We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Derek Flowers. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Derek below.

Hi Derek, thanks for joining us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

Growing up through all of the 1990s, if you were to ask a child what they wanted to be when they grew up you would hear typical responses such as police officer, fire fighter, astronaut or a power ranger. I wanted to be a rock star. Of course I was young and naive and had no idea what that actually entailed. Fast forward to today and I can tell you I definitely do not want to be rock start, but I’m grateful that I get to do music in the form of leading worship at a great church.

I grew up around music, but not just listening to it. My parents were musicians. When I picked it up for myself and starting learning different instruments it just felt natural. It felt like I was missing a limb and then finally found it. These early years of development were important for what I do now. From ear-training to learning the Nashville number system, I picked up tools that helped me become successful in parts of the career field I’m now in. There are other aspects of my creative side that I was able to use as well such as songwiritng. Typically in churches, writing original songs isn’t a prerequisite in the hiring process. Not everyone has that ability and most places of worship are simply covering the more popular Christians artists.

I’ve been leading worship as a career for just over 10 years now. Sometimes I look back with wishful thinking that I would’ve realized what I supposed to be doing. However, all those things helped me grow and led me to where I am today.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a worship leader. That is the biggest hat I wear or rather the main thing that everything else comes from with my career. Underneath being a worship leader I am a songwriter, a musician (guitar, piano, bass, drums, and others), and a music producer. I currently use Logic Pro X for my DAW (digital audio workstation). I have several guitars, a MIDI controller, pedalboard and other fun toys that help get the job done. Melodic electric guitar riffs and motifs play a big role in most of the songs that I write. I grew up listening to and emulating the stylings of various artists from various genres of music. Some of those artists include Lincoln Brewster, Stevie Ray Vaughan, John Mayer, as well as many other guitarists. I got into being a worship leader as a career in my mid to late 20s. I had done gigs at different churches for different events. I formed a couple bands throughout the years, but there was never this AHA! moment with any of those. One day God opened a door for me to go on staff with a church in my hometown and was that a huge learning experience for me. Though I had knowledge and skills for leadership outside a church setting I had to learn all over again how to lead people. There weren’t my employees. And though they were volunteers I had to learn what it meant to lead them through a proper rehearsal and to have everything set up and ready to go beforehand. Most importantly though I had to learn how to shepherd them. Another was to say it is that I had to learn how to not just lead, but to serve, to love and counsel them. Frankly I’m still learning how to do those things better as time goes on. If being a worship leader meant that all you had to do was get up in front of a crowd and sing some songs while playing guitar, then it would be the easiest job and probably anyone with a little bit of talent could do it. There’s way more that goes into it. There’s a song that comes to mind where the lyrcis say “Easy like a Sunday morning.” Clearly they’ve never worked for a church.

Outside of the music I also help with graphic design for various events and ministries for our church creating designs, flyers, logos, etc.

I think I’m the most proud of the original songs that we have introduced here at Messiah Bible Church. A number of songs were solo writes. The other were a collaboration between my wife and I as well as with my lead pastor and audio visual director. Our team that plays the songs goes by Messiah WRSHP. Currently some of my originals are released to several platforms, but mainly seen on Apple Music and Spotify under my personal name, Derek Flowers.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

One particular goal is putting out more original worship songs. There are a lot of songs on Christian radio or on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music or wherever you stream music. The majority of this material is for entertainment with the word Christian stamped on it. Though most of these songs are perfectly fine to listen to, they don’t necessarily work in a church setting for a congregation to sing. The reason for this is because these songs either tend to be man-centered rather than God-centered or the songs themselves don’t align with the Bible well. They don’t align with the Bible because they take scripture out of context which can be misleading to someone who isn’t as mature or solidified in their faith. Therefore my goal has been to use the gift I have for songwriting and produce songs that are easy for most people to sing along with as well as songs that are biblcally sound and enriched with the truths of scripture. One day I would love to see these songs make their way to other church bodies as well.

Any advice for managing a team?

You have to be on top of it. By it, I mean everything. You have to think ahead of all the hurtles you may encounter. Be knowledgable of scheduling, planning out all the items you’ll be covering in a meeting or in my case a rehearsal. Be prepeared beforehand. Like the saying goes, “If you fail to plan then you plan to fail.” On top of that you have be available, flexible, caring and patient among other attributes that are necessary for maintaining a healthy team. And be forgiving or yourself when you mess up. You won’t get it right all the time. But there are a lot of mistakes you eliviate by planning ahead. Also leading isn’t all about throwing out directives. It’s also about listening to you team members. Another bit I would throw out there is to truly be yourself and to know yourself. Know your strengths and recognize your weaknesses. It’s great to have someone if your field that inspires you, but there’s only one of them. Likewise there is only one you. Be who you were created to be.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: _derekflowersmusic_
• Facebook: derekflowersmusic
• Other: Spotify and Apple Music:
  Derek Flowers