Improvising Church with Jazz Musician & Theologian, Dr Mark Glanville

Inverse Podcast

Join us with Regent College’s Dr Mark Glanville as we discuss his new text, “Improvising Church”.

Dr Drew Hart wrote of Mark’s new book,

“Improvising Church is a harmony of scriptural insight and pastoral wisdom, soulfully explored. Drawing from the metaphors of jazz, Glanville calls Western churches in post-Christian contexts to embrace an improvisational journey shaped by the biblical narrative and the perception of artists within incarnational community that loves their place and its people. Like a musician in sync with our contextual rhythm, Glanville urges us to embrace our interconnectedness with creation, tying that to the need to confront the legacies of colonialism with courageous solidarity. This book resonates deeply, hits all the right notes, and will inspire you to embrace a new, transformative song to improvise with for our twenty-first-century witness."

Jarrod McKenna has said,

"Mark Glanville writes with a kind of humility, curiosity, creativity, and compassion that are not merely desired but required when learning from traditions that you've been graciously grafted into—be it from Moses or Miles Davis, Elijah or Ella Fitzgerald, Nathanael or Nina Simone, John Coltrane or Jesus, the Christ. Mark has experienced a 'love supreme' and is inviting us to take giant steps of communal improvisation and imagine somethin' else, an alternative to Christendom and its colonial legacy, something that looks like Jesus, something that is the shape of things to come."