Ralph Ellison said that all of American life is "jazz-shaped." I think that this raises a number of questions for what a jazz-shaped faith might entail.<\/p>\n
What if…<\/p>\n
\n…Christians embraced the tension and mystery of our faith?<\/p>\n
…Experienced church like a jazz ensemble, listening to the beat of the image of God in each other?<\/p>\n
…community meant that we felt connected not only with those that we can see, but with those who have and have yet to follow Jesus?<\/p>\n
…the scriptures were a song with room for us to add our voice?<\/p>\n
…every moment of life with Jesus was seen as a one-of-a-kind masterpiece?<\/p>\n
…we knew why caged-birds sing?<\/p>\n
…we are approaching the Christian faith in America in a way that is not even American?<\/p>\n
…so much of what has gone wrong with America has also produced something that is right, good and beautiful?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Which of these questions intrigues you most and why?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n
<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ralph Ellison said that all of American life is "jazz-shaped." I think that this raises a number of questions for what a jazz-shaped faith might entail. What if… …Christians embraced the tension and mystery of our faith? …Experienced church like a jazz ensemble, listening to the beat of the image of God in each other?…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"yoast_head":"\n
What if we had a "jazz-shaped" faith? - The Jazz Theologian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2009\/03\/what-if-we-had.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What if we had a "jazz-shaped" faith? - The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ralph Ellison said that all of American life is "jazz-shaped." I think that this raises a number of questions for what a jazz-shaped faith might entail. 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Author of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith (Zondervan) and the upcoming, Strange Fruit: The Cross as a Way of Life (2011). Founder of Project 127, a ministry dedicated to seeing the day when there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado's foster care system. Robert deeply desires to see the body of Christ mobilized to serve the least of these. The poor, the down and out, the disenfranchised and disabled, those deemed unimportant and the unborn. He believes that God loves all people yet he has a special heart for the poor and the poor in spirit, the miserable and the marginalized. A Contributing Editor for Leadership Journal and Urbanfaith.com. He acquired a B.A. in Bibilcal Studies from Colorado Christian University and a Master of Arts in World Christianity (Missiology) from Denver Seminary. Robert is married to the love of his life, Barbara, and they have six energetic children (3 boys & 3 girls--one bio, five adopted--two from Ethiopia). Friend of God...Passionate about the Body of Christ...Lover of this thing called jazz! Please visit Jazztheologian.com for contact info., speaking schedule, videos, Facebook and Twitter.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/author\/rgelinas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}