Oct 02 2005
faith like jazz part II
My previous post on faith like jazz sparked some interest and comments so I thought I’d keep fleshing this out. As the wise one Q says in Ecclesiastes. There is nothing new under the sun so it was exciting to see others working out this concept. Here’s what some other people are doing with the concept.
from blue like jazz
And jazz is this very real - free flowing music that is created as you go . . . Jazz is passionate, raw and honest - and as a musician playing jazz . . . you see the music as something to be explored - never knowing exactly what may be coming next - but confident that the music itself is a passageway to a treasure chest of even richer melodies, rhythms and harmonies . . .
A true jazz musician doesn’t think so much about what he’s playing . . . but he feels it first . . . in the very center of his being . . . and the music (the expression) flows out of that center - and true jazz is improvisational (often made up as you go) - each musician taking his cue from the musician before . . . and so creating the music together with one another . . . . . so jazz is this . . . amazing melody, that with each moment the song is played, - step by step - line by line . . . the music becomes more complete . . .
Here a quote from Juan Williams’ book This Far by faith
It comes from an old gospel song and suggests the idea that faith has been essential to the African American religious experience in a unique way. For a variety of reasons, black Americans had to rely first and foremost on the notion of faith in God, that they had a personal relationship with God outside of any church. To me, the miracle of the African American Christian experience is the idea that the slave master introduces Christianity to the slave, but the slave reinterprets this faith and recasts it as a vehicle for liberation and social protest. You speak of black Christianity as being almost jazz-like in its expression. Jazz is an authentic American art form that includes elements of both African and white American musical traditions, but it was formed and given birth by black musicians. It’s a response to having been denied training in other classical forms of music, and having limited opportunities and places where black musicians could practice their craft. They created this new art form that gives them full expression, and it ended up being a gift to the world. I think of African American religion in the same way. You have people being denied opportunities, denied education in terms of being able to read and study the Bible, denied the ability to practice leadership in the white church, and so they create this authentic American entity called the black church. Despite the dehumanizing force of slavery and segregation, these men and women were fully
Over a the image journal forum was this quote from a post about faith and music
True faith is genuine freedom because you trust in Someone outside of yourself. Improvising is freedom within order where you trust that the rules of the music will take you somewhere as you use them creatively and wisely as a jazz artist.
Also, one must trust those engaged in the same musical adventure as musicians. There is the fragile interplay that comes from listening to each other in the moment, responding, pushing the envelope, and challenging each other to go beyond what is safe and comfortable, but together in unity.
Faith in Christ is like that. If we let him, he calls us to the new, the challenging and the freeing, but in unity with him.
Faith and jazz can learn from each other.
Chris Morris who is a pianist and Christian has a great example of improvisation on a theme based the hymn Holy Holy It is released under the creative commons license so you can download for free and share as long as you attribute to the author.
Here’s quote from a sermon by Dean Angell at Lakewood Church
In fact the more you know about jazz and what it’s about - I believe the more you’ll be able to understand faith . . . because faith to . . . . . . is meant to be . . .
Free - Flowing - Passionate - Raw and Honest . . . something that is felt deeply to the center of who you are . . . and like jazz, God designed faith one step at a time - improvisational if you will
You can download the audio mp3 here or read the text here.
The jazz theologian has this to say about jazz and faith
Jazz and the African-American experience are not just about emergence but also convergence.
What would a jazz approach to theology look like? What about the current emergent church conversation…is emerging enough?
So maybe faith like jazz can redeem this conversation about faith and life we are in. Can faith like jazz help us shape a more dynamic, creative, expressive and inclusive expression of our historic faith?
If so here are some questions to ponder. What role does a pastor play? Band leader band member? Which standards do we all need to know? How do we use our “fake book” the Bible? What new songs will be composed? What form will the group take?
what say you?
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[...] Journals October 2, 2005 20:12 7-day trial salvation News (I received this in my Friday Fax email… what do you think? Sounds a little far-fetched to me, but God can use anything?)This is another of Dr. John Chacha’s experiences (see the previous Friday Fax):”I once preached in a village in my nation, going from house to house. I came to the house of a woman sitting by the fire, crying. When I said ‘I am here to tell you about Jesus, who can save you,’ she looked at me and said ‘I don’t want to hear anything about Jesus or God. Get out of my house!”Why do you hate God so much?’ I asked.’My husband left me and went to my employer, who fired me. I have three children I cannot feed, no money and no job. I’m just sitting here waiting to die. I don’t want anything to do with your God,’ she replied.Then I had an idea. ‘I’ll make you a deal. I can pray that you will only be saved for seven days. Then I’ll come back, and if God hasn’t met your needs during that time, I’ll pray that you fall away from faith, with my permission. But in those seven days, you must do your best: believe in God, trust him, and read your Bible.”OK,’ she said, ‘I can do that.’So I prayed with her for a seven-day salvation. One week later, I visited her again. She was waiting at the door. I said ‘I’m here to pray with you that you can fall away from faith again.”Oh no! Don’t take my Jesus away!’ she exclaimed.’No? We made a deal!’ I pressed.She replied ‘No, you don’t understand! I have fallen in love with Jesus. I can’t imagine how I ever lived without him. How could I have been so stupid to live without him for years? Let me tell you what happened. My husband returned two days later. He was with a prostitute 10 miles away. The Holy Spirit fell on him so strongly that he jumped out of bed, convicted of his sin, and ran those 10 miles back home, naked. Some people followed him with cameras. He asked God and me for forgiveness for what he had done. I led him to Jesus. Today, we are a happy Christian family.’”Source: Dr. John Chacha, web site http://www.teamworkministries.com Source: [basicblog] Categories: Journals 17:55 Caffeinated Love Source: Caffeinated Adventures Categories: Journals 17:39 Best. Performance. Ever. Source: Ruined For Life Categories: Journals 17:31 Linguistic Profile Source: The Reluctant Puritan Categories: Journals 15:10 6 Degress of Sovereign Grace Stats? Stats are interesting ? often humorous ? often bizarre. I check my referral stats from time to time to see where folks are coming from, and usually end up finding a gem of a blog, or a site I didn?t even know existed. I like it when that happens. This morning however, I found something ironically, coincidentally, helpful. Someone did a search at google of the text string ?calvinist are arrogant Source: Reflections of the Times Categories: Journals 15:10 It's Next Week Already? Source: Caffeinated Adventures Categories: Journals 14:51 What I see. The newest installment of the Left Be… Source: newquaker.com weblog Categories: Journals 14:50 faith like jazz part II window.document.getElementById(’post-207′).parentNode.className += ‘ adhesive_post’; My previous post on faith like jazz sparked some interest and comments so I thought I’d keep fleshing this out. As the wise one Q says in Ecclesiastes. There is nothing new under the sun so it was exciting to see others working out this concept. Here’s what some other people are [...] Source: emergent mosaic Categories: Journals 14:36 All that I am Source: ukok's place Categories: Journals 13:54 What a crock! Today, I am trying out a new invention that is remarkable in its gee-I-should-have-thought-of-that usefulness. [...]
thanks for taking the time out to visit my blog and then on top of that grant me a spot in your post. I like what you are doing and believe that there is alternative convergent conversation that needs to take place for the world in which we live…it’s jazz.
your thinking is profound…i’ll be digging around your archives for a while!
are you alive?
I am indeed alive and well and back in the blogosphere.
"Improvising is freedom within order where you trust that the rules of the music will take you somewhere as you use them creatively and wisely as a jazz artist."
Hey Andre. This is a great quote and captures the essence of what I love about being a worship leader, as well as worshiping in everyday life. Excellent!
Mike
If so here are some questions to ponder. What role does a pastor play? Band leader band member? Which standards do we all need to know? How do we use our “fake book” the Bible? What new songs will be composed? What form will the group take?
Those are excellent questions. I’ve been trying to figure that out for a couple of years now at least as a band leader. So far I’ve developed a model for our music department that seems to be working fairly well.
In short, I value team dynamic over and above individual performance. But, the product is only as good as the individual contributions if that makes sense. We are a team of people, with differing personality types, thought processes, experiences, and musical expressions. Some are type-A, rigid, structured and tend to like following a set pattern. Others are improvisational, flowing, and sensitive to changes in mood and tone. Some are introverts, some extroverts. Some have incredible skill, others marginal. As a leader then, my job is to encourage each expression to find their niche and contribute to the overall product. We need the type-A’s structure to form a safety net so we can freely improv. We need spontenaity so we can have a creative prophetic flow. We need the excellence of the skilled and the raw essence of the marginal. The key though is that everyone contributes his/her best in humility, prefering one another. Each person alone cannot be as effective as all working together. And as long as we continue to see everyone as an a part of the interdependant whole, it seems to work.
Too often band leaders do all the work and use musicians as ancillary to their ministry effort. I believe that the opposite should be the norm. Band leaders should take a back seat and encourage the members to contribute to the overall product. In doing so, the leader also assumes the role as pastor, friend, encourager, as well as creative guide. He/she also gets to absorb the responsibility for the failure(s) of the team.
mike