An extended review of a 2024 book by Mark R. Glanville
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IVP Academic, 2024. 224 pages. $29 (ebook $7)
Jazz in church sounds wonderful. Canadian evangelical churches needs to jazzercise – to welcome dynamism and flexibility more into our ministries. In other words, jazz can be an analogy to help reform Canadian churches for increased health and effectiveness in our post-Christian context. Mark Glanville, who has taught pastoral theology at Regent College in Vancouver and is also a professional jazz pianist, presents such ideas in this book.
Learning to play jazz is not a formulaic – you have to learn to feel, listen and spontaneously respond – and appropriately this book avoids taking a how-to approach. Glanville incorporates examples from his own experiences as a pastor and jazz musician in Australia and in Western Canada over 12 chapters, representing the 12 tones within a musical octave.
In the first group of chapters (Harmony), he discusses working together in church like jazz musicians complementing each other. The church needs a foundation on which to improvise, just like musical harmony requires a foundation. “Immersed in the biblical tradition, we play fresh improvisations on the tradition that make sense in the context in which God has placed us” (p.17).
Producing harmonic music necessitates multiple players, and church ministry does too. “A jazz masterpiece emerges from mutual submission in the context of dynamic co-creation” (p.35). In other words, church leaders need to learn to listen and co-lead in a church full of leaders, to step back when it’s time for someone else to take the lead and to complement their leadership.
The second group of chapters (Rhythm) focuses on being in relation with those who are different. Glanville talks about polyrhythms which are “two or more overlapping rhythmic patterns” that seem to contrast but, when worked through, actually reinforce each other (p.76). Likewise, the Church in Canada is multicultural and has opportunities for singing polyrhythmically for beautiful music.
Also, it is in the context of rhythm that we work through our rootedness in creation and community. This is where kinship, healing and parental nurture take place.
Many evangelical Christians have tried to separate the polyrhythms of social justice and conversion (Glanville cites recent examples from the Southern Baptist Convention and The Gospel Coalition; pp.119-21). Instead, true Christian music is meant to be polyrhythmic and dynamic. “The gospel is comprehensive in its scope, and so Christ-followers must live as a sign to God’s restoring rule in every dimension of our lives,” which necessitates including rather than ignoring social justice concerns (p.121).
The third group of chapters (Soul) involves learning to be open to the other musicians, “in order to play what we ‘hear’ in the moment with a full heart” (p.137). Note that Glanville highlights the “heart” as being the centre of listening and responding, not the mind. This means that the call is for soulful engagement together – not that we are all like-minded, rather that we are like-hearted (p.158).
Thus in post-Christian Canada, where Christianity does not have the social and political power it used to have, we can learn to find our voice together for making the music of worship that speaks to the people around us and invites them to join in with their own instrumentation.
Commonly I hear people mourning the loss of the “old” way of doing church and that “youth today have lost their way.” But Glanville’s approach cannot be dismissed for such aspects. He is not suggesting free-for-all randomness.
Even jazz music, as much as it can sound random, requires training and deep familiarity with the scales and the way notes and chords sound together. In ministry, Glanville is careful to specify the need for biblical and theological grounding. Just like a jazz musician needs to know their scales, so too a Christian leader needs to know their Bible.
Practitioners need to know more than scales to create beautiful and dynamic music. Glanville’s 12 notes can help leaders think outside standard Bible knowledge and ministry methods to consider ways to worship in a faithfully new way in their church context.
Glanville recently became director of the Centre for Missional Leadership at UBC and launched the Blue Note Theology podcast (MarkGlanville.org). He has also authored books on Old Testament, preaching, refugee welcome and missional church.
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