Doctor, Scholar, and now Songwriter?

Steve Mitchinson, a physician in small town, British Columbia, is a friend who is also a songwriter, recording artist and worship leader in our church. For Steve, his two worlds – medicine and worship – have long been quite separate. Recently, as he has been caring for patients who are approaching the end of their lives, Steve has increasingly noticed just how closely Jesus walks with the dying and how persistent and loving he is, desiring for each of his sons and daughters to know him.

So, in a welcome collision of two worlds that has surprised even him, Steve is writing and recording songs for the dying and for their families. Songs that are lyrical, raw in their honesty but full of hope. His medical colleagues have helped to fund the initial stage of the project (a four song EP) so that Steve is able to give out the music free of charge to anyone who needs it. And while his other music is recorded by “Steve Mitchinson,” these songs for the dying are recorded by “Steve Mitchinson, M.D.”

This strikes me as important, somehow, in ways that I do not yet fully understand. It is ironic that, although I earned my Ph.D. in Religion and Theology, my work as a Biblical Studies scholar is frequently quite separate from my worship and service in the church. That said, my pastors do invite me to preach from time to time and our longsuffering congregation does not seem to mind the occasional Hebrew word or ancient Near Eastern parallel thrown into the message!

However, one of those wholly unexpected world-of-work and world-of-faith collisions has occurred recently. Another songwriter friend has asked for help with writing several songs based on the Dead Sea Scrolls in preparation for a music set he will be leading at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum during the exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls as the centrepiece of a worship conference! Does it get any better than that? I am giddy with excitement.

We are now starting work on a song drawn from the Dead Sea Scrolls, an ancient thanksgiving psalm that contains these lines: “In the bereavement of my soul, Your eye watches over me. And I thank you, O Lord … for all my steps, they come from You.”