The Wild Goose is a community effort, and we all bring it to life together. So we hope you will take a few minutes to fill out a survey to give us your vital input on this year’s festival.
Click here for the survey: https://www.
Thanks in advance for your response!
It has been so wonderful hearing from folks who had such transformative experiences at Wild Goose this year. This excitement has us looking towards 2015, when we will once again gather in Hot Springs.
Because of our enthusiasm for next year, we are offering a Loose Goose Ticket Special for a limited number of people. We’re calling this “Loose Goose” as we have not set our 2015 dates yet. Take a chance! (You will have the opportunity to get a refund if the 2015 dates don’t work for you.) Loose Goose ticket buyers will be the first to hear the festival dates and will get special updates on festival plans.
With this special, you can get a full weekend pass for $149, as compared to our regular rate of $299. Children 12 years and under are free. Youth and students are eligible for special ticket prices.
Quantities are limited, so act today!
Photo of Leslie Council and ‘Em by J. Clarkson.
“Imagine a setting so unbelievably diverse. People of color, Black, White, Gay, Lesbian, Straight, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist, Agnostic, Children young and old, etc. And put yourself with all of your broken pieces and insecurities, hurts, questions, doubts, and unbelief and stand in the middle of this rag-tag bunch of thousands of Humans and be healed all over. Next year, come experience the hugs, smiles, laughter, Qigong, communion, prayer, meditation, crying, beer and hymns, praise, worship, music, dancing, open conversations and BEAUTIFUL FREEDOM. I AM BUSHI YAMATO DAMASHII, A ZEN BUDDHIST MONK & A CLOSE FRIEND OF JESUS, AND A GOOSE FOR LIFE. NAMASTE.”
We have been overwhelmed with the kind words like Bushi’s that have been pouring in via social media and blogs since the festival ended on Sunday. We will be compiling links to the blog posts to share with you here – please email [email protected] if you’ve written a blog post that we can include on this list.
During the festival, many of you shared your stories with Wild Goose TV. Here is a playlist of these videos, which we will be adding to over the next month or so.
Faithmarks has a gallery of images and stories from the festival on their site, click here to view.
We look forward to hearing more stories from your Wild Goose experience!
It is impossible to express the gratitude we have for everyone who made this year’s festival the profound experience it was. We look forward to continuing the conversations that were started at the festival throughout the year. Stay tuned for stories, photos and videos from this year’s amazing festival, as well as opportunities to stay connected all year round!
Some thoughts on this year’s theme, Living Liberation!
The Wild Goose Festival has been a fresh public expression of what it means to follow GOD in the way of Jesus. Our “love your neighbor” faith commitments challenge tendencies toward racism, sexism, classism and homophobia. Each year we’ve taken steps to be further transformed.
This year’s theme, Living Liberation!, manifests as the next natural step on this road of transformation. We do not believe it is by chance that it comes to us on the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer. Nor is it happenstance that the Wild Goose celebration of faith, justice, music and the arts should find its home in a state whose citizens are this year defying age-old divisions to chart a course Forward Together in pursuit of justice for all. Nor is it lost on us that this is an election year in which the freedoms of many are demanding to be finally guaranteed. A Christian conversation about the gospel call to liberation couldn’t be more timely.
Living Liberation! also reflects the desire for the festival to be culturally accessible to an ever broadening audience. In order to do so, we knew we had to expand the conversation of the festival to include topics of importance to communities that have yet to reach critical mass at the festival. We began by pulling together a planning team that embodies the diversity the festival seeks as a hallmark. That alone brought to the forefront an array of speakers, topics, programming possibilities and strategic partnerships not previously on our radar, which we’ve pursued with vigor.
We have since been thoughtful about how best to tell the story of liberation as we’ve organized the festival. Living Liberation! simply means “learning to live in beloved community.” However, the particular articulation chosen emphasizes that beloved community is not possible without both a theological and political imperative toward liberation from all oppression as the basis of that community.
So it is our hope each day this year, beginning with a festival-wide morning conversation at Main Stage, to explore the inexplicable bond between community and liberation, so as to learn how we might better participate in both, and thereby make the beloved community of which the best among us have dreamed possible.
By Board Member and Program Director Melvin Bray
Have I ever told you how I met Speech from Arrested Development? Not the TV show, but the 1993 Rolling Stone band of the year, whose smart and visionary hip- hop shaped a sound in the 1990’s and provided the earliest soundtrack for my young adulthood. (If you haven’t heard the song “Tennessee” by Arrested Development, stop what you’re doing and go buy it.)
Anyway, I met Speech, the cofounder and leader of Arrested Development, at the Wild Goose Festival in 2013. This was just one of many momentous moments at last year’s Wild Goose Festival, to say nothing of the momentous moments of previous years. Sadly, this year circumstances prohibit me from attending, so I’ll be at Wild Goose only in spirit.
Fortunately, my friends and coworkers from InterVarsity Press will be there again, in what will be IVP’s fourth year sponsoring Wild Goose. We sponsor each year because it only makes sense; so many of our authors are fixtures of the festival that Wild Goose is a sort of homecoming for us every year. This year is no different: we’ll be reunited with Kathy Khang (coauthor of More Than Serving Tea), Leroy Barber (author of Everyday Missions), Fred Bahnson (coauthor of Making Peace with the Land), Dave Csinos (coauthor of Children’s Ministry in the Way of Jesus), Mark Van Steenwyk (author of The Unkingdom of God) and Noel Castellanos (author of the forthcoming When the Cross Meets the Street). And those are just the authors we know about!
But wait, there’s more. This year Wild Goose has put together a “publishers’ tent,” which means we’ll be exhibiting alongside our other publishing friends. We’ll also have book signings by a handful of our authors, namely Tim Soerens (coauthor of The New Parish), Chris Smith (coauthor of Slow Church), Alexia Salvatierra (coauthor of Faith-Rooted Organizing) and Mark Scandrette (author of Free and Practicing the Way of Jesus).
And if you’re an author or aspire to be, you’ll be pleased to know there’s a “literary track” a Goose this year, too. One session, entitled “Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! How to Promote Your Book,” features our very own online publicist, Adrianna Wright. Or if your bucket list includes photo bombing a publisher, keep an eye out for our videographer Nathan Baker-Lutz (Nate), who will be collecting footage of all the goings-on. And of course the tireless Andrew Bronson will be around as well, making sure the whole thing goes smoothly. If you happen to stumble upon any of them, do me a favor and tell them I miss them. Then tell them to get back to work.
I’m envious, I admit it, that I won’t be with you at the Goose this year. The Goose is many things—a music festival, a curated conversation, a camping trip—but it’s also an answer to a broadly felt need. I’m reminded of the lyrics to “A Sort of Homecoming” by U2; what they sing about is what people come to the Goose in search of, and what they leave the Goose remembering with fondness:
And you hunger for the time
Time to heal, desire, time
And your earth moves beneath
Your own dream landscape.
Or as Speech might say about the Goose: Love is contagious.
by Dave Zimmerman, InterVarsity Press
The festival is almost here! We hope you are as excited as we are! To help you prepare, we’ve compiled some logistical information: Click here to read. And the Wild Goose Invitation will guide everything we do, so we encourage you to read it if you haven’t yet.
As you plan what you want to see and do next weekend, you can read over our program book. It is full of a wonderful abundance of offerings. Read it here: WGF_2014_Program
A few thoughts on the 2014 Theme: Living Liberation!
We want to live in a world that is set free from the bonds that have been placed on us and the bonds we place on others. We want to be free from the barriers of discrimination that keep us from living as one body. This year, the Wild Goose invites you to celebrate a new way of life.
Please let us know if you have ANY questions by emailing [email protected].
Do you want to start planning your Wild Goose weekend? With such abundant offerings, we’re sure that looking over the schedule will get you excited about the Wild Goose experience!
The festival will have 15 venues with over 200 contributors to inspire, entertain and delight you! A myriad of options to touch your heart, mind, and soul.
Click here to see what’s in store!
(Note: that link is a Google doc, each day is on a different tab.)
