Jazz and Worship: The Pastor and Musicians Create Together

Rev. Tyler Kaufmann and Brian Scarborough
Crown Center Sheraton Hotel - GILLHAM

Musician Brian Scarborough and Pastor Tyler Kauffman relate ideas and experience of their “Underground Community,” a weekly evening worship jazz service developed for Lenexa United Methodist Church. The service meets on Saturday nights at 5:30 PM, but will be moved to Wednesday nights for the summer.

Music is the cornerstone of this service and Brian writes original music each week specifically for this service and also leads the band in rehearsals and performance. The band is a jazz quartet with trombone, guitar, bass, and drums and he hires great jazz musicians to make the music as impactful as possible. As we all know, great music has the ability to impact an audience in ways that we cannot always put into words. While the music he writes for this service definitely stems from the jazz tradition, it also incorporates other musical influences, such as folk music and world music. Improvisation also plays a large part in the music for this service, a discussion musically that parallels real life interactions and experiences.

Tyler and Brian work together, discussing each week’s topics and look at quotations and photographs that go along with the topic. When Brian writes the music for this service, he reads quotes and thinks about these ideas to evoke them through sound. The result to date has been a very cool service, balanced with high level music and intriguing topics and conversation.

Friday, July 6
9:00 – 9:45am