Coastal Theology

Improvising Church with Dr. Mark Glanville

• Vancouver Island School of Theology and the Arts • Season 1 • Episode 2

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What if the church's greatest strength isn't in repeating what's worked elsewhere, but in learning to improvise within our unique contexts? Dr. Mark Glanville, jazz pianist and Old Testament scholar, invites us to discover a more vibrant way of being church through the art of improvisation.

Join us for this fascinating exploration of how churches can become more authentic, contextual, and vibrant by learning the art of spiritual improvisation. Then experience it firsthand at the upcoming "Blessed Are the Undone" workshop with Dr. Glanville on June 6-7 in Victoria.


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Learn more about the Vancouver Island School of Theology and the Arts

Credits:

Coastal Theology Podcast theme performed by Mark Glanville


Andy Withrow:

Announcer,

Vanessa Caruso:

welcome to coastal theology, a podcast from the Vancouver Island School of Theology and the arts, we explore how Christian faith, learning and creativity flourish on Vancouver Island, and how you can be part of the story.

Andy Withrow:

All right, welcome back to coastal theology. Vanessa and Andy here back with you, and we're excited to welcome and interview Dr Mark Glanville. He's going to be coming on June 6 and seventh for the Blessed are the undone workshop hosted by Vancouver ion School of Theology and the arts. So we're excited to meet with him, and we're going to be talking a little bit about his book titled improvising church Scripture as the source of harmony, rhythm and soul. So let me just introduce him real quick before we jump on with him. Dr Mark Glanville works as the director of the Center for missional leadership at University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He is an Old Testament scholar and has written five books, including improvising church Scripture as the source of harmony, rhythm and soul. I just mentioned preaching in a new key, crafting expository sermons in post Christian neighborhoods. Mark's vocational goal is to research, teach, write, speak and play music to nourish Christian leaders, to creatively reimagine what the church can be and do in post Christian societies with the Bible in our hands. Mark is also a professional jazz pianist active on the Vancouver jazz scene. Mark's podcast is Blue Note theology, which he hosts from the grand piano. His personal website is www.markglanville.org Mark So yep, let's welcome him. Let's talk to Mark.

Vanessa Caruso:

I want to say something to you both great, which is that I had so much anxiety preparing for this interview, because I love improvisation so much. So when you said yes, very quickly, Mark, to this interview, I thought I'd have more time to read your book. I had to borrow Andy's yesterday because I didn't have time to get it. And I've thought about this topic so much, and so the fact that we're talking about it, I felt this intensity, like I kept texting Andy, like, I'm sorry I'm being so intense, but when are you gonna get me this book? And he was like, You're just intense. So I think it's ironic, because the topic is actually about improvisation, and what I want to do in this conversation is actually try to embody some of the principles of improvisation during it, which means for me, trusting that everything we need is here for this conversation, and also at The End, wondering how we were surprised by what was actually there, and actually listening to each other, instead of my weight, which is, I have two pages of notes, and I want to, like, think of my best questions and impress you and be articulate for Andy, and that will take me out of the moment, because improv is So much about, like, deeply relaxing and actually listening and agreeing with what's happening. And so I want to, I'm just saying that out loud. I'm going to try to like improv this instead of impress in this conversation. Okay,

Mark Glanville:

I like that, and to build on it, like improvisation done well feeds like it's we improvise out of a rich tradition. So there's that feel, there's that kind of, there's that those ingredients, there's that kind of rich emotion. So we come to play a fresh melody out of a tradition. And you know, relating to that, you and Andy, I know, together with others, in Victoria, had this beautiful church that has been improvising on the biblical tradition for so many years. So there's that deep immersion, obviously, that that we're all improvising out of, of doing it for years, that incarnational kind of church and and working it out shoulder to shoulder as we as we go,

Andy Withrow:

and just to connect this really idea quickly to the book. Because this is this comes out a lot in the book. Is you talk about connecting jazz improvisation to church renewal. So just by way of kind of getting into this, is the book improvising church by Mark Gran Glanville, who were sitting down with virtually what prompted you to connect jazz improvisation with ecclesial or church renewal,

Mark Glanville:

both jazz and doing church and living into the biblical story and church and living into. Biblical story is sort of the same thing. They they require improvisation, but they're they're seep deeply in a tradition. So it just struck me, I think, as the years went on the way, that as a biblical exegete and as a pastor and as a Christ follower, I was sort of doing the same thing that I was doing in jazz. So as jazz musicians, we all spent 1000s of hours literally just seeping ourselves in the jazz tradition. So still, every day, I practice for a couple of hours and listen to the Masters, just doing it just before I got on the podcast, actually, and just learning getting that kind of humming, the melodies, tapping the rhythms, and getting it into our bones, just immersing in the jazz tradition. And as we do this, I mean an example, I just heard a beautiful line two days ago. That's a line it sounds like nothing, but musicians will recognize it as jazz vocabulary, and it's just such a beautiful line. I heard it on a CD, and I thought, oh goodness me, I gotta learn that. And so I sat down, spent a couple of hours, and got it under my fingers in all 12 keys, which is what we do as jazz players, and that's kind of learning the tradition. But then each time, the nature of jazz is you can't just play what you hear on an album each time you have to play something fresh, something that hasn't been played before. If you got to a jazz club and copied, say, a John Coltrane solo on there on the bandstand, you'd never be booked again. It's just not you can't do that, but it's quite the same with church, and it took me some years to realize it. But as Christ followers, we immerse in the biblical tradition. We get to know its characters, its themes, its arc, its beautiful ethics of tenderness, it's, it's, it's stars and and we find our way to play in this out of this tradition, and to improvise away out of this tradition, never leaving the tradition, but always playing fresh melodies. Because a bit like with jazz, it's the nature of the biblical tradition that it demands improvisation, and I think that point is missed badly by Christian thinkers, but I think that's because they don't realize the creativity of the biblical authors themselves, just a quick example them. Not that you ask for it. I'll take it, but, yeah, but a quick example. Say, I'm an Old Testament scholar, and you think of the metaphor of the covenant in the Old Testament. So if there's if you think Old Testament theology, if you know anything about the Old Testament, you know the covenant is important in the Old Testament. So, but the covenant is it for fascinating example of improvisation. The covenant, or treaty, as it's also known as, was actually it had its impetus in the treaties, or the covenants, between the kings in the ancient world, and it was actually militarized and pretty barbaric. So if one of the great Mesopotamian kings, say of the Hittite Empire, or a pharaoh, or of the Neo Babylonian, Neo Persian Empire, conquered another king, they would subjugate that other king by means of a covenant or treaty. And so it was militarized. It was traumatizing. It was, you know, it was horrific. Really this ugly, barbaric, oppressive covenant, and the biblical scribes, by the image, by the inspiration of the Spirit, had the the genius to kind of to take this ancient, militarized metaphor, turn it upside down, and use it as a vehicle to communicate something about a God of grace who was by the law and by the prophets shaping God's people, God's ancient people, to be completely different from that traumatizing, militarized society, in fact, to be an ancient society that brings the weakest among them into the center. I find that fascinating. So the first time that the master scribe must have suggested to the other scribes, hey, here, I've got a funny idea. Let's use the idea of a covenant. They must have thought he was out of his mind, you know, but, but he was being inventive. He was improvising on that spiritual tradition that was, that was being written down, and and and so, so, kind of playing out of that tradition creatively himself. I mean, very quickly come to the New Testament. You think of something like a motif like the peace of Christ. And you see quite a different quite a similar dynamic, the peace of Christ being an appropriation of the first century Roman imperial propaganda, the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome, once again, barbaric, militarized, hegemonic, oppressive. And here the New Testament authors now speak of the peace of Christ, remarkable, very risky, and that's how that improvisation, that creativity, and yet we can lose those churches. And so the point is, with the Bible in our hands, we're improvising on this tradition because the tradition itself demands it, just like jazz.

Andy Withrow:

Yeah, you talk about in your book, too. This, this theme of. Sometimes our temptation as church leaders is we kind of want to take the best thing that's out there, and we want to do that too. It's kind of a natural impulse. But there's you, kind of you call us to this more local contextualization. Well, what's, what's God raising up that's distinct in your neighborhoods, in your city, in your community, and how do we lean into that take a bit more risks as pastors and leaders to to say, No, this is, this is who we are in Victoria or Vancouver, or where we happen to live. And how do we, yeah, build on what the Spirit's leading in that way?

Mark Glanville:

Yeah, I think it's so important. What's particular about our local neighborhood. How can we reflect the esthetics, the sensibilities of our neighborhood? I mean, we're both, well, all three of us are in Cascadia, kind of Vancouver, Victoria. It's kind of an ecosystem that kind of goes down to Washington State, Portland, Oregon, and there's a distinctive esthetic, isn't there some distinctive values around creation, care and kinship with the creation, valuing the stories of First Nations, people, some values and esthetics that we share, and it would be such a shame if we were just kind of mimicking or puppeting the kind of, say, the sensibilities, the esthetics, the traditions that were just kind of globalized. However, having said that, having said it would be a shame if we did that, that's, in fact, what we do as churches these, I mean, you think of just worship music for a start, the way that the esthetics, sensibilities, lyrical content of Hillsong and say, Bethel and I actually grew up just a few minutes away from Hillsong in Sydney, Australia, how that's just, that's just kind of mimicked around the world, I think that that's that's a terrible undersell of what it can be to be a church that's incarnate in a particular local neighborhood. What are the local esthetics here? What are the values here? We don't just have to have a white, 32 year old male holding a guitar and sneakers up the front leading us in the latest Hill song for worship. What are the intercultural riches in our church right now that we can draw on for our worship? And how can we not just reflect our neighborhood? How can we be blessed by our neighborhood and bless it in turn? I think you're really right. Andy, I think that's crucial for the church to thrive in post Christian contexts,

Andy Withrow:

and exciting and freeing in some ways. I think

Mark Glanville:

I think so too. Like I think it relates to music too, and I don't understand the depths of this, but I really, honestly don't understand the depths of this. But I think that music is deeply related to place, and I have a feeling it's neurological, you know, like everyone, you can close, we can close our eyes and think about kind of one of our houses that we lived in as kids, right? And there's a song, you know, that goes with that. You know, maybe it's a song that our parents sung us when we were little, or something when we're in bed. I can do that. I can close my eyes and think back to Sydney, Australia, the house where I grew up. I think it might be to do with neurologically, the right brain, which is where we experience our body and we're embodied and we're and the right brain, we experience music at that kind of intuitive level, not the analytical level, which is the left brain, but the intuitive level. So I have a feeling its body and its place and its music there in the right brain. So I think that, like I went back to Sydney, Australia a year and a half ago, at Christmas with my family, very expensive to get back to Sydney, Australia, and the day we flew back to Canada, I was sitting in my sister's house, very close to the house I grew up. And I was playing my Australian piano, the piano that I had when I was living in Australia, a lovely Kauai upright and so but without even trying, I wrote a jazz tune called cherry wood. And cherry Wood's the name of my sister's Street. And it was just fascinating, like in hindsight, to look back here. I was leaving my country, leaving the town I grew up in, where my sister and my father still are. I'm 51 now. I'm so distant from my childhood, but yet I ended up writing this tune, cherry wood. And I mean, I play it for you, if I may. But the significance in this conversation is that being rooted in place as churches using our imagination in a place, isn't that being what only Arkan church can be in this place?

Andy Withrow:

Isn't that the best art, though, is particular. It's particular to some time and place that's a little bit alien to us, because we're not a part of that Saint always a part of that. But there's something beautiful about it too, and even connecting that to that God had the audacity to enter into time and space in history. Uh,

Mark Glanville:

yeah, in a particular place, particular time

Andy Withrow:

and place. How dare he do that? But it's also Yeah, also this beautiful, wonderful thing that's, we're so glad that he did.

Mark Glanville:

Please play, I agree with that. Cherry Wood. Cherry Wood. Oh, yeah, thanks, Vanessa. I will Yeah. And that's I do. I mean, listeners might just want to imagine what it means for their Christian community to belong in their place, and what are the esthetics and riches and words and senses that arise from their place. I hope I could remember it was a long time ago. I Yeah, could I ask you guys? Because you guys kind of come, I mean, you're in the same church, in the same kind of distinctive kind of neighborhood. I mean, Vanessa, what are the ways? I mean, when you think of your locality, what does it mean to belong in your particular place? What are the particular kind of I don't know, just aspects of your neighborhood or ecosystem that that you think is valuable for your Christian community to reflect.

Vanessa Caruso:

Thanks for that question during your song, I was thinking about the wind. It kind of reminded me of getting my hair in my face in your song when it's windy. And this is the windiest place I've ever lived. I'm close to the water, so it's windier even than other places here in Victoria. And so I was wondering, Oh, what have I learned about wind, and what does that mean for the church here? And one thing I've learned about wind since living here is the more I resist it, or try to get my hair not in my face, or am annoyed by it, the worst experience I have when I embrace the wind. I mean, I even went down to the water that remember that like wind warning we have? Yeah, I went down there and it was so intense, and it was so soothing, actually, to embrace the limitation of wind. And the first thing I thought of in terms of a correlation, there's so much more. I mean, wind is the spirit, but there's also a lot of what's that called, when people come and go in Victoria, transience, transients. So like, the wind blows pretty strong. Here you'll get, like, all these new people, and then they leave.

Andy Withrow:

The wind will blow them right away. Yeah.

Vanessa Caruso:

So that was one thing I thought of. But the next thing was that I've never lived in a place where people put this stuff they don't want out on the sidewalk, and here you can get everything you need. My whole office is furnished with furniture from the sidewalk for free, which feels like the earliest really cool me. I wanted to tell you guys about this, actually. So yesterday, my son got something at the thrift store because it was a holiday here. So he went to thrift store and he wanted to hang it in his room, and he needed a tack. And so he said, Can you go get me attack? I went to our tack place. No tax left. I'm like, sorry, there's no tax left. I'm walking to work this morning thinking about this improv conversation, and I look on the ground and Andy, Oh, you found attack. There was attack on the ground. There was attack. Someone's giving away attack I put in my pocket all day I risked being punctured, just to tell you,

Mark Glanville:

this is part of

Vanessa Caruso:

what Victoria has taught me, is that there is enough to go around, and I could have an Amazon cart list with tax right now. I could be getting tax right now. But this kind of happens in this economy here in Victoria, which is, if you're paying attention to it, yeah, you have to pay attention the desk there might be I got. One in my office. I'm actually getting rid of if you need one. He's not even joking. He does. If anyone listening needs a desk, we have one for you. This is church

Mark Glanville:

in real life. So this, those two things come to

Vanessa Caruso:

mind, the wind and the free stuff that I have found over and over again actually has something I need, and the kind of reciprocity, mutuality economy that exists in that little unique way here in Victoria. I love that.

Mark Glanville:

I wonder, I mean, for people who are outside of Cascadia, which is where we're talking, I wonder what activities they can do as a congregation in order to learn and to engage and get their imaginations flowing. I'll share one story that I share in the book. But then, you know, you guys might share an idea too. Then in improvising church, I share a story where my church in Australia, we distributed, we invited people to take photos of our neighborhood. It happened to be a very poor neighborhood, what we call the government housing area in Western Sydney, Australia, 50,000 government owned households, beautiful, so rich in community, and also with that, with that aspect so people, they picked that. They took photos of houses, of murals, of graffiti, of kind of open spaces. They found the beauty in a community where people can easily drive through and not see find any beauty at all. So then we we distributed disposable cameras to older folk who didn't have phones. We invited younger folk who had phones. Camera phones were just coming out. And then an artist in our church framed many of the pictures, and we put them up in our church foyer, and they're still there, actually, 20 years later. And the church motto was making known the truth, hope and love of Jesus. So we wrote, we used that motto, and we just lengthened it a bit. We said, making known the truth, hope and love of Jesus here and these beautiful pictures, we really honored our neighborhood that often received a lot of dishonor because of the poverty and perhaps the violence, but people miss the community and the beauty. So I wonder if there's some version of that that listeners can invite one another into so that, yeah, we just start to, as you say, become aware and alert to the things that we can love in our neighborhood. I don't know if anything else comes to mind for you guys. I for

Andy Withrow:

you guys. Before you started, I was thinking similar lines in terms of creation stuff. I think we've been having one of the nicest springs we've had, probably in since before the pandemic. Maybe even, I can't remember that far back, but it's just everybody's out. It's in the sunshine. It's so nice, and there's an opportunity there you creation is a big, big theme in your book mark for a key to the church, to really take it, you know, take that opportunity in the future, going forward. I think the other thing that we've always noticed in our community we've always noticed in Victoria is this isn't just Victoria, I think it's increasingly across probably North America in general, Canada in particular, but just the the lack of kind of the vacuum being in a post Christendom context creates in terms of communities, like, people are finding ways to do communities, but there's still, there's still something missing, I think, like, people are a lot, I think longing for connection, and they're, they're trying to find different, creative ways to do that. So that's something that's and I think that's true for Victoria and and sometimes those two things, creation and community go together. People are doing stuff together outdoors. They're celebrating that way. They're they're worshiping that way, not not necessarily Christian worship, but just a sense of of appreciation and wonder and awe and being in the midst of all that that that's, that's another connection point, I think,

Mark Glanville:

yeah, yeah. I agree with that. I think that, yeah, recognizing our kinship with the creation, that we're family with the creation, is going to be really crucial for Christ's followers as we continue through the years in post Christian culture, I think we all have a sense that there's a fragmentation going on between humanity and the creation, and that's been even the sharpness of that's been heightened over the last couple of months with the Trump administration. But yet we there's that healing that we find when we're in right relationships, not just with one another, but with the creation itself, and if and I think that the the rich theology of our kinship with the creation in the Bible can be well, can it can guide the church to be a light on a hill as way as where Jesus is shaping us to be in Matthew five, you're a light on a hill. A city on the hill can't be hidden. What a verse a city on the hill can't be hidden. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, is saying that the church is this new Jerusalem. This. See on a hill a renewed ancient Israel, a renewed beautiful people of God, beautiful by our shared life. And the reason why I say it's biblical is because the Bible was written in an agrarian community where people were knit in with their ecosystem. That's why, in Genesis chapter two, Adam, the first human kind, was taken from the adamah, the soil. This relationship between the Adam and the adamah, it's there in the etymology itself. So this kinship, this kind of, this, this, this, this shared fate, the our lives, our fate, our existence, is intertwined with the creation. So the church has an opportunity, I think, well, to learn from First Nations, communities and their story of living so well on the land, their theology, if you like, of kinship between people and the land, and to work out how to do that up close and personal, but in real, practical ways. We're fortunate in our little neighborhood. Here, we live next door to friends who were at church with together for many years, who buy from local farmers and and then they kind of all the food gets brought to their garage, which is just 2020, meters that way I'm pointing in the direction of their garage, and then they kind of circulate it to 20 households, many of whom are from our church community. And that's one very practical way that we can live. Walk lightly on the land. But there's lots of things to do. How about you guys? What? How do you guys kind of walk in that way in Victoria

Vanessa Caruso:

reminded me of the egg Co Op.

Andy Withrow:

Yeah, there's something similar. We've kind of done through the table church for, gosh, a decade or more. Now. Can't remember it got started something called common cupboard, which was sort of trying to make more intentional connections with where food is coming from, local farms and stuff like that. It's mostly now, I think just, just, just the eggs. It's a egg share a co op, I guess. So, yeah, we're

Vanessa Caruso:

up to four or five dozen crates of 24 dozen each, delivered from a farm every other week to the neighborhood. It's a huge Are you the I was the admin? You were the admin? Yeah,

Mark Glanville:

a lot of eggs. Yeah. How many eggs does that come to Vanessa? That's,

Vanessa Caruso:

I mean, the bill is like 700 so divided by $7 a dozen times. Yeah, 12. Are you good at the eggs are an amazing parable, actually, because they're the my main excuse for getting to know my neighbors. So I went around and said, Who wants to be in the co op? I'll do the pickup and the drop off. So we have a whatsapp thread in my neighborhood, so very affluent neighborhood, where no one needs anything ever from anybody except eggs. And so it's, it's really been a way to connect with them, and since then, we've had a block party. We've gone over to somebody's house for Indian food. Yeah, we've texted about what's going on with the construction. Like eggs are the reason why we're talking that's

Mark Glanville:

great and caring living in sync with the creation as you do. I love that. Could you guys, before we started recording you told me a little bit about your eating practices as a church community. Would you just tell me about that again? Because I loved it, that rhythm that you have was so wonderful. Well,

Andy Withrow:

the so talking about the table church, we, as part of the original vision is we wanted, we're called the table, so we should probably do food, and that was intentional to want to accelerate community a bit more than you know, a lot of traditional churches, you show up for an hour, you sit in the pew, maybe you have a little bit of a coffee hour to say hi and you go home. So we said, let's, let's make it a bit more inconvenient for people and make them sit down awkwardly, get to know each other. And it is, there's a bit of a cost there for people coming in, especially if you're new, it's, it's the middle school cafeteria syndrome, right where it's like, Who do I sit with? And that's uncomfortable. But if we can kind of get over those humps, then it does. It does accelerate community for people, and get it in a good, hopefully a good way, forces people to get to know each other and to ask questions and make connections. So we try to do food at everything we do. We have little every other Sunday, we have little neighborhood tables. We call them. They're kind of little house churches. So it's could be breakfast or brunch, depending on the time that church is particularly meeting, and everyone just brings something and shares and that sort of thing. So yeah. So

Mark Glanville:

there's always a meal, and every other week you're all together, and then every other week you're in this kind of neighborhood, that's right,

Andy Withrow:

yeah. So we have what we call Big Table, everyone's together. It's kind of what you'd imagine with potluck dinner to start. And then you've got your liturgy and music and sermon and all that sort of stuff. And then alternate Sundays are. Smaller groups in kind of these little neighborhood churches, maybe a dozen to 25 people, depending on where you're at, kids chaos. And those, those, those can take on different flavors depending on who's leading them and who's part of them, and what neighborhoods they're in, and that sort of

Vanessa Caruso:

thing. Andy, two food highlights at the table for me were Easter, the Easter feast, where we used Mike's wine. So a member at the church had started a winery, and so kind of accompanying him through the do I start a winery? If so, where and how, and then making this amazing wine, and then using that wine for the Easter feast. You know, there's just, like, a lot of meta, micro stuff happening. Another highlight was I met a woman on the beach from Shanghai when I was new here, and she had a kid, so we became friends, and so she started coming to our neighborhood table, and she introduced me to hot pot. Oh yeah. And I was like, you have to bring hot pot to neighborhood table. And that was a highlight that, you know, in a house, she's like, she's doing hot pot for everybody, and we're all just dying over how amazing it is. Those are two very local, very kind of inspired in the moment food experiences at the table.

Mark Glanville:

I love that. So people are doing the kind of their homesteading, and in this case, becoming a business, living in kinship with the creation in creative ways in their lives. And then that just gets together into the liturgy and the shared life of worship. Perfect. Yeah. So good.

Vanessa Caruso:

Mark. Something you said I want to go back to is how you do your jazz scales every day you like work on the piano every day. I love that part of improvisation. There's a connotation you talk about this in your book with it just being like, Oh, the new, the spontaneous, the original, the next, the future. And really, I heard someone describe improvisation as walking backwards into the future. That's great, because you're you're disposing yourself of everything that's there and that has come before you, and so you doing your scales every day. Reminds me of Jesus, who was like an ultimate improviser in that he was so steeped in the Scripture and in tradition and in God's imagination and vision and purpose in the world. And from that he did these really wild, local, immediate things, which are stories, parables, mud, dirt, writing. Yeah, you know, that's like improvisation to me. But it wasn't just him being like, throw out the old. Let's do something cool and new. It was like, let me, like, absolutely immerse myself in the old. Let me walk backwards into the future and do some creative stuff along the way. Yeah,

Mark Glanville:

I love that. You said it so well, and I hadn't heard that phrase before. Let's walk backward into the future. And that does, that is what jazz musicians do, and I believe that's what we're doing as Christ followers. So I really love that phrase. Thank you, Vanessa. It makes me think once again, going to Matthew five, where Jesus says I didn't come to at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. It's just been the Beatitudes. And then Jesus said, don't think that I came to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. And back when I was a young adult, that word, you know, that Jesus came to fulfill the Old Testament, really, I kind of understood that as essentially abolishing it. To some, you know, I really did relegate the old testament to just being a bunch of symbols that were repeated and exemplified in Jesus. So we had a king in the Old Testament. Jesus is the ideal King. We had a prophet in the Old Testament. Jesus the ideal prophet. And that kind of typology approach to hermeneutics, to biblical interpretation. And that's true, and that's a part of reading the Old Testament, but actually understood or right, when Jesus says, I came to fulfill the to fulfill the Old Testament, he means, I came to bring to full expression the Old Testament. So in Christ, we see God's people, ancient Israel, what what they were supposed to be and never were, in fact, fully expressed in this Messiah, the Anointed King of Israel, in the first century to bring to full expression, and so that all the beauty, all the up close and personal being charged with this man becomes friends with sinners and eats with them. Luke 15, one and two. That's all there in the Torah, all there in the Pentateuch. You want to know about eating with the wrong people. Go and read Deuteronomy, 16 and the feasts and see how God's people were to be eating with those who were enslaved, and eating with the refugee and becoming family together. And that's what Jesus is doing, bringing to full expression that tenderness that we find in the Old Testament, but that's never quite lived out. So I think that you're right. And then when it comes then that's very freeing and very energizing, I think because when it comes to doing church today, we there's a sense in which we don't have to just invent it ourselves. But there's this depth and this richness in Scripture when we read it rightly. I think that like, in my opinion, as an Old Testament scholar, i. I don't think we can ever outdo the Scripture, the Scriptures, the Bible, in terms of the fresh imagination. There's so much imagination there to last us a lifetime. You know, you can kind of come up with some radical idea. You know, you're not going to get much more radical than say, I mean, I can think of 100 texts. Let's go to Deuteronomy, 15, four. There shall be no poor among you if you spend the rest of your life living that puppy out, right? You want to get radical. You know what? I mean? There's so much imagination in the Bible, and there's a whole bunch of imagination of how to do it, you know? Well, we've gone to Luke 15, one and two, eating with befriending sinners and eating with them, you know? Yeah, the Bible will always outdo our best imaginations and then just propelling us to improvise a fresh melody. So it's like, I mean to come to the piano, since I'm sitting here, you know, like, say, in the western classical tradition, you could play C major scale. I'm sure all the musicians on the call, listening to the podcast know the C major scale, and it's such beautiful vocabulary. And all the information is there, if you like, and we can say that the beautiful, the beauty of that, what we call a diatonic scale, and with the beautiful harmonies underneath the rich theology of the Bible, and then we can improvise something new on it. Something that only our community can do, a melody that only our community can play at this particular time in this particular neighborhood.

Andy Withrow:

I like that. It makes me think of I don't know, I think as kind of drawing a lot of things together, our conversation around not just doing the one size fits all version of church, but finding something that's that's local, that God is doing in our midst. It makes me think of which can feel like some pressure, like some risk, like, oh, but that kind of puts me on the spot. I have to I have to do improv. I have to improvise. But if we know our scales, you know, if we've been kind of doing the daily business of following Jesus, engaging in the disciplines of reading scripture, have learned, leaning into a rich prayer life, practicing community, all those things, then we know our scales. We can, we can play around with it and see what, see what, see what's in that. We'll see what God's doing in the air. That's a nice image.

Mark Glanville:

Yeah, I like that a lot. Yeah. I often say to people like, I think the best ideas aren't going to come from the paid staff. Often the best ideas come from the pews, so to speak, from and the kind of job of the paid leaders is to give energy to the great ideas, and to make those conduits, those pipelines, nice and smooth, to give them air. Bad Ideas die natural death. You don't usually have to say no to a bad idea. They just don't really grow. But good ideas, we can give that energy to. And I reckon that a leader's job, and I like what you did there. Andy, you just simplified it. Just get into these practices, learn your scales the way that I sometimes say it is, pray for it, preach for it, model it so that as a household and as individuals, as Christian leaders, we're praying for it and we're preaching for it. We're kind of opening up the treasures in the biblical story, the imagination for incarnational community, and seeing what the Spirit births within our community, within people's imagination, alert to what's birthing in my imagination as a pastor, but just as much, if not more, what's the spirit going to birth? What imagination the congregation itself, and then modeling it like, I mean, we've said, you know how Jesus was friends with all the in inverted commas, wrong people in the first century, Jewish world, but actually all the right people in the kingdom of God. So there's one ethic, ethical pathway there's to model it. And I think pray for it, you said, mentioned prayer Andy, and I want to just lift that up. Pray for it, preach for it, model it. I think that if, if we as a church are seeking that fresh imagination for improvising on the biblical story, how is it that the Spirit is guiding us, calling us to improvise? On this story here in this place, I think a time of of just prayer is gold. So in this neighborhood, I mentioned, when we distributed the cameras in Western Sydney, Australia, on Thursday mornings, I invited the whole church, whoever wanted to come every Thursday morning at 6am to my house, which was next to the church for prayer. And we're kind of praying for revival. It was 25 years ago. That's kind of language we were using back then. And but we were praying that the Spirit would come upon us as a church, and that the Spirit would come upon our neighborhood through us and and so around 10 people would gather at 6am every Thursday morning. I was a young pastor. And I made lots of mistakes, but that was one little thing that I did right, that we prayed, and we prayed, asking God to come by the Spirit and to give us that fresh imagination. And as the Spirit comes upon us, we had that conviction the Spirit would come upon our neighborhood as well through us. And some people never came to prayer, but they knew we were praying, and they were so grateful that we were praying. Perhaps people were too old to come or their work times. And I remember there was this moment that year when we were just praying. We didn't have the bright ideas, we weren't particularly active, but we were just praying. There was this moment after a service where Pat, who was a retired lady, perhaps around in her late 70s, she came up to me, and she'd never come to prayer. You know, she was that age where she didn't want to get up at 530 who wants to get up at 530 anyway? She came up to me and she said, Mark, I just want to do something. She had so much energy and anticipation, I just want to do something. And that was the moment where I knew I just had this strong sense. God's going to answer our prayer. Because the spirit was growing, this energy among us, you know, we still didn't know what we were going to do. But that wasn't the point, you know. And I think the cool thing, again, made so many mistakes in that church, which was my first full time parish, but it's really cool that the ideas came from the congregation, right? Mark, you're coming to Victoria soon. Oh yeah, we're hanging out. Are you guys coming to where you're going to be? You're already

Andy Withrow:

there. Vanessa is going to be in California. I'm going to miss you. Too bad she's sad to miss it. But

Mark Glanville:

come on, that's no fun.

Andy Withrow:

Well, you can come for another conference in the future. She'll come to that one. Yeah, I look forward to it. So this is the we've been talking about this on on our one other episode on this podcast. Is this blessed are the undone conference coming up in that first weekend in June, and you're gonna, you're gonna be there. I can't wait. Yeah, you're gonna say some things, but you also might be playing some things. I understand saying

Mark Glanville:

some stuff. Yeah, more in Washington, a leading jazz singer in Victoria, killer singer and I doing a duet, 9pm on the Friday night. Can't wait and and I have my new book, which is called preaching in a new key, crafting expository sermons in post Christian communities, preaching in a new key. And I'm doing a workshop on that book. But best of all, just get to hang out with you guys, sounds, Vanessa and just, yeah, just get to chill out and meet the some creative Christ followers, compassionate Christ followers in Victoria and my partner, Aaron's coming to Aaron leads a flourishing church called artisan church in Vancouver. And yeah, yes. And so she we both just said, of course, we're going to come just a chance to network with you guys and hang out and and get to know, you know what the Spirit's up to on the island. We can't wait to be with you.

Vanessa Caruso:

Fun. So jealous. Yeah, you should be, yeah, geez, yeah,

Mark Glanville:

man, you go to the States. Finesse, yeah, bringing the love to the states

Vanessa Caruso:

mark. It was so good to talk to you. I I do feel unsatisfied, dissatisfied with how much more I want to talk about this. Oh, the things I didn't get to on your list. Yeah, this is good. It's been I

Andy Withrow:

only had 29 questions I asked, I think, but I knew I wasn't

Vanessa Caruso:

gonna get Yeah, keep talking if we want to. Yeah, about this, another conversation, even, oh,

Andy Withrow:

like another episode. Yeah, down the road, yeah, okay, yeah, I'd be, I'd be done with that. Totally,

Mark Glanville:

yeah, got it made in the shade, absolutely once Vanessa is back from California. Yeah, I

Andy Withrow:

didn't get to my, this will be for next time, but I didn't get to my poly rhythms question. I wanted to hear some Polish rhythms and figure out talk a bit about that chapter, but let's save that for next time. Yes, that was a great I love that

Vanessa Caruso:

chapter. Let's talk about preaching, because it's his new book. You're really interested in preaching

Andy Withrow:

a new key. I don't have that book, but it's, I will have it soon, because I'm a preacher, so like love to get through some of these ideas with you. So that'd be fun.

Mark Glanville:

Yeah, definitely. Well, it's so good to be a friend both of you. It's going to be great to hang out. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah, with you guys at different times, not just early June.

Vanessa Caruso:

Thanks so much. Mark, thanks, Mark, we appreciate it.

Mark Glanville:

Hey, look us up when you're on the mainland. I will, I definitely will.

Andy Withrow:

Yeah, it went by fast. In it really fast. Yeah, we didn't book enough time, no. But on the other hand, we can't, I don't know if a two hour podcast will fly, will sell? Well,

Vanessa Caruso:

no, I don't think so, but there's so much piano, which I love.

Andy Withrow:

Yeah, it was fun. You're thinking return guest, oh,

Vanessa Caruso:

100% like, just gonna be patient. Okay, so remember when I said that I wanted us to practice improvisation a little bit in the conversation? Oh, yeah. And then at the end, reflect on how did we do? Were there any improvis, improvisational qualities? What do you think? How did we do?

Andy Withrow:

Yeah, it was good. I mean, it was like, I came with a bunch of notes, yeah, from the book, yeah, and a bunch of question ideas, and we didn't, I mean, we just went all over the place. It was just, like, it was just a conversation, yeah? So that was improvised?

Vanessa Caruso:

No, that is that, that was, that's what, I think that's where we did it, yeah. So something that surprised me, that happens in improv is you get surprised because you didn't plan where you're gonna go. Was how many questions he asked us, right? And I was a little unprepared for that, yes,

Andy Withrow:

like, so it was like, he was wait, were the interviewers? Yeah, hello. It's

Vanessa Caruso:

like, No, I and I totally was unprepared for that. I don't I wasn't planning to talk about the table, about Victoria's wind, yeah, but that is a tenet of improvisation, is you actually listen and then you actually respond based on what you heard, right? Not on where you were pre planned to go. So he was doing it with us by making us talk too, so that it was a cheer back and forth. Yeah,

Andy Withrow:

when I saw the title of Mark's book, you know, he's, he's coming to this conference, like, oh, let's check out his books. He's got a few books out in like, improvising church. He just jumped out to me because there's something that's just even with this whole Blessed are the undone, interviewing Angela a few weeks ago, reading the book, Thinking through other, bigger things that are going on in the world, in our country, in the church, in in in my church and our communities, it's like, yeah, this is, this is something that's in the water. That is definitely a direction we need to move towards, is being more comfortable in our in our I don't know church experiences, church worship services to go off script a bit yes and yeah and address what's what's happening, or what's being felt in the moment, and those sorts of having a bit more comfort doing that. Yes.

Vanessa Caruso:

That surprised me was his emphasis on place. You know, I wasn't. I hadn't really thought a ton about place. Of course, it's in his book a lot, but I hadn't really translated that, and it made me realize that is, improvisation is about place. My main connotation with improv is new versus old. Like, oh, let's not do the old hymns. Let's do a new song. You know, I think, oh, Let's improvise on the theme, yeah. But really, I don't think improv is as much about new versus old as it is about here versus there, right? It is taking into consideration who's here, what's going on, what is the Spirit doing, who are the people, and how are we going to work with what's here instead of there? So the emphasis on place actually made a lot of sense to me. And didn't you like how he said, song and place have a relationship, like neurologically or something? It made me think of movies because they curate the soundtrack to what's happening, and the relationship between them is amazing. You know, when you watch a movie that's set in this really particular place, and there's music that goes along with it. It like cements it in your head. Yes,

Andy Withrow:

yeah, I agree with all that. That's all true. And so trying to think about, what's the Yeah, you might think of individualistically, what's the soundtrack of my life right now? Those are kind of good reflectional questions. You could also maybe apply that a bit more broadly, what's the soundtrack of Victoria right now, and why Vancouver Island or our little our little community? Yes, embedded nestled in our neighborhoods in Victoria, yeah, or where we're at that. Yeah, those all seem like really important and good questions, instead of just driving to be like our perception of where every what everything else is like right now, yeah, like, I don't know. I mean, I think in this comes out in his book too, is like, there is a there is a play in that, because there is the global historic church in the in the treasury of prayer. And theology and tradition and all this stuff to take from, but to not neglect the here and the now and the local. Okay, what's our what's our note to play in this in this moment? Yeah, that's pretty fun. So

Vanessa Caruso:

that makes me think that something I'm surprised about is the research required to do this. Well, like to know who you have and what their gifts are. We didn't talk about being a leaderful church, which he talks a lot about in the book. And I love that idea, just overflowing with leaders and the lay leaders, like the role of the lay leaders in the future, but you have to, like, pay attention. You know, he gave the story of giving disposable cameras to everybody, and that's like a research project. That's something my sister in law would do who, like, runs a huge research organization, you know, so that that was new to me, like, it's gonna take some work and creativity to figure out, yeah, like, who's at the table, and what is God doing through the people there? You kind of have to get to know them. Yeah,

Andy Withrow:

yeah. Well, it makes me think of you saw this last month, I think. But we had, at our last Leadership Retreat, we had this huge roll of blank paper exactly the line down the middle, yes, and I have a terrible memory, but we have 15 years of history in our community at the table, and it's hard for me to remember all these people, but I can't remember. When were they here, and when did they you know, when did they move on to this thing or that thing, and when did this happen? And so I just outsourced all that work on the community and said, Hey, here's the timeline. We started in 2009 years, 2024, at the time. And they just people just filled in stuff. I couldn't even remember. It's like, Oh yeah, that happened. Oh yeah. People were remembering baptisms, remembering marriages, remember who worked here, when? What? Some down to things that people said that, you know, stuck with them over the years like that was like, a really fun community project.

Vanessa Caruso:

Andy, good thing you have a bad memory, because that was way better than if you had, was it one and you just presented.

Andy Withrow:

Everyone got to bring what they remembered, what stuck out to them from, yeah, our history. I

Vanessa Caruso:

was so moved by that timeline. I believe that even if I didn't know a lot of the people on it, I would have been so moved, because there was things like this person first saw this person, his future wife, leading worship, you know, on this day and this year, right? It was amazing. Yeah.

Andy Withrow:

So that gets me wanting to do more of that kind of stuff, yeah? Is like, those kind of little experimental things that people want to participate in, you just got to be thinking of, what, how can I kind of unlock, I think part of the role of a pastor or or a lay leader, or a leader in a church is just doing some of that work. Of, how do I organize this? Or, how do I just kind of start a little fire here that that just picks up and goes like that, is a good example of I did very little, yes, blank, long, blank piece of paper that that Lindsay, our kids director, gave me because she had a bunch of Yeah, straight line tick marks. Years go and people, people just, it just came alive. It's a great example. So finding those, finding those little things where, where people can fill it out. Bring fill out the church, I guess, yeah, fill out the community. Another

Vanessa Caruso:

example I thought of was Kathleen at holidaying for Holy Week. Yeah, had printed out the Stations of the Cross, all of them and kind of the traditional title and imagery that went out, and then bought 16 canvases, right? You know, kind of big, I don't know, like 18 by 20 or something, and asked for volunteers to take them home, and assigned a station of the cross. And then we all painted them, and then brought them. And now they're up around the church, and so they're the old Stations of the Cross, but they're translated through all these people. That's, I mean, I loved getting to know people through looking at them, looking at the name, and being like, they did that like I wouldn't have guessed that they would have done that. Yeah, that's,

Andy Withrow:

that's a really good example. I wonder. I think a fun we should write this down, but I think because I don't remember it, but I think a fun thing to do it, when we're done interviewing all these people from from out of town who are coming here, is if we could spend some time with pastors or or lay leaders in the community say, what is, what are things like this that your church has done that was just like really, kind of added to the sense of community, and what, what God is revealing through the community, would be Pretty fun. We need to do

Vanessa Caruso:

that. Andy, because that was part of what the interview was so good at. He gave examples and ideas which, which sparked mine. I didn't think I had any. I was like, I've never done anything with place or people in my life. Maybe, maybe I have been maybe I haven't seen it. Yeah. So this will inspire other people to even remember there. Own ways. They've done it without calling it that, like, Oh, we're improvising, yeah, paying attention to place. No, we're just, like, organically, yeah, trying to be disciples together. Yeah,

Andy Withrow:

that's right. For me, it was just trying to solve a simple problem, like, I can't remember anything, which, okay, that's one

Vanessa Caruso:

of my favorite parts about improv, is the resourcefulness, like limitation is actually so soothing, because it means we have to work with what we have. Yeah, and there are so many resources, actually. So I like being confined or limited or restricted or weak at something, and then having to figure out how to work with what is that's fun. Okay, something else I liked? Okay? He was like, Oh, I heard this line, and it was so amazing. Do you remember this part? Oh, the musical? Yeah, yes. I don't know music. So I was like, they call him lines too, yeah? Because I'm waiting for him to say a quote. I love quotes. I have, like, a whole file of quotes, you know, folder. It's a musical quote. Yeah. He loves musical quotes. So that was fun to see a musician be like, Oh, I heard this quote. Do you guys want to hear it? And I'm ready to with my pen to take it down. And he's like, and he's like, isn't that amazing? And I'm like, What did you just say? And he's like, I learned it in every key. It's just such an amazing quote. So that

Andy Withrow:

was kind of like, sounds like, meditation, yeah? Like, like, taking one verse say Lectio. And yeah, Lectio. And just doing, just spending time on that in different, different spaces,

Vanessa Caruso:

exactly. Isn't that cool? You can do that with music. I didn't know that that was a favorite part. Formation was a favorite part of the conversation. We didn't explicitly talk about that, but implicitly him doing his scales every day. He's already accomplished. He doesn't need to do anymore. He's probably a master according to 10,000 hours or whatever, and yet he still does the basics, which to me is so validating about our contemplative practices, yeah, like we might not feel like it. We might be having a bad day. We might be having a busy week. We might be feeling super unspiritual. Yes, do your skills. Yes, if you can, yes, and just do the basics, don't evaluate it and move on. And trust that by doing them, you're you're growing in your technique, which will be called on more than any of us want in our lifetime. Yeah, in order, like for those special notes to come out, if we keep the practice up, does that make sense? It does

Andy Withrow:

make a lot of sense. No, that that did resonate with me. That piece for sure. That was fun.

Vanessa Caruso:

Have you heard of the parable of the ABCs? No, oh, I guess it's a joke or a riddle. It's real. It's not even called that, but I just think of it as the ABCs. Okay, you've probably heard of it. Okay, a farmer falls asleep in his farm before the Sabbath, so he's supposed to go home. This is in the olden days, yeah, this is all from memory the good old days, yes. And so he falls asleep. And so when he makes his way home on the Sabbath, which is sort of supposed to be home, he comes across a very perturbed rabbi who is like, I can't believe you were so careless with your time. I hope you at least prayed while you were out there in the field like I hope you made did something good with this poor time management of yours, and the farmer responds, you know, well, I'm not a clever man. I don't actually know how to pray properly, so all I did was recite the alphabet, and I let God fashion the words himself that he wanted to out of reciting the alphabet. So all I did all night was just ABCDEFG, he's ridiculous, you know, probably slowly and just trusted that out of that God could hear and make his own prayers. That's That, to me, are the scales and a little bit of silence every day, a little bit of Scripture every day, a little bit of reflection every day. Those are just, I'm just reciting the ABCs, yeah, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes I forget a letter, yeah. Sometimes they feel amazing, and I say them so well. But really, we're trusting that in that we're opening ourselves up to God to fashion some way holier, yeah, and more eloquent prayers than we could come up with ourselves. Yeah, that's good.

Andy Withrow:

Maybe we should do an episode on the ABCs. I love

Vanessa Caruso:

the at some point. Okay, there's so much there, yeah? Acrostics. I love acrostic Psalms, the limitation of having to start with ABCD. FG,

Andy Withrow:

yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. I like that. That's good. Anything

Vanessa Caruso:

else,

Andy Withrow:

it was fun, really was it was fun, yeah, and that time just went by so fast. But yeah, we should say again, the conference, yes, and the website. I. Always forget that website and the name of the book we talked about with Mark.

Vanessa Caruso:

So Mark's book is called improvising church Scripture as the source of harmony, rhythm and soul. He has a new book out too about preaching. He's going to be a performer on Friday night at the conference, June 6 and seventh. Blessed are the undone in Victoria, doing a duet with an amazing jazz musician and then leading a workshop on Saturday,

Andy Withrow:

on preaching, on preaching. I'm preaching in a new key, which is the name of his his book, and

Vanessa Caruso:

his partner is part of artisan. How cool is that? Yeah, I

Andy Withrow:

didn't know that. Yeah, it's fun. I think we did it. Great. Good job. Vanessa, you too. Andy, thanks everybody. We'll do this again. Two down, hopefully a bunch more to go. Goodbye everybody. Bye.

Vanessa Caruso:

Thanks for listening to coastal theology, a podcast from the Vancouver Island School of Theology and the arts. For more information on Vista, go to VISTA canada.org you.

People on this episode

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Andy Withrow

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Vanessa Caruso

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Dr. Mark Glanville

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