Major Moves
The decision to move to Central Heights Church was an easy one for us. The church was only a few kilometers from our current venue and situated closer to the freeway which linked us to all the major cities in the Fraser Valley. This would make it easier for people to locate Doxa. I remember meeting with the Interim Senior Pastor of Central Heights. I wanted to be clear on the things we would need in order for us to continue to do what we did. Included in this list were: keys to the building, a place to store our equipment, use of their sound equipment, and help with securing the facility during the Doxa services. The pastor's response: I know that this is a move of God because of the way lives are being changed and I don't want to be the one to get in the way. With that, we had keys to the building and the blessing of the church. It was over the next two years that Doxa became known by probably every Christian in the Fraser Valley and many beyond.
(Doxa at Central Heights
Church, 1998)
Our numbers swelled
to over 1500 weekly, many coming from as far as a
70-minute-drive away. We had estimated that there were
probably 3500 to 4000 people who attended Doxa, but on a
rotational basis, allowing for the 1500 weekly. When
there would be 1500 inside the sanctuary, another 300
people would be sitting in the foyer, out under the roof
hang-over smoking, skate boarding in the parking lot, or
gathering for a fight. You name it, and it
happened at
Doxa.
This is around the
time that I began to understand what a true servant could
look like. There were so many who came along side to
help, encourage, and support Doxa including pastors,
youth workers, parents, and youth. I will never forget
the work of the two youth pastors at Central Heights who
would help with setup and teardown, ensure that our
practice times before the service remained private, make
sure that our needs were met, and handle the nightmare of
security issues that would arise on a weekly basis. One
week, a pimp chased a prostitute with a needle into the
parking lot. Another week some teens decided to meet at
Doxa for a fight in the parking lot. Huh? I'll never
forget the time we had a man jump onto the stage and grab
the microphone from the bass player and begin yelling
something into the mic. Our youth pastor friends were
there in a flash to protect us and take care of the issue
so that the Gospel could be preached again that
night.
(The packed sanctuary at Central Heights as the Gospel is
shared from the stage, 1998)
By
the end of 1997 I had written fourteen songs that we were
using at Doxa regularly. Someone suggested to me that we
should record a CD. I spoke to Pastor Steve Berg about
using the South Abbotsford Church sanctuary over the
Christmas holidays of 1997 to record a live CD, and he of
course agreed to make that happen for us. The CD was to
be a project that would have one purpose: To get the
music into the hands of those who attended Doxa. It
wasn't going to be about making money, becoming famous,
or trying to make a career out of worship music. It would
be created to simply let the people take the music home
with them. I was determined to never sell the
music at
Doxa.
Somehow this didn't sit right with me. I didn't want to
welcome people to worship their God in one breath, and
promote our CD in the next. We recorded the CD in three
days and released it on February 14th, 1998 exclusively
at HMV Abbotsford.
I wanted it to be
sold in a secular store so that it would have a greater
chance of getting into the hands of non-believers. The
store manager literally laughed at me when I cautioned
her to be prepared for a large number of potential buyers
during the first week of sales. Reluctantly she agreed to
take a few hundred CDs on consignment with the
understanding that we would have to clear out the stock
if they hadn't sold in the first week. HMV was willing to
keep a few on hand, but not a few hundred. We made just
over $10 on each CD in order for them to be sold for
$13.99 in the store. Had I wanted to make money on these
disks, I would have sold them for $15 at Doxa where we'd
make the whole amount. At the chosen rate we'd need to
sell something like 950 disks to recover the money I had
personally invested into the project.
(Doxa CDs Left to Right: One By
One, Spiritflow, All For You Live)
To promote the disk, we simply told the Doxa service that
we had recorded a CD and that it would be available at
the Abbotsford HMV beginning February 14th at noon for
$13.99 We played a sample at the end of the service and
left it at that. You can imagine HMV's surprise when we
sold nearly 200 on the first day. The store manager
called me and invited me to put up some Doxa posters in
the store to bring in more sales. When people walked into
the store they would hear Doxa music playing instead of
Brandy & Monica, Puff Daddy, Savage Garden, or Will
Smith. Imagine hearing the lyrics: I will praise my
God the King at HMV. The CD went
on to sell consistently for the next 6 months remaining
at #1 on the local HMV store charts for 11 weeks.
House of James
manager, Lando Klassen called me and asked if I would
sell the disks at House of James. I explained why I
wanted them in the public stores (we had spread the disk
to various other HMV stores as far as Vancouver and
Kelowna), but he reminded me that there were many
Christians who wouldn't go to HMV who would miss out on
the product. We added House of James to our store list
and were encouraged to see the Christian community in
Abbotsford embrace our music. We went on to record two
more CDs over the next two years which all did well at
HMV and the various Christian stores in the Valley. First
came Spiritflow in 1998 and All For You in 1999.
Together, those three CDs sold over 5000 copies in the
Abbotsford area.
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The Doxa Story //
Beginnings /
Growth /
Major Moves /
Events /
A New Direction
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Take It To The
Streets /
A Year Off /
Doxa Begins Again
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(c) Shikina
Publishing 2008