Episode 108
#108. Improvising Church: Love, Beauty, Art, Music
Dr. Mark Glanville discusses how churches can adapt to and impact their own neighborhoods in a post-Christian world.
- Book: Improvising Church: Scripture as the Source of Harmony, Rhythm, and Soul
- Book: Refuge Reimagined: Biblical Kinship in Global Politics
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:
- Christian vs Post-Christian Culture
- Four Key Questions of Scripture
- Beauty is a Glimpse of God
ABOUT THE GUEST:
Dr. Mark Glanville trains pastors at Regent College, Vancouver, and is an Old Testament scholar.
Prior to coming to Regent, Mark pastored for 14 years in both Vancouver and Australia in urban, justice seeking churches.
Mark has been bi-vocational-- combining reflective pastoring with biblical scholarship and is a trained jazz pianist, active on the Vancouver jazz scene.
RELATED LINKS:
TIMESTAMPED SHOWNOTES:
00:38 - Introducing Dr. Mark Glanville
03:19 - Mark's background and his approach to doing church
03:30 - 4-note chord: pastoring, scholarship, teaching, jazz music
04:13 - Exited seminary to a government housing area in western Sydney, Australia
04:33 - High crime, high poverty, high community
05:12 - Then to Vancouver, very post-Christian city
06:31 - Impoverished cities
06:50 - Impoverished, underprivileged areas are higher in community
07:31 - See Christ in the faces of those who are marginalized
07:45 - Deuteronomy 24 - God hears the prayers of the marginalized people
09:12 - Definition of a Christian culture
09:52 - Definition of post-Christian culture
10:30 - Should the church fight post-Christian culture or go deep into our identity as Christians and mirror Christ?
11:02 - We are authorized to embody Christ's tenderness and love
11:37 - Book: Improvising Church: Scripture as the Source of Harmony, Rhythm, and Soul
12:15 - Be aware of the things we do as a church that are culturally Christian and discerning what is the Spirit forming us to do
12:57 - How can we be a church that is genuinely local?
13:31 - Beauty is a part of witnessing Christ
14:29 - Phrase: Incarnational communities
14:55 - Church: a people that is receiving and extending the healing of Jesus
15:23 - Incarnational Communities as a Sentence: An incarnational community is full of the Spirit, shaped by Scripture, and seeking to embody the love of Jesus and receive and display it in a particular neighborhood.
15:47 - Incarnational Communities as an Image: Incarnational church seen as blues musicians
18:17 - Unpacking four key questions of Scripture...
18:55 - ...Biblical story
19:14 - ...gospel
19:53 - ...witness
20:21 - ...Biblical ethics
20:57 - The need for churches to truly belong to their neighborhoods
21:14 - Scripture is related to place
22:02 - Reconceive "witness" as loving a place in the name of Jesus
22:50 - ...photos of loved places in the neighborhood
24:49 - ...prayer for revival
30:11 - Churches should give their attention to beauty, aesthetics, and the arts
31:01 - Beauty is a glimpse of God
31:57 - Give attention to the artists in the church
32:46 - We need to be artists and be creative in all we do
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