Improvising Church

Plenty of books diagnose our post-Christian malaise. Here's a dynamic solution. The post-Christian cultural turn is creating the conditions for a crisis of confidence in the church and in pastoral ministry. While such changes can be disruptive and disconcerting, our new cultural reality makes the present moment a uniquely exciting time to reimagine churches that bear witness to Christ. How do we move beyond cookie-cutter approaches (which may have worked in the past) to building the creative, compassionate, and incarnational churches we long for? Biblical scholar and accomplished jazz pianist Mark Glanville plays with a metaphor of improvisation to chart twelve themes as the key 'notes' on which Christian communities play as they bear witness to God in the world today. Building on these two dynamic traditions-jazz music and Christian community-Improvising Church unfolds a biblical, practical, and inventive vision for churches seeking to receive and extend the healing of Christ.

Mark R. Glanville (PhD, Bristol University) is associate professor of pastoral theology at Regent College, Vancouver, and an Old Testament scholar. He is the author of Refuge Reimagined, Adopting the Stranger as Kindred in Deuteronomy, and Freed to Be God's Family.