About Mark Glanville

Dr Mark Glanville (PhD, Trinity College, BristolI, UK) is the Director of the Centre for Missional Leadership at St. Andrews Hall, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Mark trains leaders for post-Christian contexts, using biblical scholarship and jazz piano.

Mark pastored for 14 years in both Canada and Australia. His vocational goal is to research, teach, write, speak, and play music to nourish Christian leaders to reimagine what the church can be and do in in our new cultural context, with the Bible in our hands. Through a variety of lenses, Mark shows how the Bible is forming churches that extend the tenderness of Jesus in their particular neighbourhood.

Mark has authored five books: Preaching in a New Key: Crafting Expository Sermons in Post-Christian Communities (IVP Academic, 2025); Improvising Church: Scripture as the Source of Harmony, Rhythm, and Soul (IVP Academic, 2023); Refuge Reimagined: Biblical Kinship in Global Politics (IVP Academic, 2020; co-written with Luke J. Glanville); Freed to Be God's Family: The Book of Exodus (Lexham, 2020); Adopting the Stranger as Kindred in Deuteronomy (SBL, 2018).

Mark has also written numerous refereed articles (including: Journal of Biblical Literature, 2018; Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 2019; Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 2021; Refuge Journal, 2013), and book chapters. He is currently completing a book aimed to encourage and equip those who have an inkling that they might enter pastoral ministry (but remain very uncertain).

In combining vocations of scholarship, teaching, pastoring, and jazz, Mark has followed an uncommon path, but it is the synergy of these things—pastoring, researching, teaching, and creativity—that has shaped him to write and teach for the church with clarity and beauty. It is this synergy that equips him to train pastors with both theological depth and practical wisdom.

Before pastoring, Mark worked full time as a jazz pianist. He currently plays on the Vancouver jazz scene, and he hosts the Blue Note Theology podcast. Mark is an Aussie: he likes to express his masculinity by snapping a crocodile’s neck with two fingers.

Mark is available to speak, to offer jazz-homilies, and to perform with his jazz trio.

Follow Mark for jazz-filled reflections on the Bible: Instagram Twitter/X YouTube.

See Mark’s Academia page for more of his scholarship, including recent articles.