The Kingdom and Jazz

About David Baroni David is a prolific songwriter, recording artist, worship leader and conference speaker who has been in full time music ministry for over 20 years. He lives with his wife Rita in Franklin, TN, just south of Nashville. They attend church at The Gate in Nashville.

I was having coffee at Starbuck’s with a friend and fellow musician today when the conversation turned to one of his favorite jazz recordings: Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea doing a lot of improvisation- free flowing spontaneity within a very loosely sketched, skeletal arrangement.

I told him that spontaneous flowing musically and spiritually is a metaphor to me of how our relationship with God should be. We flow with what we hear from the Lord, willing to lay down our preconceptions of how life is supposed to play out. In involves receiving the gift of faith and the grace to trust that God is faithful and really is working… “all things out for the good of those who love Him, who are the called according to His purposes.” I call it the “victory of vulnerability”, when we step out of the boat on a Word from God.

Jesus said “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” As Paul the Apostle wrote “Now the just shall live by faith.”

It takes a degree of trust to launch out with other musicians into the unknown waters of spontaneous composition. Our tendency, especially as Greek-mindset influenced westerners who rely on empiricism- that is, on what we perceive by our natural senses- is to lean too heavily on the sheet music. It seems safer that way, we like structure.

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