Discover Worship: Camp, Discover Worship is honored to have over thirty of your arrangements in our catalog. You have a long and storied career arranging for church choirs and orchestras; so a lot of our readers will be interested in how you got your start, some highlights over the years, and what you’re doing now.
Camp Kirkland: From the time I was 16, I wanted to be a high school band director. During my senior year of high school, my band director encouraged me to enter a concert band composition contest at Florida State University. Coming in second place not only encouraged my musical aspirations, it also introduced me to FSU where I would earn my degree. While at Florida State, some friends and I would write marching band arrangements and get some musician friends together to play them and record them. That’s how I got started. I eventually became a high school band director and wrote arrangements for my marching bands. Later I assumed a college teaching position and continued to create special arrangements for our tours.
DW: How did you make the transition to writing and arranging for the church?
CK: In 1971, the minister of music at our church, First Baptist of Jacksonville, asked if I would like to help form an instrumental ensemble. This was a new concept. [I had attended this church while in my mother’s womb and was a member there for 55 years—with 17 years on staff before we moved to Nashville.] At the time, there was virtually no music written for church orchestra, especially one with our odd mix of instruments. I realized that if we were going to play something, I was going to have to create it. In those days, I taught high school every weekday and directed marching band for football games on weekends plus playing in the symphony and doing some pick up band work. That meant I only had Saturdays to write orchestral arrangements for Sunday’s choral pieces. We would rehearse the orchestra during Sunday School, and the first time the minister of music actually heard the chart was when he gave the downbeat in the worship service!
By 1976, we had three small instrumental ensembles (junior high, senior high and adult) at the church averaging around 10-12 players each. When I left First Baptist in 1987, we had over 200 instrumentalists in four orchestras; so my opportunities for creating music intensified over those years.
DW: So how did you end up becoming a published music arranger?
CK: In the late ‘70’s, a music minister friend invited the president of Crescendo Music to check out what we were doing at First Baptist. We showed him some videos of our services, and he asked about the arrangements I was writing for our music program. He was so impressed that he published some of them as the “Seven Plus Orchestra Series” in 1978. Although Crescendo Music is no longer in business, those original arrangements are still available on my website.
Crescendo then decided to do a collection of 10 of their most popular anthems with original orchestrations recorded with our choir and instrumentalists. Our minister of music went through a whole stack of octavos from Crescendo and told them he could only find five he could use. My colleague then suggested, “What do you think about getting Camp to do the other five choral arrangements?” So I was tapped to write the choral parts for the other five and orchestrate all ten. “His Name is Jesus” was my first published collection with choral arrangements.
DW: How did things progress from there?
CK: From then on and to this day, it’s all been word of mouth. I’ve never submitted anything for publication. Only God could have done that.
I’ve got two life mantras that I always knew but am now verbalizing. First, life is about relationships. Period. And second, God connects the dots. No one connects the dots like God does. That’s been the story of my life. Looking back over the years, I can say there’s no such thing as a coincidence.
For example, in 1982, I began a publishing relationship with Benson Music through Jack Price, one of their artists who did a lot of revival crusades all around the country. His choral books sold hundreds of thousands of copies because every crusade choir member needed to have a copy. Jack had sung at our church several times. When Benson was looking for an arranger for his new series, Jack recommended me—a virtual unknown—for the job. “Jack Price Presents...Simply Gospel with Brass” was the first time I arranged both choral and orchestra parts for every song. Benson ended up doing three very successful volumes.
DW: You’ve had a number of career highlights. What are some of your favorite musical memories?
CK: In 1988, Jack Price started Prism Music with Denny Dawson. I was their first arranger and arranged their music for the first several years of that company. In the early ‘90’s, Integrity’s blockbuster musical “God With Us” was a real life-changer for me. As far as individual choral arrangements, Word’s “Written in Red” by Gordon Jensen and “I Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb” by Ray Boltz were very well received. In the late ‘80’s, I began a long and successful relationship with Randy Vader at Gaither Music and then ultimately with PraiseGathering Music when he made it a standalone imprint. All of those relationships have been so important to me. I’ve been blessed to work with virtually every major evangelical music publisher doing all kinds of things.
DW: These days, your heart is in missions. Tell us about that.
CK: In the late 1990’s, a friend recruited me to help lead weekend “Instrumental Expo” workshops for church musicians. He surveyed the attendees and discovered that 800 instrumentalists were interested in taking their talents to the mission field. In 2003, he launched Global Missions Project where I serve as primary music director. Over the past 15 years, we’ve taken over 10,000 musicians on mission projects to 33 countries. Everyone raises his or her own support. If God wants them to go, he always makes a way. It is rare for one of our participants to only do one project. We have lots of “repeaters." I just love it! It’s currently the greatest spiritual passion of my life.
This year I’ll do eight 10-day international mission trips. Some of the cultures we visit are warm and inviting to the Gospel while others are cold and indifferent. We work with a local missionary in each country. We could care less about tourism—we want to do missions. We take all kinds of choirs and instrumental groups. I lead the “open” teams (instrumental musicians from all over the country)—sending the charts ahead to everyone who’s going on the trip and then rehearsing for the first time when we arrive in country.
Often, we’ll do “teaser” concerts in schools and public places during the day, inviting the audience to an evangelistic service that evening. In closed countries, we work with house churches to encourage believers. In Cuba, we do instrumental workshops and master classes—training musicians and worship leaders for the exploding number of congregations on that island. Although Global Missions Project is interdenominational, we work through the Baptist Conventions in Cuba. In 1993, there were 238 Baptist churches in Cuba; today there are more than 8000—mostly house churches, and all of them need pastors and worship leaders. In the past five years, we’ve seen hundreds of professional musicians give their lives to Christ. And to really be effective, we’re committed to going back again and again. I’ve been to Cuba 25 times, Brazil 15 times, and Russia 12 times as well as other countries repeatedly.
Global Missions Project is an interdenominational mission organization committed to leading Christian musicians in sharing Jesus Christ with the world, encouraging believers, and ministering to people through music. We facilitate mission trips with a focus on using music as our magnet. We’ll take choirs, orchestras, praise teams, handbell groups, jazz ensembles, you name it—we’d love to hear from leaders of music organizations who are interested in real outreach opportunities. They can contact us through our website at www.globalmissionsproject.com.
DW: In closing, we'd be honored if you'd you share your heart about choral and orchestrated music in today’s worship environment.
CK: I’ve been a full-time arranger for 30+ years. For the past decade, I’ve led the orchestra at Judson Baptist Church in Nashville where my son Kirk is the worship leader. I tell our 35-40 players that they are a church within a church and add a sonic quality to our congregation’s worship that can’t be achieved any other way.
I’m an instrumentalist as well as an arranger and hate to think there’d be a day when I couldn’t use the gifts God has given me for His glory in His worship in His church. My heart is that choirs and orchestras would continue and make a resurgence in the days to come—serving and leading the congregation in Temple Worship like they did in the Old Testament. In 2 Chronicles 5, we read that—at the dedication of Solomon’s Temple—there were 120 priests who were trumpeters!...and the band and the chorus were as one, singing and praising the Lord...and the Temple was filled with the cloud of God’s glory so that the priests couldn’t continue their work. Now that’s a worship service! God was there in his power and presence. I’m not saying you have to have a choir and orchestra for that to happen today...but they sure did it then.
Music affects peoples’ bodies, minds, and souls. It’s a gift from God, and he doesn’t give us anything that he doesn’t mean for us to use for his glory. My hope is that everyone who has been gifted by God as a musician will have the opportunity to use their talent for Him in worship.
--Many of Camp Kirkland’s fine arrangements are available at DiscoverWorship.com including:
- Alleluia Sing to Jesus (Hymn)
- By Water and the Spirit (Baptism)
- Carry Him Gently (Easter)
- Glory to God (Christmas)
- How Great Our Joy (Christmas)
- In The Quiet (Praise & Worship)
- Jesus Lifted Me (Gospel)
- Leaning On the Everlasting Arms (Hymn)
- O Sacred Head Now Wounded (Easter/Hymn)
- Sing We Now of Christmas (Christmas)
- Taste And See (Communion/Invitation)
- Wonderful Counselor (Christmas)
For a complete listing of his songs and sources, check out CampKirklandProductions.com.
