This morning I saw the name of Brian Doerksen trending online, and my heart did a quiet turn. For many of us who have spent decades in worship, that name isn't a headline at all — it's a memory. It's a Sunday morning. It's a room full of ordinary people lifting their voices with the words, "Come, now is the time to worship." Whether the news of his passing proves out or not, seeing his name reminded me of something worth sitting with: the songs God gives His people keep singing long after the ones who wrote them fall silent.
I've been a pastor a long time now, here in Ravenna and before. And if there's one thing I've watched happen again and again, it's this — a good song outlives its author. A melody scribbled down in a kitchen or a car finds its way into a little church in West Michigan, and thirty years later a grandmother is humming it while she washes dishes, and a young mother is singing it over a crib at 2 a.m. The songwriter never knew any of us. But the song came to visit.
An Old Command, Ever New
Scripture doesn't treat singing as decoration. It treats it as obedience. The psalmist writes, "Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth. Sing to the LORD, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day" (Psalm 96:1-2). Notice the words — day after day. Not once, not at a highlight moment, but daily. A song of praise is meant to be a well you return to, not a firework you set off and forget.
And notice too: a new song. God is never done giving them. Every generation is invited to write down what He has done for them. The old hymns are treasures, and so are the choruses your grandchildren will sing that haven't even been written yet. The Author of the melody keeps handing them out.
Why the Songs Stay
I think songs lodge in us more deeply than sermons because they go where reason can't always reach. When a saint is in the last stretch of a long illness and can no longer follow a conversation, they can still sing Amazing Grace. When words fail us at a graveside, a hymn carries what we cannot say. The songwriter gives us language for the days we have no language of our own.
That is a kind of ministry that keeps going without the minister. Brian Doerksen — and Fanny Crosby, and Charles Wesley, and the unnamed servants who set the psalms to music long ago — they handed us words to lift when our own hearts were too heavy to lift anything. And when they were gone, the words stayed put, working quietly in rooms they would never see.
What This Means for You
You may think you have nothing to leave behind. No book, no monument, no song on the radio. But every one of us leaves a melody of some kind. The way you spoke of Jesus to a neighbor. The prayer you prayed over a frightened child that they carry into adulthood. The faithful, un-flashy showing-up that taught a whole family what a steady saint looks like. These things sing on after us.
So don't wait for a stage. Sing where you are. Sing in the kitchen. Sing driving out to Muskegon in the rain. Come Sunday and sing with your church family even if your voice cracks and you don't know the harmony. Heaven is not grading your pitch. It is receiving your praise.
Here is the hope in all of it. The songs outlive the songwriters because the One they're about never dies. Jesus is risen, and He is worthy of a new song every single morning we're given. The composers lay down their pens, but the theme of the music — the mercy of God, the cross, the empty tomb — goes on unbroken forever.
One day the singing won't be interrupted by loss at all. As Scripture promises, there is a great multitude no one can number, singing before the throne. Some who taught us the tunes down here are already in that choir. And by grace, we'll join them — and find that the song we've been practicing all our lives was only the first verse.
Join us this Sunday at 10:30am — Outpouring Worship Center, Ravenna.