Dan Collison served as a worship pastor for 17 years and the Worship Arts Pastor at Wooddale Church in the Twin Cities of MN. (Wooddale.org) His education includes the Interlochen Arts Academy, The Eastman School of Music, Bethel Seminary, and currently is a doctoral candidate at Fuller Seminary. Dan is the author of “Worship by Design”, and has co-authored two books with Leith Anderson. (Abingdon Press). Dan is married to Holly (18 years), and has two sons, Walker and Atley.

In February of 1987, while sitting on a cold park bench in Rochester, New York I breathed a prayer of abandonment to God and his plans for my life. I affirmed a life commitment to Jesus Christ as a child; however, it was in that pivotal moment that I experienced a sense of call to ministry. I was willing to do anything for Jesus Christ. If selling hot dogs for the cause of Jesus Christ, I would begin immediately. God’s choice for me at the time; however, was to provide leadership for a struggling chapter of the Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship at the Eastman School of Music. As the chapter’s president I developed small group Bible studies, coordinated large group events, led discipleship retreats, and participated in national leadership conferences for the Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship organization. In time, this fellowship chapter grew to involve a constituency of ten percent of the student body.

Music performance and ministry congealed when I designed a music ministry comprised of Eastman School of Music musicians called “Higher Ground”. This music group performed Christian concerts around the State of New York and led national tours during our spring breaks from college study. As founder and director I performed the business, spiritual, personnel recruitment, and production leadership roles for the group.

Graduation from the Eastman School of Music was a surreal experience. I successfully completed a bachelor’s degree and yet felt no compelling reason to pursue a performance career as a percussionist. My professional skills were in the performance arts, but my soul hungered to serve in full time ministry. In a state of career confusion (and newly married) I left Rochester to live in Kalamazoo, Michigan where I became involved in something that did, at least temporarily, relieve me of my confusion: adult foster care for people with disabilities.

In reflection, the foster care home that my wife Holly and I owned and operated was not too far from my childhood experience. My parents were foster parents for people with disabilities from the time I was an adolescent until today. Serving disabled adults acquainted us with a servant lifestyle. While helping George, Harold, Seth, Kevin, J.P., and Peter develop life skills we settled into the realization that servanthood was tiring and intrusive, but necessary to obtain both personal satisfaction and the imitation of Jesus Christ.

In the fall of 1991, and simultaneous with our foster care work, I secured a full time music director position at an independent Christian Church in Kalamazoo Michigan. One year into my work I felt uncomfortable with the church’s theology and practice. The second year on staff taught me the lesson that, as a music director, trying to change the internal culture of a church was a precarious task. My third year at the independent church began a professional transition back to my Reformed Church roots, exploration of various seminaries, and an overarching desire to form a personal ecclesiastical identity from which to serve the body of Christ.

In 1994 I was invited to serve as a pastor at a Reformed Church in Portage, Michigan. As the full time pastor of worship and outreach I enjoyed a measure of ministry success. I launched thirteen small groups in a discipleship program, designed a membership class, taught outreach seminars, and helped expand the worship experience to the degree that the weekly attendance increased by one third within a few years. Concurrently, I began the attending Bethel Seminary through the In-Ministry delivery method.

In time I became frustrated with the inward focused culture at the Reformed Church. Whereas the independent Christian Church faltered because of an overbearing, authoritarian and unaccountable leadership structure, the Reformed Church struggled because of general disorganization and an inward ministry focus. Seminary training became invaluable at this point. Critical self-assessment and study of several ecclesiastical models gave me hope that eventually I would find the right ministry context.    

The exploration of several psychological and personality assessment tools confirmed that I was in the right profession. The Strong Campbell Interest Inventory scored me the highest as a “minister” on the occupational scale. The primary explanation for this was my high score in the social and artistic themes. Myers-Briggs determined that I was an ESTJ with “administrator” tendencies. The DISC profile described me as high in “D” (dominance) and “I” (Influence) with a specific bent towards a result-oriented pattern. Overall, I realized that I had: 1) broad ministry skills in speaking, administration, and leadership, and 2) Specific ministry skills in worship design. Equally as important, I came to the conclusion that the best ministry context for my work was an evangelical church that was committed to outreach and discipleship.

In answer to countless hours of personal prayer I had the privilege of joining the pastoral staff of Wooddale Church in 1998. Wooddale Church is a multi-denominational congregation (Baptist and Congregational) with an average weekend attendance of 4500 and a constituency over 12,000.  More than numbers and size; however, the Wooddale leadership and staff are dedicated to the work of being an outward focused church that reaches the community for Jesus Christ. My role as the Pastor of Worship Arts includes the design of the worship experiences as well as other shared aspects of pastoral leadership including preaching, teaching, counseling, performing weddings and funerals, and participation in shaping the ministry culture as a whole.

As the Lead Pastor of First Covenant Church, Minneapolis I now have the humble privilege of developing a vibrant urban Christian community in the heart of one of the greatest cities in the world.