Tom Adams

The Jazz of Faith Formation: One Believer’s Path

Twenty years ago, I left an executive position in a faith-based nonprofit (I was dean of the Presbyterian college at the University of British Columbia and taught organizational development and leadership at Vancouver School of Theology) to launch a consulting firm that sought to provoke greater institutional flourishing in the sector. I needed a catchy angle to attract attention and found it in jazz. Thus, Jazzthink Consulting was born. Little did I imagine the lessons I would learn as I collaborated with others in imaging new ways of cultivating the common good. My faith was reformulated one conversation after another with people in both the visible and the invisible church.

“Family” and Faith: The Power of Shared Beliefs

I recently attended a memorial service for my older cousin, Paul, back in the community where I grew up. While I have not always considered it so, I increasingly appreciate the blessings of being born into a large family. My Mom came from a large, farm family of Irish Catholics. She had two brothers and three sisters – all of whom married and had four to eight children. It’s a challenge sometimes to remember all my cousin’s names, never mind the next generations of their children and grandchildren. In contrast, my Dad had only one sister but my three siblings and I share two wonderful cousins from that side of the family.

Faith as Community Building

Last night I was up late. It could have been the cortado I’d had in the afternoon, but the recent headlines about Haiti, Afghanistan, relentless fires in California, the Delta variant, and all the forgotten ills still afflicting our human family abroad and at home could have also been contributing factors. It was two in the morning. I played song after song on the piano until eventually, melodies I had not played before began to fill the room. This is amazing, I thought. I imagined people who had passed on as inspiring the prayers my fingers were sending into the world from that out-of-tune instrument. And, like anyone would do at three in the morning, I began to wonder if there wasn’t some mystical meaning to the name “YAMAHA” in front of me. My exhaustion eventually pushed me off the bench and onto the couch.

Exploring faith: Maybe the questions are bigger than the answers

Being Religion Editor for Reuters, one of the world’s largest news agencies, was so interesting that I often called it “the best-ever continuing graduate course in world religions.” I didn’t just read the Scriptures or learn the histories of the major faiths. My job was to go report on these beliefs at first hand, experiencing believers — wherever they were — as they practiced their faith or brought it into their daily lives. It was a wonderful experience.

A Love Letter for a Dark Night

The first three decades of my life I always felt God’s presence, and I am incredibly grateful for that. There were of course times when I felt closer to God, and other times when I didn’t feel as close, but those patterns often mirrored how active I was with my prayer life. The times when I struggled to make spiritual practices a part of my regular routine, God naturally seemed less a part of my life, but I knew God was always there waiting for us to spend time together.

A Love Letter for a Dark Night

How faith evolves – a Midwesterner’s journey

Bedtime, any night in 1957. My brother and I are on our knees next to Mom who is praying for the missionaries in a far-off country. Meanwhile, a few blocks away there is extreme poverty and people in need of help. Such is life on an open Native American Reservation in the 1950s. The lesson being taught was that prayer “counted” with God.

The Jazz of Faith Formation: One Believer’s Path

Editor’s Note: This week’s guest contributor offers a rich and fascinating framework for reflecting on faith and our faith journeys. Brian Fraser is a nonprofit consultant and Presbyterian minister based in British Columbia. We had the privilege of working together in growing the field of nonprofit capacity building. Read on and I think you will come to enjoy his self-described title of provocateur as I do.

Here, in brief, are the three lessons that currently fascinate me most.

Everyone is a jazz musician

At the very beginning of imagining Jazzthink, I found in the work of Stephen Nachmanovitch and Donald Schön the idea that the most common form of jazz in human experience is ordinary conversation. You have a structure within which the conversation takes place – vocabulary and grammar – but every time you use the structure you improvise with different words, tones, and interactions. The application, in all of its intriguing forms, was that if we managed the sound and substance of our voices in the conversations that co-create an organization like jazz musicians manage the sound and substance of their instruments in a performance, we’d generate a much better organization. And we already have the skills. All of us over the age of 13, following the 10,000-hour rule as described in Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point (2000), have mastered the art of having a conversation, regardless of how much we need to hone that skill.

Everyone’s voice is valuable

Over the past twenty years, I’ve hung out with a lot of jazz musicians in a lot of places – clubs, concerts, organizational and leadership development workshops and keynotes, jams, church services and practice sessions. Listening to them talk about their art is inspiring and instructive. Of particular note is their respect for each other, their yearning to learn, and their dedication to the community that is jazz. I’m especially impressed with the mutuality of the interactions among the generations. No matter where you may be in your career as a jazz musician, you listen with respect and contribute with candor. These conversations happen both in the formal settings of the performances, often with the musical instruments being the means of communicating and in informal hanging out with each other. The more formal settings happen when we gather in meetings of various kinds, both within the organization and with representatives of the broader community. The informal settings are chats around the office, over food and drinks, with friends on walks or in jazz clubs. Every conversation is an opportunity to compose your presence more faithfully, wisely and effectively as you respect the value of the other voices.

Make it feel good

Monty Alexander is one of the world’s most respected jazz pianists. Born and raised in Jamaica in the Bob Marley era, he brings that vibe to his playing/conversing. In the liner notes on Impressions in Blue, he wrote, “Jazz, at its best, is a situation in which participants willingly support each other, working together as one and going along with the ‘driver’s’ directions, each player bringing virtuosity, optimism, mutual respect, good will and, of course, the desire to ‘make it feel good’ for all human beings in the general proximity.” That’s a pretty good mantra for leadership in the nonprofit sector. It’s also a pretty good aspiration for anyone seeking to reformulate their faith in continuously improving our ambassadorship of God’s forgiving and reconciling love (2 Corinthians 5:19-21).

What’s this got to do with faith formation

We contribute to the well-being of creation one conversation after another. Within my practice of the Christian tradition, as a contributor to that community’s service to the flourishing of this world, I seek to compose conversations with God, with others, and with myself that cultivate justice with kindness and humility (Micah 6:8). That’s a challenging and gratifying path. And jazz is a provocative mentor for that way of being together caring for the creation.

Faith is communal before it is personal. In a culture so addicted to individualism, materialism and consumerism, forming an alternative way of being together is literally a matter of life and death. That way can be inspired and instructed by jazz.