The Canadian worship leader Brian Doerksen who wrote classic songs including ‘Come now is the time to worship’ and ‘Refiners fire’ has died at the age of 60. Les Moir pays tribute to a calm, consistent and humble man
Today, we honour Brian Doerksen’s life and contribution to the global church, a prolific writer of some of the most sung worship songs in the world, including ‘Faithful One’, ‘Refiner’s fire’, ‘Come now is the time to worship’, ‘Light the fire again’, ‘Hope of the nations’ and ‘Your love is amazing’.
Married to Joyce for close to 40 years, based in Abbottsford, British Columbia in Canada, he was a caring father to six children - four daughters and two sons, both sons with Fragile X Syndrome. He was a calm, consistent, humble, loyal, pure-hearted man of integrity, and hardworking - most likely from his Mennonite roots.
I first met Brian in 1989 at a worship conference in Anaheim, California. He was a young worship leader from Langley Vineyard in Canada. Brian was being mentored by worship leader Andy Park and was hungry to learn.
My ongoing connection was to play bass on the first studio recording of ‘Refiner’s fire’ and then on Brian’s songs on his first Touching the Father’s Heart album. Even then, he was a quiet, yet focused, earnest and a sensitive scholar.
We would then go on to record more albums for Vineyard including Save Us O God and be part of many Vineyard conferences together. God gave Brian a heart for Europe, where he had incredible impact especially in Germany. From one worship conference in Ludenscheid, four live albums were released - amazing times. Our friendship grew when Brian, Joyce and their family moved to London. We met up and Brian asked me to help record an album with the UK Vineyard songwriters, this album was called Come, Now is the Time. Brian actually wrote the title song as he prayer walked the streets of London, where God gave him a burden for the United Kingdom.
He was a calm, consistent, humble, loyal, pure-hearted man of integrity, and hardworking
God used Brian to raise up several gifted worship leaders and songwriters including Brenton Brown, Kathryn Scott and Marc James. Come, Now is the Time was followed up by the landmark Vineyard UK album, Hungry. As the songwriters grew in confidence with Brian at the helm, God did more than we could imagine with these two albums.
Loyal to his worship team that were with him for over 30 years, he was continually investing and promoting others, fulfilling the Vineyard value of ‘freely you have received, and freely give’. As Andy Park and later on, Paul Janz mentored Brian, Brian carried on this lineage with Brenton Brown, honing and shaping songs such as ‘Lord Reign in Me’ and ‘All Who Are Thirsty’.
He was one of the first songwriters to remind the modern psalmists about lament, and always sort to bring balance in the theology of worship. He continued to explore creative expressions with the acoustic folk-rock collective, SHIYR poets, and the Father’s House which was released in 1994 and became a multimedia and musical stage production.
Brian was a teacher and mentor - especially in songwriting, and before his passing, he managed to complete his songwriting course of over 20 hours of video content and it is one of the most extensive courses in the world on this subject.
In 2003, Brian was presented with the International Award by the Gospel Music Association in America and in 2019, Faithful One album was released celebrating Brian’s 30 years of making music. He also received several Canadian Covenant awards including in 2014 the Lifetime Achievement Award. During Covid, ‘Faithful One’ became an anthem of hope for many, as he sang, “You are my rock, in times of trouble”.
Recently, Brian was part of the House of Worship project, which brought together key worship leaders from the last two generations, leading some of the most significant songs where Brian recorded Come, Now is the Time to Worship with Leeland.
During my time at Integrity Music, I was commissioned to compile the best of Brian’s songs for the Ultimate Collection series, again I realised he was a master craftsman in modern hymn-writing and a true worshipper, who leaves a legacy of a treasure chest of songs.
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