Preaching Like Jazz: Relaxing into the moment with the Holy Spirit’s movement of rhythm and grace.

An article I recently wrote was published this week at Preaching Today entitled “Preaching Like Jazz: Relaxing into the moment with the Holy Spirit’s movement of rhythm and grace.” This article was probably one of the most enjoyable articles I have written in awhile, coming both out of my own musical interests and my work as a preacher. I hope this article is inspiring and helpful for other preachers. The article is open for now, but will likely be behind a paywall in the future (although I’d encourage preachers that the resources from Preaching Today are well worth the price). Here is the first section of the article to whet your appetite.

My parents offered me the gift of piano lessons when I grew up, beginning in second grade. Nancy Schwegler was my devoted piano teacher, helping me learn the intricacies of music theory and strengthening my technique, all while gradually exposing me to some of the greatest composers of the classical tradition. But her devotion to me as a student shone even brighter when, realizing I was losing interest in piano during high school, she took lessons herself to help me learn how to play jazz.

As my interest in jazz increased, she set me free to develop my abilities by playing with those even more skilled, even as I soaked in the masters like Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, and Herbie Hancock. With my parents’ encouragement, one summer while in high school, I attended a jazz camp at a nearby university, learning so much more about the ins and outs of playing jazz.

One of the biggest adjustments for someone trained classically with music is moving away from a full score—where all the notation for both hands is written out from start to finish—to working off a lead sheet—where the only notation might be a melody accompanied by the basic chord structure of the song. I tried to learn how to comp and improvise amidst the flow of the music and the lead sheet while at this camp, but the harder I tried, the worse my playing sounded.

Observing this, one of the older, seasoned jazz musicians working with us, an upright bass player, leaned over to me while we played and said, “You need to relax. You need to relax into the feel. Just let the feel get inside you and flow with the rhythm and the music.” It was counterintuitive but it was right.

When I first began to preach in high school, I believed using any prepared notes was a failure of faith, and not relying on the Holy Spirit. After all, I thought, if I can’t trust God to give the words in the moment, then where is my faith? However, it didn’t take me too long to realize that it might be helpful for me and others if I had something in front of me to restrain my tendency to meander off into topics that were only of interest to me (and perhaps not even that interesting to the Holy Spirit!).

Later during seminary, I learned to prepare an outline of Scripture texts that led to a sermon outline that led to a written sermon manuscript that led to an aural draft of the sermon, that is, the written form of a sermon meant to be heard not read. This was incredibly helpful for my development as a preacher.

Yet as time passed, I realized I needed to develop my own approach to preaching. The approach I have developed could best be characterized as preaching like jazz, of studying and preparing diligently but then relaxing into the moment with the Holy Spirit’s movement of rhythm and grace.

From “Preaching Like Jazz,” Preaching Today, January 2024.