lit a candle 2h agoMy mom played Come, Now Is the Time to Worship on repeat in the car every Sunday when I was a kid, the cassette was half worn out. Heard about his passing while I was making coffee this morning and just stood there. Sixty.
Their story
Brian Robert Doerksen (November 17, 1965 to July 21, 2026) was a Canadian worship leader, singer and songwriter from Abbotsford, British Columbia, whose songs "Come, Now Is the Time to Worship," "Refiner's Fire" and "Faithful One" became standards in churches around the world. A Juno Award winner and one of…
Brian Robert Doerksen (November 17, 1965 to July 21, 2026) was a Canadian worship leader, singer and songwriter from Abbotsford, British Columbia, whose songs "Come, Now Is the Time to Worship," "Refiner's Fire" and "Faithful One" became standards in churches around the world. A Juno Award winner and one of the founding voices of Vineyard Worship, he spent nearly four decades writing songs meant, in his words, to "lead worship with a whisper and sing over the suffering."
Doerksen was born in Abbotsford to Mennonite parents. His father, Harry, was an elementary school principal and his mother a kindergarten teacher. He later said his mother's habit of sitting quietly, reading and praying Scripture shaped his life, and he remembered his father preparing the Sunday hymns every Saturday night. As a teenager he told himself he would not play "those hymns." He was a member of a local Mennonite Brethren church and graduated from the Mennonite Educational Institute in 1983. At 15 he met Joyce, his high school sweetheart, and the couple married young (in 1984, at about 19) and worked as a team for more than 40 years.
In his early twenties he joined the staff of the Langley Vineyard Christian Fellowship as worship pastor. At 23, watching his infant daughter reach out to be held, he felt that this was the closeness he longed for with God. The moment became his first song, "Father, I Want You to Hold Me," and it opened his way into Vineyard Music. "Faithful One" followed in 1989 and "Refiner's Fire" in 1990, and he became a featured worship leader on many Vineyard recordings, as well as a teacher of worship leading and songwriting in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe.
The 1990s also brought hard years. After the success of the album Father's House, an attempt to stage a musical on the same theme failed financially and cost the family their first home and years of royalty income. Then the Doerksens learned that their second son had Fragile X syndrome, the same condition as their first son. Joyce later said Brian walked the property that day and told God he resigned. Instead he felt called to keep singing, and to sing honestly about his sorrows. The family moved to England to work with the Vineyard movement there, and while walking the streets of London he felt the words "Now is the time" arrive. He went home, sat at the piano and found the melody of "Come, Now Is the Time to Worship" (1998), the song that became his best known and that he described as the start of his rebirth as a writer.
In the 2000s Doerksen recorded for Integrity Music's Hosanna! label, releasing You Shine (2002), Today (2004), Live in Europe (2005), Holy God (2006) and It's Time (2008), followed by Level Ground (2010). He won the Gospel Music Association's International Award (a Dove Award) in 2003, a string of GMA Canada Covenant Awards, and the 2008 Juno Award for Contemporary Christian/Gospel Album of the Year for Holy God. He co-wrote "Hallelujah (Your Love Is Amazing)" with Brenton Brown, and his songs were recorded by artists including Phillips, Craig and Dean and the Oslo Gospel Choir. He co-created the musical Prodigal God with playwright Christopher Greco, which premiered in Vancouver in 2010, and wrote the book Make Love, Make War: NOW Is the Time to Worship (2009).
Doerksen was also a pastor. In 2006 he helped start The Bridge, an interdenominational church in Abbotsford's Matsqui Village, where he served as a teaching and worship arts pastor, and from 2014 he led the School of Worship Arts at Prairie Bible Institute. GMA Canada gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014. Later independent albums included Grateful (2017, Juno nominated), The Heart of Christmas (2019, Juno nominated) and Hymns for Life (2021); during the COVID-19 pandemic he and his father planned and produced an album of hymns together. He also recorded as part of The SHIYR Poets.
At home, he was a primary caregiver for his two adult sons with Fragile X syndrome. He tended roses and gardens and walked woodland trails with his sons, letting the quiet do its work. He believed the Psalms, with their mix of praise and lament, were "the most emotionally healthy, comprehensive expression of spirituality ever written," and urged churches to sing songs of gratitude, lament, intercession and repentance, not only praise.
He kept releasing music into early 2026 and was recording an album called Breathing, meant to comfort people with anxiety or insomnia, into the spring. From February he suffered severe pain from undiagnosed problems, and he was later diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, with a mass in his pelvis and spots on his liver and lungs. He was treated at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, where his kidneys failed. At his request he came home so his sons could understand his coming absence. He died peacefully in his sleep at about 6:45 a.m. on July 21, 2026, at the family home in Abbotsford, aged 60, surrounded by family. Vineyard Worship called him "one of the fathers of Vineyard Worship." A private memorial was held, followed by an official livestreamed memorial, Songs and Stories from the Heart of Brian Doerksen, on October 17, 2026. He is survived by Joyce, their six children Rachel, Esther, Ben, Joy, Mercy and Isaiah, his father Harry and his brother, Rev. Allen Doerksen.
Biography adapted from The Globe and Mail obituary (Lorna Dueck, 2026-08-12); The Christian Post (2026-07-22); Christian Daily International (2026-07-23); Abbotsford News (2026-07-22); Wikipedia; Brian Doerksen official Ins. Wikipedia ↗
In their own words
“I felt this invitation, you know, to lead worship with a whisper and sing over the suffering. And those two phrases have never left me.”
Describing his musical approach, quoted in The Globe and Mail, 2026
“This is the kind of relationship I have longed to have with God. Just as my daughter could experience me holding her close, I wanted to experience Father God holding me.”
Recalling the moment at 23 that led to his first song, on 100 Huntley Street
“I came back home and ran over to the piano and plunked out the melody to the song Come, Now is the Time to Worship. That was the beginning almost of my rebirth into writing songs.”
On the Scripture Untangled podcast
“I believe place matters, story matters, history matters.”
On his songwriting ethos, 2026
“Like the Psalms, which have one-third lament to two-thirds song of praise, you need a healthy balance of songs of gratitude, songs of praise, songs of lament, songs of intercession, songs of repentance.”
Advice to churches, quoted in The Globe and Mail
“Lead with a gentleness so that those who are barely hanging on feel included.”
Advice to worship leaders
“The most emotionally healthy, comprehensive expression of spirituality ever written.”
Describing the Psalms to the Canadian Bible Society
Photos
2Brian Doerksen performing in concert
by People Forever
Brian Doerksen leading worship during GMA Canada Week in Calgary
by People Forever
From social media
6Posts by Brian, and posts about them, kept here so they are not lost.