The Songwriter’s Perspective
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Faithful Father
A journey into the Father’s heartI wanted this album to reflect new places God has taken my heart recently. My hope is that all the different parts of the church will be inspired to express worship in their own particular ways.
by Brian Doerksen
My overall goal of the album was to make use of a variety of musical styles, to “push the envelope” of the worship sound. (This is part of my passion as the director of the Pacific Worship School: to encourage songwriters to write worship songs that both serve the church and are unique to each writer’s gifting.) Musically, it was wonderful to work once again with Brian Thiessen, as well as his wife Loralee; she and I actually co-led the entire album. Both of them have hearts of gold; Loralee is a very genuine, passionate worshiper, and Brian ‘T’ has been a close friend since I was five years old.
Last year, God answered my prayers in a very special way by connecting me with Philip Janz. Philip is now my musical director, both for worship events and for the upcoming tour of the stage musical, “Father’s House.” He is a wonderful musician; but much more than that, he loves God with all his heart and strength. He is also a very gifted arranger and producer. The night of the recording, I announced publicly that he and Brenda Le Fave were engaged just before she sang “Great Big Love” (and you wondered why she sings it with such passion!).
Since all the team members work full-time jobs, we had only two weeks of arranging and rehearsal time. The song writing, however — the most important part of the project — took a lot longer. Some of the songs were still being rewritten during rehearsal. Others, like “Revival Fire”, have been in use widely for more than two years, and one of the songs was written in 1917.
“Mystery” is a very interesting song: stylistically right out of my genre, yet it deeply moves me to worship when I hear it. Philip Janz originally wrote it with the title “Paid the Price”. I first heard it on a demo tape from his previous band. I thought that if we rewrote the lyrics, we would have a very poignant worship song in the BeBe and CeCe Winans vein. Philip asked me to do the lyrical rewrite.
I questioned him about what was on his heart when he first wrote it. His focus had been the mystery of God paying the price for sin on our behalf. During the time I worked on the song, I happened to see a picture of a little frail lady in Hong Kong who had been a drug addict and prostitute for 30 years. Jackie Pullinger-To and her team brought the gospel to her, and she eventually received Christ.
I realised the people who are the most worn out are those for whom the gospel seems the most amazing. This picture is reflected in the lyrics “all hope was gone and this worn out shell was near the grave, so I don’t know why, You gave Your Son”. The mystery is the Father giving His innocent Son for those who are guilty. Having a son myself, this concept is impossible to fathom!
For the third verse of the song, I painted a courtroom image: “...the jury spoke, I stood condemned to die..”. At the last minute the Son says to the Father, “I’ll pay.” And the Father says, “Yes,” even though it breaks His heart to do so.
“Who Is Like Our God,” in its original form, was written by another friend of mine, Brian Duane, from London. It’s all about exalting God, His character, His amazing attributes. The original lyrics were not paradoxical like the lyrics we recorded, but were statements such as “Perfect in holiness, awesome in power.” I rewrote the lyrics with the intention of describing the character of God through paradox.
The bridge section is a little unusual, beacuse I wanted to complete the song by saying that man, Satan (or fallen angels) and creation are not worthy of worship. Virtually every time I sing this song, I’m moved to worship God. One of the benefits of cowriting, as illustrated by this song, is that the strengths of more than one writer are tapped. The original version of “Who Is Like Our God” was very successful in London, but I knew it could be improved to reach a wider audience.
I just had to use one of Scott Underwood's songs, and I chose “Hop On the Bus.” At present, he's my favourite ‘new’ worship writer because he's so different from me. My style is more intense, intimate and mellow; Scott is Mr Joyful, and more upbeat. Recently, Scott came to Langley to speak at the Worship School, and stayed in our home for 6 days. He is the same person in private as he is on an album, and I respect his integrity. If you don't have Hallelujah Glory yet, run out and get it; it's full of life and joy.
The same thing can be said for David Ruis, my Canadian brother in Winnipeg. He's lived his song “Whom Have I But You,” and even though I can't do it as powerfully as he can, it's such a real song for so many people. I also think that this song is for Chris Wimber, and all of us who are friends of the Wimber family. As they fight cancer once again, I have a lot of questions, but I'm not giving up hope.
“Simply Said” was written by Monique Tute, who was a student at our Pacific Worship School at the time, and is now a member of the staff. This is probably my favourite love song to God, and my favourite song for times of ministry as well. The first demo tape I heard was horribly recorded on a portable tape player across the room from Monique. But the song itself still touched me deeply. It is so rich lyrically, and yet wonderfully simple. I could sing it for hours.
I don't expect all of the songs to be used by everyone. My hope is simply that all the different parts of the church will be inspired to express worship in their own particular ways. For this to happen, we need songs in a great variety of styles, including hymns. We must have both simple songs and those that require greater skill.
In the meantime, my driving passion now is to take intimacy and honesty of worship beyond the walls of the church. So for the next one or two years, I will focus on bringing the “Father’s House” stage musical to key places in North America and Europe. The message is that the faithful Father is longing for his prodigal sons and daughters to come home. And just as the father in the parable ran out to meet his son, so we too must go out to meet them.
Working on the Faithful Father album was lots of fun and very challenging, since we had limited time. This is my fourth recording in the Touching the Father's Heart series, and I didn’t want to just run the same play again. God has taken my heart to some new places since Light the Fire Again as well, and I wanted this album to reflect those experiences.
“Faithful Father” is a simple song that developed over the past three years. During this time, I was frequently overwhelmed by the reality of the Father’s love. I know how unfaithful I can be; yet He is so faithful. When I raise my voice in frustration toward my kids, He comes and speaks to me with such gentleness that I am, many times, undone. I cry out for mercy once again. This is the love that both the prodigal and the older brother are experiencing all over the world right now. In the middle of the song, I portray the homeward journey of the prodigal with a modern edge. I hope listeners feel free to interpret this section in whatever way it becomes authentic for them.
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