Dan Ryker's Blog

Here’s a photo that was taken at the ‘Song Writer’s Showcase’.

Two of my songs made it into the top 12 of the HOPE 107.9 Worship Song Contest! There were 435 entries, so I was really glad to get 2 of mine into the 2nd stage of the contest.

Friday the 16th, at the People’s Church in Salem, I played my 2 songs along with the other 10. At the end of the evening they announced which three are going on to the final round. Those three songs will be shared at Worship Northwest in Feb. and they’ll decide on the winner there. That song gets exposure to a bunch of record labels.

I feel like I performed the songs well. But I didn’t make it into the top 3, so I won’t be progressing on to the final round.

Just to make myself feel better … A few factors may have played against me. The crowd’s vote was 25% of the total score, and I had 2 songs in the contest, so that may have split the votes of people who related to my songs. Also, there were a couple of contestants from large churches who had lots of people show up to vote for them. But, I think most importantly, it seems like the judges were going for songs that are a bit more solidly in the main stream style of popular worship music. … or maybe the biggest ‘ding’ against me is that I looked ‘hot’ and that would be a distraction to people … at least that’s what my wife said. ☺

Ryan Smith DID make it into the top 3 with his song ‘Fire of God’, and I TOTALLY think that that song should be there. I think it should win the whole thing.

I wrote an intro to both of my songs for the ‘Song Writer’s Showcase’. And I thought I’d share them here to give a little more background on where these songs came from.

All My Reservations – intro
One morning I was standing in my studio in the presence of the Lord. My hands were up in the air and I could feel the presence of God thick around me. It was as though I was being moved gently back and forth by a spiritual breeze. I began to envision the massive cotton wood tree outside our house also being gently moved by a wind. And then I began singing to the Lord. This song spilled out almost complete as I sang it for the first time.

‘All My Reservations’

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Oh, My Jesus – intro
‘Oh, My Jesus’ was birthed out of my love for jazz music. As usual, I was singing spontaneous worship to Jesus around the house. That day it was in a jazz vein and one particular melody stuck in my head. I sang it pretty much all day, and recorded the various sections of the song as they popped up. I hope you’re OK worshiping Jesus with a little ‘swing’ in your step. If that’s new to you … well … give it a try.

‘Oh, My Jesus’

You can download and listen to all Dan’s songs here

I took a simple area mic to a couple of the prayer & worship sessions I led this summer, and I thought that I’d share a few excerpts with you. Sit back, settle into the Lord’s presence, and enjoy!

(Remember, these were totally spontaneous in improvisational settings.)

‘High Above the Heavens (spontaneous)’

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‘It’s Your Blood (spontaneous)’

You can download and listen to all Dan’s music here

‘Let Faith Arise (spontaneous)’

You can download and listen to all Dan’s music here

‘Fruit of the Spirit (spontaneous)’

You can download and listen to all Dan’s music here

We had a great time at the Heart of the Valley House of Prayer on Saturday evening. There was a bunch of cool spontaneous song stuff that the Holy Spirit inspired. But I didn’t record any of it this time .. sorry. One thing that happened, was totally a cappella. I began singing in a sort of Gregorian chant style. It was a very interesting scale that even shifted modes. Most of it was in tongues. After a while, a couple of other women in the room joined in, and the interplay was lovely. I eventually came in with my guitar in the same key and it developed into a spontaneous song about the heart beat of God. When the prayer/worship session was over, a couple of people commented that they thought there were even more voices present than were in the room. Maybe it was angels, maybe it was the acoustics of the room. But the presence of the Lord was definitely there.

It turned out that a woman who was at the House of Prayer (Barbara Sanders) was also at the church where I was leading worship the next morning. She had written a poem about her experience the night before, and shared it in the service. Since it involves that a cappella song I was just telling you about, I thought I’d post it for you to read. Pretty cool.

I come in obedience to You my Lord, I come.
I am tired, –the days have been hard.
My heart has been filled with questions – “Where is Your love?”
“Do I really know You?” – “Can I believe Your Word?” – “Where are the answers to prayers?” – “Do I have any faith left?” – “Do I dare hope again?”

But I want to be with You!

We start-
We offer the evening hours to You,
“What is YOUR heart tonight Lord?”

Four of us—We pray prayers with understanding,
Sing songs with understanding
We rise from our seats-
Shoes come off, we walk, we kneel,
Flags fly, tears flow
Songs mix–understanding and spirit.

Another sister comes in.
Hearts cry to the Lord—prayers for our loved ones,–
For our city,–for the nations.

Repentence——“Lord, forgive us for our selfishness! Our apathy!”
“Strengthen us Lord in Your Spirit!”
“Send Your Spirit like a wildfire across our Valley!”

Suddenly—Boldness—proclamations of power,–confidence,–
Victory in our voice!

Then -a shift———quiet——–worship—–
We are lovesick for You!
“Our hearts long to be One with You, Jesus!”
Words of love pour from our hearts and our lips—–songs of spirit

Then– a reading—the Shulamite’s request—

A new song—–of Covenant love
“Set me as a seal upon Your heart–Love is as strong as death,–jealousy as cruel as the grave,–it’s flames are flames of fire!—Many waters cannot quench our love!”
Our voices rise as one—We are lovesick for Jesus!

A second silence—–quiet,–our souls are still,–resting in His love.
Moments pass, minutes flee and we wait. And then a soft song comes forth
–no instrument–but a single male voice
–a song in the spirit slowly builds in passion
–no other sound

My mind says “It is my brother Dan singing to the Lord”
My spirit says “No.—Listen.—It is Jesus singing over you, His bride!”

I quiver—joy unexplainable—love overflowing,—Peace—
Hope renewed—This is real!

Slowly voices of the bride respond in thanksgiving
–new voices—other sisters have joined us
But yet there are more—voices of angels!

The session closes, but we linger
No one wants to leave this place,
His presence was so strong!
Do we stay the night?
Not tonight—but soon,
He is calling us.

A few years a ago I wrote this song and have never recorded it. I played it some just after it was finished, but I haven’t touched it for at least two years. Then, about a week ago I was inspired to play it during a prayer and worship service. We were thanking God for some of His wonderful characteristics, and God brought this song to my mind. One of the reasons that I really like it is because it’s the only worship song that I know of that uses the words ‘omnipotent’, ‘immutable’, AND ‘transcendent’ … all in ONE song!

I remember when I first came up with the chorus of this song. It was after walking my daughter to pre-school, and I was on my way home. I was just enjoying the time with Jesus, and started singing, “You’re mighty, righteous, in control. Wonderful, powerful.” The melody was just the same then, as it is now. I recorded the melody when I got home, and later on started working on the chords. But even though the melody was stuck in my head for a couple of weeks, I could not come up with chords that I really liked. The next month a group of about eight song writers from around the country met in Jacksonville, FL to write for a few days. I brought the idea up in one of our sessions, and as a group we were able to spark inspiration for the rest of the song. It was really fun to write in a group setting, and it showed me how sometimes you really need to bounce an idea off of someone else in order to finish it. For whatever reason, I just did not have what I needed to finish this song … I needed some brothers. Thanks to Kevin Singleton, Sterling Brown, Brent Garrard, Bill Hackworth, Chris Jenson, & Gino Mingo for help on this one.

Maybe there is a lesson in there about ‘flying solo’. It’s good to get input from others, and realize that God often doesn’t give us what we need to finish things on our own; we need others. In fact, He almost always wants us to ‘do life’ with other people. I don’t think we are intended to be loaners.

The last section of the song says …

        You Are Omnipotent, All Powerful You Are
        You Are Immutable, Unchangeable You Are
        You Are Transcendent, Magnificent You Are
        You Are, You Are, You Are, Intimate

The idea there was to use those big words that we don’t hear very often, but to give a simple definition of each of them at the same time. It’s just a one word definition, so it’s not complete, but it should help us remember what it is we are saying. … And it’s still true. So, ‘omnipotent’ means ‘all powerful, ‘immutable’ means ‘unchangeable’, and ‘transcendent’ means ‘magnificent’. All of those words are such huge, ‘high above us’ concepts. But God is also so close to us, and desiring to walk with us in such intimacy. So it ends with, ‘You are … Intimate’.

So, here you have a live recording that was made with a little area mic after having not practiced the song for about 2 years. There … that’s my disclaimer ☺ But it does feel good to share a song with you.

‘You Are’

You can download and listen to all Dan’s music here

This last season has been an enlightening one for me. In some ways I’ve been learning some new things, but in many ways I’ve been re-learning things about myself. Relating to worship leading, I’ve been re-learning that I really like a spontaneous environment. I think it’s partly just the way God has wired me. So I feel like I hit my groove as a worship leader the best when there is opportunity to leave ‘the page’ … to sing and play stuff that was not planned before hand. Part of the reason I think that leads to my deepest worship leading is because it allows the Holy Spirit to speak what is on His mind at that very moment. Or maybe it’s what I want to express hack to Him at that very moment. … I just love talking to a person who is actually listening to what I’m saying, and then responding in a way that makes sense. … Duh. Don’t we all? But sometimes we come into a worship experience with God having planned it all out ahead of time. But what if God says something we didn’t expect Him to? ‘Uh … Sorry, God. I’ll get back to you on that. Right now, I need to play you this song that we practiced.’ … When I loose my head, and lead a set that way, I just end up feeling lame. I don’t mean to say that I hate to play songs that were written ahead of time, or that I don’t plan for a worship set, or that I don’t like to practice. On the contrary. You have to be even more prepared to be truly flexible. And I commonly connect with God on a deep level with ‘pre-written songs’. It just needs to be a song that makes sense in the context of what the Holy Spirit is currently leading.

So, when I’m in these environments where it’s OK to play and sing whatever I feel the Holy Spirit leading me towards, I often end up singing new songs … spontaneous stuff. Sometimes it’s a whole song. Sometimes it’s an interlude within an existing song. Sometimes it has words and sometimes it doesn’t. But over the years, there have been a lot of them. On Wednesday evening as I was singing one of these things, I had an idea. Why not start recording some of them? And maybe share it. So on Thursday night I took my little iPod mic and set it out in front of me. And now it’s Friday and I’m going to share one of those little spontaneous moments with you. It’s a low-fi recording, but hopefully that will be OK. If you want hi-fi … then go get my album. ☺

(Remember, this was totally spontaneous in an improvisational setting.)

‘The Train of His Robe (Spontaneous’

You can download and listen to all Dan’s music here

I hope you enjoy it.