By Germaine Smith, Staff Reporter 
Willis... My mission is to save souls with music. - Contributed
PASTOR DELROY Willis is not your typical minister. He is a husband and father, a full time businessman, a minister, and a gospel artiste and producer as well. These job descriptions are not traditionally tied to the same person, but Pastor Willis is every one of them, and sometimes more.
He runs a pharmacy in Kingston and is the minister for the Valley Christian Ministeries in Braeton Portmore, a one-year-old body. Before that however, he was at the St John's Church of Christ, and the First Born International.
These add up to over 20 years of actively serving in the ministry, yet Willis still wants to do more. He preaches Christianity through his music. He has been recording and producing since the 1970s, though he took a break to help raise his children who are now overseas.
Among some of his tracks are Don't You Trouble Zion, Zion 2000 and beyond, Know Your People and Jubilation Time.
PRACTICAL SENSE
OF CHRISTIANITY
Willis says he has to have a practical sense of Christianity in today's Jamaica, and if other Christians adopted this attitude, Jamaica would change rapidly. He believes that Jamaicans should lighten up, and improve the social relationships between them.
"I grew up in the Denham Town and Cockburn gardens areas," he states. "In the early days of the dancehalls they used to play warm tunes like Toots and the Maytals, and the atmosphere between people was about love. I believe that if I and other Christians can bring back an atmosphere of love and tolerance, Jamaica can get back to a better state. Jamaicans are generally Christian minded but the few bad ones create fear among others, he adds."
Pastor Willis strongly believes that Christians, especially the artistes should have a bigger hand in changing this climate.
FOR THE LOVE OF IT
"I realise that some of the younger gospel artistes need to know more about how to approach and interact with people. Some do not open up and interact like a Dennis Brown would do, so they don't connect with people. In Gospel music, you have to sing what you know about, so if you know about Jesus, they will hear and feel it in your music. You can't do it only for money, you have to do it for the love of it."
"If we put the right thing in perspective we can win back Jamaica," he asserts. "That is my aim because much of Jamaica is living in insanity. We the people of Christendom need to be the change...yes people are in the business to make money and a living but the church should be here to help people come to it and find God."
Willis's upcoming album is titled Jubilation Time, a celebration of his personal triumph over physical illness some years ago. He feels that with this album, he should connect more with the secular people he has been trying to convert to Christianity. To help the cause he has used musicians who have proven themselves in the local music business. Among them are Paul Crosdale, Leebert 'Gibby' Morrison and others.
"My mission is to save souls with music even though this is hard with things like the bootleg fighting against us," he states. "In a similar way the secular artistes can get recognition for their music, we can do it too. We just need to make it connect with them... I remember the days when the church was full to the point where the gate man had to say there is no more room inside. I want to re-create this reality in the churches."
