National Association of Church Musicians Honors Doug Lawrence at 2012 Convention
FaithSearch Partners affiliate, Doug Lawrence, has been chosen by the National Association of Church Musicians to receive the Fred Bock Lifetime Service Award. Lawrence has served as both a member of NACM and as a frequent content contributor to the organization’s various conferences and yearly offering of workshops for more than 40 years. He will be honored by NACM at the association’s annual convention in July.
The award, named after the late Fred Bock, one of the most notable leaders in the world of church music ministry, was established in 2005 by the governing board of NACM with the blessing of the Bock family. It is presented annually to a person who has shown great vision and leadership, combined with excellence in the field of church music.
“I have been served by NACM for more than 40 years and, in turn, have used their many resources to serve hundreds of professional and lay church musicians throughout North America and parts of Asia,” said Lawrence. “I’m deeply honored by their selection of me for this honor.”
Lawrence’s background includes an extensive television and singing career. He has performed in Hollywood studios in dozens of Oscar-winning movies and has toured the world as a bass-baritone soloist with almost every major orchestra. He has sung under the direction of such conductors as Leonard Bernstein, Lukas Foss, Sir George Solti, Zubin Mehta, Helmuth Rilling, Kurt Masur, Eugene Ormandy, Sir Simon Rattle, Gerard Schwartz, Aaron Copland and Robert Shaw.
Lawrence has been involved with nearly 200 network programs throughout his career and hosted CCN’s satellite-broadcast worship program for several years. He taught at the University of Southern California and was a guest lecturer at several other colleges and universities including California State College at Northridge, El Camino College, Occidental College and Chapman College. His great preoccupation, however, has always been churches – their messages and their people.
Lawrence has made a great impact on a number of churches nationwide through his work as a conductor, visionary and advisor. He served as the worship minister at both Hollywood Presbyterian Church and Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, two of the largest Presbyterian churches in the world. During his combined 35 years of service, Lawrence worked with several recognized pastors and authors including Lloyd John Ogilvie and John Ortberg.
In 2007 he founded and continues to serve as CEO of Speaking and Performing Arts, a firm which coaches leading executives and their teams and includes pastors from across the county. Lawrence worked with Steven Covey, Dr. John Gray and other business experts to co-author GPS for Success, published in 2011. He also serves as a consultant on the FaithSearch Partners ministry team as the resident “transition specialist.” With more than 30 years experience, Lawrence specializes in coaching churches through style shifts, personnel realignment and engaging, media-rich worship innovations.
Lawrence frequently crosses the country to speak at various church conferences and his observations on the church and worship appear in several online publications including Church Central and Creator Magazine.
The National Association of Church Musicians is one of the largest non-denominational associations of church musicians and other worship leaders in North America. Please visit the NACM website for more information.
For more information about Doug Lawrence or to find out how he may be able to assist your church or ministry in the pursuit of its next great leader, please visit his FaithSearch bio page.
FaithSearch Partners is one of the nation’s leading retained executive search firms and is the only one of its kind focused exclusively on identifying and recruiting leaders for churches, parachurch organizations, as well as faith-based hospitals and healthcare systems. Combined, consultants at FaithSearch Partners have successfully managed more than 450 executive-level searches for numerous high-profile faith-based organizations across the country. Its website can be found at www.faithsearchpartners.com.