studio play, “Come, Now is the Time to Worship” and then the Haven singers doing the same song. Brian Doerksen, what a blessing he was to me and I’m sure he was to you in the last few minutes. Haven Today is listener supported and we make it because of you. I hope you pray for us. And I hope you also give us your financial gifts as well. And if you’ve never given to Haven Today, now is a day to start. For your gift of $30 or more, we’d like to send you Brian Doerksen’s newest album, “Today” and then we’d also like to send you a complimentary second CD with the 2 Haven Today programs. It’s there on our website, haventoday.org, haventoday.org. Or give us a call in a moment at 1-800-65-HAVEN, 1-800-654-2836. Please let us know the station you’re listening to when you get in touch as well. And I want to thank all the Haven Today listeners who not only send the suggested gift amount, but send a little something extra. That means a lot. I’m Charles Morris and thank you for being with me and Brian Doerksen. Please do come back again tomorrow when again we’re going to worship the Lord together with some great Christian music here on Haven Today.