Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Brian Doerksen’s Final Precious Moments With Wife Joyce before death
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.
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”.
Brian Doerksen’s Final Precious Moments With Wife Joyce before death
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.
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”.
