DougI started playing the guitar in the summer of 1970, just after my sophomore year in high school. I had attended a church youth camp in Wisconsin, and one night one of the camp leaders played guitar during a poetry reading, which was part of a weird little worship service thing. What he played was so simple, but added so much to what was going on, that I thought, "I might be able to do that."

So later that summer I borrowed an old Sears Silvertone acoustic guitar that had been in the attic at my grandmother's house (it belonged to my aunt), and began teaching myself how to play. It was a horrid instrument--made of plywood and painted with a cheesy black sunburst kind of finish, with horrible action and rusty steel strings, and it hurt my fingers so much to play it that I eventually replaced the strings with nylon strings, if you can imagine that. I bought a book called (I'm not making this up) "How to Play the Guitar" by Frederick Noad, and began learning how to play fingerstyle, in more or less classical style (three fingers and thumb).

That winter my aunt decided she wanted the guitar back, so I bought a mail-order classical guitar for $20--it was virtually unplayable when it arrived, and my dad helped me make a new saddle for the bridge, to get the strings high enough to overcome the buzz caused by the warped neck. I sat on the edge of my bed with that guitar nightly for the next year or so, listening to James Taylor records and copying licks until I could play at least some parts of "Fire and Rain" and other songs.

Soon I realized that the sound I was hearing and the sound I wanted was that of steel strings on a dreadnaught-style guitar--the crappy old classical guitar just wasn't bright and jangly enough. So I found a Yamaha FG-180 for sale in the paper and bought it from a college student at KU for $55. This was my first "real" guitar, even though it had a plywood top--it sounded pretty good, and it had pretty decent action for a cheap guitar. (I actually still have that guitar, and even though the pickguard is peeling away from the top, and it's seen a lot of dings and dents over the years, it has some stories to tell.)

For several years (though the rest of my high school and college days) I played that guitar off and on--my first experiences leading worship were in my high school youth group, and for a time while I was in college, I was a youth leader and often led singing with that guitar. At some point (and it took a long time) I decided I was good enough to play solo for people--I did special music at church, or the occasional gig here and there for a youth group or whatever. After college I worked in parachurch youth ministry for about five years, and had little time for guitar, but toward the end of those years, I hooked up with some other musicians and put a small band together to play for ski trips, retreats, and other little gigs here and there.

After I left youth ministry, I began playing in a band with my good friend Rick Roberts (we actually started playing together in about 1979), and for the next 15 years or so Rick and I played, as a duo, or in a full band, all over the place--we did a lot of gigs around northeast Kansas, but several times a year we did camps or ski trips or concert-type gigs in Colorado, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and places I've long forgotten. Rick had recorded one album right before I joined his band, and then I played a little on another album he recorded. We played some great gigs and some weird gigs, and I learned almost everything I know from playing around the region (and occasionally around the country) with Rick and a host of other players, including Jim Iltis, Mark Ediger, Joel Davidson, Kreg Hoover, and many others. What a blessing it was to minister in places where God was doing amazing things in the lives of people. We saw many teens come to Christ during those years, and we saw God do a lot of things in our own lives along the way.

Along the way I married the best woman in the world, Carolyn, and we've raised three great kids (Bekah, Katie and Tim), and from 1983 to the present I have been a soloist at my church, playing special music whenever I was asked, and more recently, since 2000, I have led the Praise Band at the church. These days our church has three worship services every Sunday, two of which are contemporary in flavor, and I lead worship in both of those services.

I've done a little bit of everything--I play electric guitar most of the time in worship--an early 70's Strat through a Roland JC-77 amp (with a variety of stomp boxes); but I also play acoustic (I have a 1979 Taylor 610 that was given to me in 1980 by a close friend from my youth ministry days), and for a long time I played bass with Rick. I've played bars, bowling alleys, weddings and receptions, conferences, colleges, high schools, camps, ski trips--you name it. Nothing I've done was ever as fulfilling as leading worship on Sunday mornings, but all of those experiences have shaped who I am, as a player and as a person, and I'm grateful to God for giving me the opportunity to play and sing for his glory.

I have a small project studio that I've built up over the last couple of decades, and I love to record, when I get the time (which is rarely, these days). Until recently, I had a day job, too--I was the executive director of a non-profit organization that serves education with a statewide data network and support services. I resigned that position on December 31, 2007, and I'm taking some time to chart a new course during 2008--the metaphor I like to use is one that I've borrowed from Louie Giglio: I'm "putting up my sail" and watching to see which way the wind of God will move me.

Looking back at all of it, it is amazing that God has allowed me to come this far and juggle all of this stuff, but I have only one regret in all of it--that I didn't take music more seriously when I was in school. I never learned to read music well, and I never learned to play the piano. I have a synthesizer (I've actually owned three of them over the years), and I've played around with MIDI and created some MIDI arrangements of songs that I later played live, accompanying the MIDI arrangement on guitar, but I would love to really learn to play keyboards some day. At my ripe old age (yes, I'm over 50), those days seem more and more elusive, but I'm still kicking, and I'm still playing, and I'm grateful for all of it.

Nowadays, even though I play the electric at church almost exclusively, my favorite kind of playing is fingerstyle acoustic music. I love to play loud rock 'n' roll, but what really makes my heart sing is the quiet, contemplative sound of an acoustic guitar. I guess I was, in the words of my friend Joel, "born to be mild."

That's me, in a nutshell. If you've read this far, thanks. I hope my blog is helpful to you as you make your path through the life God has given you. If you're a worship leader or a member of a worship team, I hope you'll be encouraged and that the thoughts, observations, and ideas I share here will help you do what you do better. And I encourage you to examine your life regularly to make sure that your heart belongs entirely to God, over and above whatever else you may be doing with music (or any other part of your life, for that matter). Some day we'll all be playing and singing to him for all eternity.