Blog

Jun 23
Love0

Matt Morris invites us to start “troubling the Gospel.”

By Guest Post

Not having all the answers but being willing to ask the hard questions – this has been an abiding principle of Wild Goose from its earliest days. And providing the time and space to ask those questions through art, music, words, silence and movement – we believe that’s some of the most important work we do at this festival.

Troub-Gospel_900This year, we’re taking that belief even further with the addition of a new tent called Troubling the Gospel, dedicated to questioning our assumptions, interrogating easy answers, freeing the good news from the boxes it’s been put in, and striving to uncover new meaning in our sacred stories, in light of our own personal stories.

Co-curated by Sean Michael Morris, a critical pedagogue, teacher, and contemplative, and Matthew Morris, musician, blogger, and spiritual explorer, Sean and Matt will also be the primary facilitators for the tent. We asked Matt to tell us more of what we can expect from Troubling the Gospel.

Let’s start with the tent’s name. Why “Troubling the Gospel”? What’s that about?

The Gospel is an orientation, a lens through which things are seen, through which the world is turned upside down.The idea of the Troubling the Gospel tent is not as much to change the way we read the Gospel as it is to recognize the deep ways that the Gospel troubles us. When we do troubling the Gospel work, part of what we’re asking is “how is that connected to the kingdom of God”? What words do we use to describe that kingdom (or kin-dom), what images, what sounds, what memories, what hopes? What do we want the Gospel to say to us, and what is it saying to us? How do we hear the Gospel through others’ words, through our relationships and interactions and collaborations in community? Is the Gospel a work of social justice, and if it is, how do we work to translate that into our work, our social lives, our sense of justice?

 

So what we will actually find when we walk in the door?

A place of dialogue, art, and collaboration. With a multitude of art supplies to use— crayons, paper, finger paint, Play-doh — musical instruments, writing tools, and more.

Will there be workshops going on in the tent?

This will be both a space of individual reflection, and also of guided participation — with active workshops led by community teachers and artists. Each day, the tent will host  focused sessions working with a specific aspect or idea from the Gospel through one or another artistic medium, such as:

  • Troubling the Gospel with song
  • Troubling the Gospel through art
  • Troubling the Gospel with reflective writing
  • Troubling the Gospel through movement
  • Troubling the Gospel with story
  • Troubling the Gospel through confession
  • Troubling the Gospel through collaboration
  • Troubling the Gospel through dialogue
  • Troubling the Gospel through community building

There won’t be a podium, stage, or presentation space.  We want the participants to be the center of the discussion and work.

Each day will also include hours when visitors to the tent will be

encouraged to engage with a more personal, individual experience of

troubling the Gospel.

So what about the individual work? Will someone be directing that?

Facilitation will always be available during the tent’s open hours, but these individual reflection times will be primarily self-guided. Art, writing, and musical supplies will be on the tables. Each table, too, will include a prompt — a line from the Gospel, a thought or question for reflection, etc. — for visitors to engage with, if they’d like.

So if you had to sum it up in a sentence: Why visit the Troubling the Gospel tent?

So you can engage in and discover deeply personal relationships with the Gospel, its messages, its contexts, the text itself, its resonance, and all its repercussions.

Jun 11
Love1

Executing Grace: A Call to Action from Shane Claiborne

By Goose News

Shane Claiborne is back with us as a 2016 contributor at the festival where he will do several sessions empowering Christians to work to end the death penalty. We are inspired by Shane’s commitment to ending the death penalty and fueling his activism with his faith. Check out the below letter from Shane and maybe you can join him on the steps of the Supreme Court in holding vigil to abolish the death penalty June 29th to July 2nd.

Executing Grace Grab

A Letter From Shane Claiborne

To all my grace-filled revolutionary friends,

Here’s what I realized as I finished writing my new book Executing Grace. This isn’t just about a book. It is about a movement that has the potential to make history – to make the death penalty history.

This isn’t an ad (I’ve never been much of a self-promoter), it’s about uniting our voices and movements to stand on the side of grace, redemption, and life… and to put an end to the death penalty once and for all. I am hearing conservatives, liberals, and political misfits (I think that’s what I am) who are all convinced that if we work together we can create better forms of justice than killing those who kill to show that it is wrong to kill.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the death penalty – we Christians have been the champions of death. 85% of executions happen in the Bible belt. Where Christians are most concentrated is where the death penalty continues to flourish. It’s time to change that – as we declare the truth that no one is beyond redemption.  And for those of you who are not Christians, we need your voice and your courageous witness too. We Christians don’t own exclusive rights to grace and mercy. We need your voice.

So here are a few really practical ways we can collectively disrupt the machinery of death in America:

Order Executing Grace now, as it releases this week, so that it can hit some bestseller lists and get as much buzz as possible. If you like it, throw a review up on Amazon. If you don’t like it, keep that to yourself (just kidding). We have also created a very helpful “Influencer Kit” which is sort of a tool box with everything you need to spread the word, and keep amplifying the message of grace.

Go to our website and check out the materials there. We’ve worked hard to create practical resources, links, facts, and photos there… useful info for organizing and creating conversations. There’s also a press kit for media on the site.

If you’re feeling a little more on the wild side, join me and some of my heroes on the steps of the Supreme Court as we hold vigil to abolish the death penalty on June 29-July 2. Every year, groups working for the abolition of the death penalty converge during this specific week, which marks both the date executions were halted in 1972 and when they resumed 4 years later. Murder victims’ family members against execution, exonerees (folks wrongfully convicted), and families of the executed – all join together. It’s a powerful event, and I hope you’ll join, even for a day. Register for the vigil here.

I want you to know that I feel so honored to have such incredible friends with whom I get to conspire and plot goodness, and create holy mischief. We really do have a movement on our hands. So much is at stake. Many lives are at stake. The message of God’s grace is at stake. So let’s do this thing… and make the death penalty history.

I love you each and all. Thanks for being such powerful voices for grace. Thanks for doing what you can to amplify the message of Executing Grace and bring about an end to execution.

– Shane Claiborne
Author / Speaker / Activist
ExecutingGrace.com

Jun 08
Love0

Why I Hate Christian Fiction

By 2016 Festival, Guest Post

I am an out-and-proud Christian. So you would think I would love Christian fiction. But no, I can’t stand it. Oh, you’ve read some of it, too? So you know what I mean, then. The squeaky-clean protagonists give me hives. They don’t have any ACTUAL flaws, you know? And that’s just unrealistic. I mean, the Christians I know and love and worship with, week-in and week-out look nothing like the folks you find peopling the Left Behind series—unless we’re talking the bad guys, that is. No, we are seriously flawed individuals who often swear like longshoremen, and screw up in big ways on a regular basis.

And where are all the Gay and Lesbian people? Half of the folks in my church are GLBT folks. I’ve never read a Christian novel where I saw GLBT folks depicted as Christian heroes. I decided that since no one had ever published a book showing Christians as real folks—or at least Christians as I know Christians—I’d have to write it. So I wrote THE KINGDOM. And then I wrote a sequel, THE POWER. I’m working on THE GLORY now. Flawed characters? Check. Real people? Check. Love Jesus? Check. Badass demon hunters? Check. (Yeah, there’s a little bit of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the DNA of those books, too.)

Is it hard to get something like that published? You bet. It’s like Mark Heard said, “I’m too sacred for the sinners and the saints wish I would leave.” And that’s why I started the Apocryphile Press, because honestly, no one else is going to touch books like this with a ten-foot pole. We’ve got about 130 titles out, many of them pushing (or downright punching out) the envelope of “acceptable” Christian publishing norms. Last year we published a large-format art book called THE PASSION OF CHRIST: A GAY VISION, which shows scenes from Jesus’ last week, his crucifixion and resurrection—if Jesus were a young gay man living in the American South in the 1960s. I know that sounds kind of out there, but in fact this book is stunningly beautiful and deeply moving.

We publish anything Steve Case wants to write, because he’s just a wacky good writer—check out his incredible FR. DARK to see what I mean. We also just published a bold new study of the book of Revelation called THE APOCALYPTIC GOSPEL by Justin Staller that has people buzzing.

So in between the awesome speakers and the awesomer music, please stop by our booth and check out our books. Steve Case, Justin Staller, and myself will be there. We’re giving away free ebook copies of THE KINGDOM and FR. DARK, we’ll be signing books, and selling them. We also promise to be insufferably silly. Most of all, I’m interested in hearing your book ideas—because we specialize in the kinds of books other publishers are afraid of. We are especially interested in Christian fiction that depicts real Christians—folks like you and me—as we actually are, warts and all, not as some idealized role models.

I want Apocryphile to specialize in BADASS CHRISTIAN FICTION. We’ve got a good start on that already. I figure Wild Goose is the PERFECT place to find folks who’d like what we publish, and who write the kinds of books we’d LIKE to publish. So do you have a book for us?

John R. Mabry
Publisher, THE APOCRYPHILE PRESS

Jun 06
Love2

How big is that tent, exactly?

By 2016 Festival, Guest Post

Guest post by Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, IN

Since our founding in 1855, Christian Theological Seminary has leaned toward the right side of history. We have been inclusive, ecumenical and respectful of all traditions and faiths. Founded as a school that assured “students attending it would not be brought into contact with the habits and manners that exist in populations where slavery exists,” CTS has continued to stand in solidarity with those whom history tries to leave behind. We were among the first theological schools to grant tenure to a woman, and we sheltered a faculty member of Japanese descent during the terrible period of US internment camps during WWII.

But our convictions are tested all the time. The latest? Whether to go to the Wild Goose Festival this year, because it’s being held in North Carolina—a state that just passed one of the nation’s most heinous anti-LGBT bills.

Don’t worry, Wild Goose: we’re coming. After all, we’re from Indiana—a state that’s neck-deep in hateful laws. What right do we have to call out North Carolina?

But that’s the dilemma of being a Christian, isn’t it? Our convictions are constantly tested. And at this stage in history, we may be facing one of the biggest tests of all.

We are among the Christians who believe in a “big-tent,” “embracing” and “tolerant” expression of faith. The tent we pitch is big enough for people of all faiths. But is it big enough for candidates who use hate to curry votes, legislators who work to limit school lunches for poor children, gun owners who quote the Bible to justify “stand-your-ground” laws?

Can we forgive these people? We try. Can we pray for them? We do. Can we learn how to include them in the tent, while also protecting those who are hurt by their actions? We are working on it.

Can we talk about all this at Wild Goose Festival? We will. See you there!

True Story

When potential students apply to Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, they tell us about themselves. High GPAs. Terrific references. Years of devotion to their home churches.

But it’s not until they’ve settled in a bit — when they get through orientation, move into their apartments, go to class — it’s not until then that the true stories come out. Stories of joy, hope, support, epiphanies. Stories of abuse, loss, shame, doubt.

Novelist E. M. Forster used this example to show the difference between facts and a story:

The king died, and the queen died.
The king died, and the queen died of grief.

Jesus’s story is full of joy, hope, support, epiphanies, abuse, loss, shame, and doubt. No wonder we connect to it, are transformed by it, seek to follow his “way.”

We can’t wait to swap stories with old friends and new at Wild Goose Festival this year.

Jun 02
Love1

Seminaries, Roads and Stories that become what Everything is About

By 2016 Festival, Guest Post

Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary (PLTS) is excited to be at Wild Goose! Located in Berkeley, CA, it is a little tiny bit like Wild Goose all year long.

There is a story behind every person who comes to seminary, and each story is different. As the Director of Admissions, I get to hear a lot of those stories. I live and work at PLTS. Our campus is in kind of a funny location. Berkeley is funny just on its own, being the birthplace and epicenter of the free speech movement in the 1960’s. The campus is located 8 blocks up the steepest hill a road could be on, Originally intended for a trolley, this road is how Google will tell you to get there, but your car might really fight it. But it’s not the only way to get there.

In fact, the Berkeley hills are made up of a myriad of winding roads and pathways and staircases between people’s homes. You can pass lots of interesting things on the way, like the morning we passed a person having nude pictures taken of herself on some steps.

I’ve been thinking of those multiple roads as a good metaphor for how people come to understand their life story, their calling in life–which sometimes leads to seminary, and sometimes leads a million other places. Or sometimes lead to a million other places and then to seminary. Or sometimes lead to seminary and then to endless other places. Sometimes people wander a bit–up roads that are windier but not quite as hilly. Which path is better is really not the question. God is on all of those paths, and it is your own journey. Each journey has a story to tell.

And along the way of any road there are stories told, like the story in the sacred text of the Bible, where the guys are walking on the road to Emmaus, telling stories about all the things that had taken place in Jerusalem. Then Jesus, telling stories of the prophets, begins to make sense of the stories they are telling, and those stories become what everything is about.

When a person finds themselves at seminary, more stories happen: In the classroom, in coffee shops, during classes and protests and late-night end-of-the-semester paper-writing, new friendships are made, new understandings are born, and new experiences continue to shape a story that becomes what everything is about.

And then, trained as faithful leaders for a future unknown, people are sent out, ready. There is a story in front of every person who comes out of seminary too, which continues to become what everything is about.

Think about bringing your own story, and finding out what comes next.

Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary: A place for forward-thinking faithful leaders to engage in open-minded, interfaith study to prepare for faithful leadership in an evolving church and world. Come and talk to us about our story. PLTS is a graduate program of California Lutheran University, a seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and part of the largest interreligious theological consortium in the world–the Graduate Theological Union (GTU). Come ask us about it!

Website: www.PLTS.edu

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrvX6HufVTVy4kcXxb_02og

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pltsofclu/

Twitter: @PLTSofCLU

Holly Johnson and Christa Compton will be there!

HollyJohnson_300pxHolly Johnson, Director of Admissions at PLTS, is also a graduate and pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She loves live music, poetry, blurring the lines between sacred and secular, good food, good wine, and she’s a little thrilled that she gets to be at the Festival and call it work. @MinnesotaHolly @PLTSofCLU

 

 

 

ChristaCompton_300pxChrista Compton is a graduate of PLTS, and current pastor in New Jersey. She also likes music, poetry, literature, good food and wine. She describes herself as a southern woman who likes to defy stereotypes. @ChristaCompton

Jun 02
Love2

Can’t come all weekend? Get a Day Pass.

By Goose News

There’s no better way to experience The Goose than by spending Thursday through Sunday immersed in this transformational, experiential, sing and dance and play and dream and eat and camp and meditate and talk and listen and twirl-you-around-and-shake-you-up gathering like no other. Seriously, have you seen the video?

WebsiteHeader_1600x300However, if you can’t spend the weekend, the next best thing is to get a taste of it, by just coming for a day. That’s where Day Passes come in…a day pass is kind of like the Big Gulp of Wild Goose.

We’ve made a limited number of individual Day Passes available for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And they’re now on sale. Check out the day by day highlights and get your day pass tickets soon.

TICKETS

HIGHLIGHTS
Please check the detailed schedule (available next week) for full details.

THURSDAY
Rev Jacqui Lewis
Matt Maher
Ken Medema

FRIDAY
Jim Wallis
Stan Mitchell
Frank Schaeffer
Soong-Chan Rah
Doug Pagitt
Michael Gungor
Emilie Townes
Joerg Rieger
Look Homeward
Emmanuel Jal
Pato Banton
Home-brewed Christianity Live
The Liturgists Podcast

SATURDAY
Lisa Sharon Harper
Chris Crass
Charles Eisenstein
Shane Claiborne
Matthew Fox
Joe Davis and the Poetic Diaspora
Phil Madeira
Dar Williams
Indigo Girls

SUNDAY
Ask Science Mike

May 27
Love1

A conversation with the leaders of Racial Justice Institute

By Goose News

How to turn tenderness into fearlessness. A conversation with the leaders of Racial Justice Institute.

Are you tired of conversations about race that quickly turn into shouting matches? Do you feel uncomfortable, as a white person, bringing up race, or feel your “help” is not wanted in movements like Black Lives Matter? Do you feel frustrated, as a person of color, being asked to explain things to white folks? Is it possible to confront white privilege, promote racial justice, and still have friends?

The Racial Justice Institute is a day-long pre-festival event put together to tackle these questions and more. And though it’s called an “institute,” which may make you think of a stuffy classroom with long, boring lectures, it’s designed to be anything but.  Instead think “interactive workshop” — a day to talk deeply and honestly, sometimes awkwardly, about race, in a place where you will be respected and listened to. A time to feel, reflect, sing, pray, possibly even laugh, and most importantly, figure out how we can individually – and collectively – do something about racial injustice.

This personal and communal journey will be facilitated by a group of gifted and wise, multiracial and interdisciplinary facilitators including Micky ScottBey Jones, Kenji Kuramitsu, Rev. Jennifer Bailey, AnaYelsi and many more.

We caught up with some of these folks recently and tossed them a few questions about what to expect from the day and why it’s so important to be there.

Why do a whole extra day about Racial Justice? Won’t that be a big part of the festival?

Sure it will. There will be conversations and talks and storytelling and music around this subject throughout the festival. And on lots of other subjects.

This is a time to drill down, to participate in a facilitated conversation where you can engage honestly and openly, be comfortable asking uncomfortable questions, and spend more focused time with other people coming up with ideas for transformative action.

As you leave this event, we think your head will be spinning with new ideas, new understandings, and an increased depth of awareness, so as you go into the festival you’ll very likely enter into it more deeply than you would have before. Our facilitators will also be leading workshops throughout the festival, so participating in RJI will prepare you to get even more from those sessions. Not to mention you may also make some friends you can hang out with throughout the festival.  

Who is this for?

Everyone who wants to have a deep, open, challenging, thoughtful conversation about race and oppression. It is for people of color and for white people. It’s for people just beginning to engage issues of race, and those who have been engaged for years and need fresh perspectives.

What will I take home from it?

More awareness and wisdom. You might even leave with a commitment to change your life and the systems around you.

Why should I attend?

Because although ignorance can be bliss, one person’s bliss can create another’s hell.  Attending this will create knowledgeable bliss and less hell.  It’s backwards that way.

What will I learn?

How we’ve gotten to this place where certain people have privilege and others have been “disprivileged,” how it hurts, and what we can do about it. How you fit into the story of race, inequality and justice and what that means for you. How race has shaped American culture and systems like education, prison, economics and civil rights, where we are today and where we might be going. How none of us are free until we are all free, and the beauty of getting there together.

What will we do all day?  

Open our raw hearts so that the tenderness becomes fearlessness.

Yeah, but are we going to sit and listen to people talk all day?

Only if you want to. You can also speak if you’d like to share. And participate in all kinds of other ways. Which is why we call it an interactive workshop.

How will it be “interactive”?

Through contemplative exercises and small group conversations (including those we have at meal times) occasional singing, journaling, even, yes, possibly dancing. (For those who see themselves as “dancing challenged,” don’t worry, we aren’t talking “Dancing with the Stars” dancing.)

Is this going to involve a lot of debate?

Only if you can find someone to debate with. We’re planning opportunities for one-on-one conversations with each other and with the leaders…no game playing, just sharing our best truths.  Clear-eyed, vulnerable, compassionate truths.

Why are there so many people leading?

We want everyone to feel welcome, and we don’t want anyone to feel alone. Also, race isn’t just about black and white. So we’ve included facilitators with many different stories, many different perspectives and experiences —  black, white, Asian, Latinx, straight, queer, gay, 40s to 20s, Anglican to evangelical, black-churched to Pentecostal.

We heard there might be a campfire…will this be just another feel good campfire conversation about race?

It will be more like being the marshmallow in the campfire. We’ll let the flames burn away our sugary falseness.

If I attend am I going to get yelled at? Am I going to leave feeling more frustrated and/or guilt-ridden?

We recognize it can be scary to talk about race. We have created RJI to provide a place to experiment with being brave, to ask questions that bring up big feelings, risk vulnerability and to crack open complex ideas. In the process, perhaps we will find personal and cultural healing. Even transformation. It’s designed to be a day that leaves you not with more guilt but with deeper knowledge, inspiration, different questions and new relationships as well as resources and ideas for action. We hope that you’ll be changed and leave ready to help create change in the world.

Sign up to join us for the event here.

Check out the full schedule for the day here.

Have more questions? Contact Micky ScottBey Jones

May 26
Love2

Hear and tell stories at Wild Goose 2016

By Goose News

This year, all over the Wild Goose Festival, and especially in the Wild Goose Studio Tent and Video Tent, you will have opportunity to hear stories, tell your own story, and be a part of workshops designed to help your story sing (y’know…metaphorically).

As people of faith, we’ve always believed stories have power. Stories matter. The stories we read in the scriptures and our own personal stories bear witness to what we’ve experienced of God in our lives and in the world. They tell of our small joys and huge moments of grace. And yes, also of all the ways we’ve failed ourselves and each other.

Get ready for some amazing storytelling opportunities throughout the weekend.  We’ll announce specific times soon – check the website for updates as we get closer. Here’s what’s happening:

1. Storytelling Workshop (two hours): Rebecca Anderson, co-host of Wild Goose Story SlamRebecca
You know a great story when you hear it – but what makes it work? In these two hours, come get an intro to the craft of storytelling, strengthen your style, and use structure intentionally and creatively for maximum impact. Offer and receive the kind of feedback that makes everyone’s stories better.

2. Tenx9 – with art!
Tenx9 (“ten by nine”) is a Belfast-originated monthly community storytelling night where 9 people have up ten minutes each to tell a real story from their lives. It’s about real people and real stories. It’s not about professional storytelling; it’s about strange people telling their strange stories to strangers, a placetenx9Graphic for the nervous and the unsure to get up and give it a go. We make space for the ordinary, because we believe everybody has a story. Tenx9 is thrilled to be hosting a night of storytelling at Wild Goose for the first time ever, and we’ve decided our theme will be “Courage: Stories of Resistance.” We welcome your submissions! If you have a story of courageous resistance, regardless the scale or context, let us know. Propose your story by filling out this form. We will get back in touch to confirm spots by June 17. To learn more about Tenx9 and our approach to storytelling nights, meander around our website at tenx9nashville.com. Tenx9 is a place where stories may very well break your heart and put it back together again. If you want to be moved, to feel deeply, join  us for Tenx9 at Wild Goose. Got a story? We’d love to hear from you. SUBMIT YOUR STORY HERE

3. Storytelling workshop: Michael McRay, host of Tenx9 StorytellingMichaelMcRay
In this two-hour workshop, writers will reflect on the overarching narrative of your life, brainstorm some of your greatest stories (interpret that as you will) through various themes, compare and contrast compelling and mediocre sample stories, and if time permits, peer-review each other’s narratives to provide constructive feedback for story development. Please bring a true personal story of no more than 750 words. These plans are subject to change.

4. Finishing touches
Been working on a story at a workshop or on your own?  Come get some feedback and tweaking designed to boost your confidence and get you ready to put your name in the hat at the evening story slam.

5. Wild Goose StorySLAM with Music! Hosted by Mark Longhurst and Rebecca Anderson. With live music
StorySlamImageA fan of The Moth?  This is gonna be your jam.  Come and put your name in the hat to be one of 10 storytellers – or just come and listen to true stories, crafted for impact, humor, and connection. Our theme for the night is From Shit to Shine: Stories of Redemption.

Storytellers: Prepare a 5-minute true, first-person story about a transformation.

Think: a divorce that became a blessing, a fight that ended in friendship, an addiction that helped access vulnerability, a lie that stumbled into trust, a wound that became a scar, a death more crushing than you could endure…until you did. You lived to tell the tale, now’s your chance to tell it!

Additional Stories -- in worship, on the mainstage...

We’ve also got a need for stories to integrate on other stages. We need stories ranging from shorties (3 – 4 minutes) to mid-length (5 – 7 minutes) to slot between other events and as part of worship, too.  Sure, we’ll pull from the overflow of Courage: Stories of Resistance and StorySLAM tellers, but if you have a story on any theme that you’re aching to tell, SUBMIT IT HERE!  We need all kinds of voices, and all kinds of tales.

Tell Your Story on Video

WhatsYourStoryWe want to make sure your story is captured on video and archived for viewing on the Goose website after the festival.
Storytellers: We may not have video coverage at all storytelling events, so please make arrangements to tell your story to our cameras either before or after your scheduled storytelling time. We want to make sure your story is heard! When you arrive at the festival, please stop by to schedule a time to tell your story to our camera.
If you’re not a scheduled storyteller but would like to share your story – whatever your story may be – we want to capture your story too! All are welcome! In the past, we’ve grabbed people walking by and asked them to spontaneously “Tell us your story.” This year, we’d like you to think about what you’d like to say in advance, then stop by and talk to us.

Our video studio, “What’s Your Story,” will be located next to the Art Studio tent.

May 05
Love1

Why I’m Participating in the Wild Goose Racial Justice Institute

By Goose News

Why I’m Participating in the Wild Goose Racial Justice Institute
by Sarah Withrow King (Re-posted from Evangelicals For Action)
Sara Withrow King is a contributor this year and a leader in our Racial Justice Institute, a pre-festival event sponsored by Evangelicals for Social Action.

On July 7, 2016, on the eve of 2016’s Wild Goose Festival, I’ll be participating in a Racial Justice Institute sponsored by ESA.racial-diversity-frimages.iStock
My primary vocation is animal protection. I’m an indoor kitty, and this is an outdoor festival. I grew up in Oregon and get hot and cranky when exposed to temperatures above 65 degrees Fahrenheit. But I’m really excited, and I want to tell you why so that you’ll consider joining Micky, AnaYelsi, Darren, Kenji, Paul, Jen, Kristyn, and me for this one-day interactive workshop engaging issues of race and justice through practical, spiritual, emotional, historical, and social streams of knowledge.

And so, a list. I’m thrilled to participate in the Racial Justice Institute….

  1. Because we’ll look at race through a whole bunch of lenses, making for a deeper, richer experience.
  2. Because liberal progressives need to be redeemed, right alongside the right-wingers and independents and everyone between and beyond.
  3. Because I’ve hung out with these folks before, and it’s a guaranteed good time.
  4. Because in 1995, I told the only African American kid in my class that “racism doesn’t exist anymore” and didn’t realize how wrong I was until Trayvon Martin was shot walking home from the store.
  5. Because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
  6. Because my fight for animals, your fight for gender equality, his fight for the unborn, her fight for safe schools, our fight for one another won’t mean a thing as long as skin color is used to measure the worth of a person.
  7. Because it’s possible to acknowledge past and current injustice, to accept that light skin is privileged skin and that people who looked like me perpetuated and continue to perpetuate horrific crimes against people who do not look like me…and not get bogged down in white guilt.
  8. Because white fragility is as damaging as white supremacy.
  9. Because I want my young son to grow up watching me tackle white privilege head on so that he becomes an anti-racist man.

Sign up, would you? I need people like you to walk this road with me.

Sarah Withrow King is the Deputy Director of the Sider Center, the co-director of CreatureKind, and the author of two books, Animals Are Not Ours (No Really, They’re Not): An Evangelical Animal Liberation Theology. (Wipf & Stock) and Vegangelical: How Caring for Animals Can Shape Your Faith (Zondervan).

May 02
Love4

All Are Welcome.

By Goose News

“All are welcome.” We’ve been saying that since the very first Wild Goose and we’ve always meant it. And by welcome we don’t mean “tolerated,” or “accepted.” We mean embraced, as in long-lost-friend-embraced, you’re-finally-home-embraced. This “welcome to all” has been so much a part of the Wild Goose DNA that we’ve almost come to take it for granted.

But we realized, especially in light of the passage of North Carolina’s HB2, that we needed to be more explicit about our welcome. So we’ve adopted and put in writing an anti-harassment policy. You can read it here.  https://wildgoosefestival.org/anti-harassment_policy/

We’re committed to helping make our world safer for everyone. We hope this policy makes that clear, and if you have any questions about it, please ask.

When North Carolina passed this legislation, we thought long and hard about whether to cancel the festival or move it in protest. But ultimately we’ve decided it’s important to be here, to be visible, and to be a voice for God’s radical love (check out Kimberly Knight’s passionate blog post on Patheos). We hope you’ll join us!

Apr 08
Love1

It’s all about saying “Yes.” An interview with Phil Madeira.

By Goose News

Phil Madeira is a Nashville-based musician, songwriter and producer who’s worked with names like Emmylou Harris, Buddy Miller, Alison Krauss, Mat Kearney, Garth Brooks, Toby Keith, Amy Grant and The Civil Wars…just to name a few. He’s also an author, painter, artist and long time friend of The Wild Goose Festival. And this year he’s helping curate the first ever Wild Goose Songwriting Contest.

Lenora Rand, author of the blog Spiritual Suckitude, who will be leading a workshop about finding the holy in our stories at Wild Goose this year, caught up with him this week to ask a few questions.

Lenora: In your 2012 album, Mercyland, Hymns for the Rest of Us, Paste magazine said, you coaxed “the divine from plain dirt.” Christianity Today said you captured “…the vulnerable exchange between hurting humans and a holy God.” And Evangelicals for Social Action, said, your music called us “…to live today in a way that brings heaven a little closer.” Wow. Is that what you set out to do?

Phil: Mercyland Volumes 1 & 2 were created as a response to the hysteria that continues to be stirred up by American fundamentalism, all in the name of Jesus.  Look at the so-called “religious freedom” laws being passed in the South in 2016.  I started the first Mercyland in 2009, writing with and recording the then-unknown Civil Wars.  “From This Valley” is all about  the outcast, the orphan, the invisible community that Christ spoke of often.  Emmylou Harris’ willingness to participate in both records gave credence to what I was doing, both musically and philosophically.  My intention was not to make a Christian music record, but to just make the statement that God loves everyone.  To that end, I succeeded.

Lenora: A lot of people might call Wild Goose a festival “for the rest of us.” Do you think of it that way? What drew you to Wild Goose in the first place? What keeps you coming back?

Phil: I was invited to play songs from Mercyland, as well as my own brand of roots music in 2012, I think, the second year.  What drew me was the opportunity to share my music.  What I found there was an interesting mix of folks trying to rescue a faith that has been politicized, nationalized, and de-sanitized by the status quo.  While there, I made vital relationships, including the woman who signed me to a book deal.  You never know what saying “yes” to the unknown will yield in your life, but in my case, I’ve been back every year for more of the same kind of community building.

PhilM-CULenora: The theme this year at Wild Goose, “Story,” is all about bringing our stories together and seeing what happens when they rub up against each other. As someone who’s co-written with lots of musicians in your career, what’s the value of coming together and co-creating?

Phil: Co-creating is important to my very survival.  In the endeavor to get songs to the masses, I’ve found that writing a song with another person will always make the meaning more universal.  The co-written song becomes less about me and more about us, and usually that makes it much more resonant with a larger audience.

Lenora: Why did you agree to help curate the Wild Goose Festival’s Songwriting Contest? Why is this a good thing for the Goose to do?

Phil: The invitation benefits the Goose as well as the songwriter.  Who knows what bright light will shine from some unknown corner of our world?  Who knows what wonderful message or melody might emerge when we invite the unknown into our midst? 

 At our Mercyland Songwriter Workshops (this year in Hot Springs NC July 17-21 by the way), we’ve continually discovered those kinds of voices and hearts.  Because I’m often in the thick of unknown writers, I see it all the time, and I know that the Goose is in store for some wonderful new music.

Lenora: It’s pretty scary to put yourself out there as an artist and share your work with others, especially when they’re not your family and friends who are mostly fairly nice to you. Why do you think it could be a good thing for aspiring songwriters to submit a song to this contest? Besides the fact that they could win a lovely Republic 317 mahogany Parlor Resonator guitar, of course.

Phil: Allow me to answer with a story:
A few years after Emmylou invited me to be in her band, I found an album cover I had designed for a graphics class I’d taken in college.  At the time, I had no record to put in the sleeve, so I filled the credits with the great session players of the day- Lee Sklar, Russ Kunkel, Al Perkins, and others.  Thirty years after making this cover, I looked at those credits and realized I had played with every single person I’d written down in that waking dream.  What really blew my mind was reading Emmylou’s name among them!  At 21, I had dreamed big and then forgotten all about it. 

 I often share this story with people who are afraid to dream the kind of dream I was dreaming as a young man.  Wild Goose is offering the opportunity to share a dream, that impossible story that is waiting to be lived out.  If someone’s dream is to be a songwriter, here’s an opportunity to make it come true.  Again, it’s only a matter of saying “yes.”

 There’s still time to enter the Wild Goose Songwriters Contest. Submissions accepted until April 30, 2016.

Phil Madeira music, art, and books available at www.philmadeira.net

For info on Mercyland Songwriter Workshops, go to
http://www.writingcircle.org/mercylandsongwriterworkshop/

Apr 03
Love2

Calling All Drummers!

By Goose News

A Call to All Drummers by Phil Wyman

The Wild Goose Festival knows you have drums. We peeked into your closets and the corners of your rooms, and we saw those Djembes, Congas, Bongos, Cajons and assorted percussion instruments. Some of them have been gathering dust, but we have seen some of you making noise late into the night with your friends.

We need your help! We love drummers at the Wild Goose Festival, but sometimes the drummers don’t bring their drums. When that happens, the Wild part of the Wild Goose gets suppressed just a little bit. If there’s one thing the Goose is not about, it is not about suppressing our Wild.

So, this is a call. Bring your drums! It doesn’t matter if you are a professional drummer in a studio, someone who likes to make noise when the musical instruments break out, or someone who bought a drum because you had a little rhythm and thought you could learn how to bring a little life to the party. Whatever your reason for having a drum, bring it. Bring your drum. Bring your Wild to the Goose, and release that Wild at the late night drum circle fire pit with us.

Phil Wyman is a musician, songwriter, writer, poet, wanna-be philosopher, pastor, creator of interactive “blank canvas social art”, and a general instigator looking for people to join him in a revolution. He is the pastor of The Gathering in Salem, Massachusetts and is working with a team of friends to plant spiritual communities in festivals in the US and UK. The festivals include places like Haunted Happenings in Salem, Burning Man, and Rainbow Gatherings. The recently published Burning Religion highlights his concept of a “Wild Theology,” which envisions God, creation, and humanity as wilder than most “radical” theologies have imagined. Phil is the leader of the Wild Team at Wild Goose so keep an eye out for dispatches from the Wild Team as the festival gets closer!

Mar 24
Love5

Wild Goose Supports Equal Protection Under the Law and Calls for Community Action

By Goose News

We’re very disappointed with the recent actions of the North Carolina legislature has voted to deny equal protection under the law for our LGBTQ friends and neighbors.

The Wild Goose Festival is committed to doing everything we can to remain a welcoming and safe space for all who attend. While we can assure everyone that our space at Hot Springs is safe and welcoming we want to call on the Wild Goose community to work to make every space a safe space – everywhere, all the time.

We encourage you to make your voice heard. Tonight in Charlotte and Raleigh at 5:30 PM and in Asheville at 5:00 PM there will be rallies against this legislation (NC House Bill 2) and we want to encourage Wild Goose folks who live near these places to attend. And to our Wild Goose family around the country, please consider making your voice heard as well! It’s time once again to stand with our LGBTQ friends and neighbors for equal protection under the law.

 

Mar 16
Love5

Indigo Girls Return to the Festival!

By Goose News

If main stage at night is your happy place at the Wild Goose, we have a lot in store for you this year!  Much of the magic of the Goose is due to the generous and amazing artistry of musicians who inspire us and move us. This is just the beginning of the amazing line up we are putting together this year so stay tuned!

We are delighted to have the Indigo Girls back again this year. This much beloved duo is coming back to the Wild Goose stage with their sixteenth studio album called “One Lost Day.” We are much indebted to the friendships and graciousness of Amy and Emily and can’t wait to boogie down to their new songs as well as our longtime favorites!!

Dar Williams is a folk artist with a tremendous gift of storytelling. Whether it’s “Christians and Pagans sitting together at the table” or an introspective “wandering out on the hills of Iowa” Dar’s ability to weave a story through song is unparalleled. Dar is also an author of three books and a profound teacher of the power of music and songs to create social change in justice movements.

Matt Maher, a Grammy nominated musician whose latest release, Saints and Sinners is a call for social justice rooted in the work of historic faith leaders such as Archbishop Oscar Romero, Martin Luther King Jr., St. Therese of Lisieux, and Mother Teresa, joins the 2016 Wild Goose opening night experience!

Across the years, Ken Medema has shared his passion for learning and discovery through storytelling and music with an ever-growing circle of followers around the world. Ken has been performing for over 40 years and though blind from birth, Ken sees and hears with heart and mind, singing stories from his audience and accenting themes and perspectives from speakers and workshop leaders. Ken custom designs every musical moment through improvisation and new composition to bring each event to life.

Three years ago when Melani Jackson first played the Performance Cafe, we had complaints that Melani wasn’t featured on the main stage. We’ll never make that mistake again! We are proud to welcome Melani Jackson back to the main stage this year!

Mar 14
Love5

The Call of the Wild by Phil Wyman

By Goose News

DSC_5192The Wild Goose Festival is just a few months away. Preparations for events like this are best begun early, because participation is the name of the game.

Transformative Festivals like The Wild Goose are transformative, because everyone comes as a participant, and not simply as a spectator. Participants are those who live by the ancient description of the spiritual person, “doers of the word, and not hearers only.” They are transformed by their own participation. The participant also initiates surprise in a festival, and in doing so brings transformation to others. Everyone expects the band on the stage to perform, but they are surprised by the beauty of a well-made costume, or the skills of someone juggling to the music. People expect to hear something helpful and challenging during a lecture, or a workshop, but are surprised by the vibrancy of a spirited debate, or the simple eloquence of a life-changing story. People enjoy the food and drink in festivals, but are even more pleased by the camp inviting them to share in fish tacos, or a homebrew.

Simple preparations such as costuming, preparing decorations for your campsite, bringing something to share with others, and finding ways to express your own creativity are all that are required to turn a festival from an event of talking heads, and fulfilled expectations into a wild surprise of exceeded expectations, and interactivity.

The Wild Goose is wild because of you. Spend a little time considering how you will be bringing your wild this summer, and help us keep the Goose wild.

Mar 09
Love1

An Invitation to Songwriters: Inspire someone with your musical story this year at Wild Goose 2016!

By Goose News

In the spirit of this year’s Wild Goose Festival theme, Story!, we invite you to submit an original song to the Wild Goose Songwriting Contest.

Be a part of the collective exploration of heart and soul asking: What are our shared narratives? How have they shaped us – in our joy and in our suffering? How do we challenge the destructive narratives in the presence of a growing wave of fear, violence, and control? Can one person’s story of success be another’s story of oppression? How do we see the truth in the mash-up? Help us think beyond limits and tap into what Richard Rohr described as “ too big and too deep to be merely ‘understood’ or taught.”

Submissions will be accepted through April 30th. The winners will be announced by June 30th and will perform at the festival (July 7th-10th) in Hot Springs, NC with Phil Madeira hosting.  Categories for submission include Gospel, Americana, Pop, and General.

Guitar-LogoGrand Prize is a lovely Republic 317 mahogany Parlor Resonator guitar presented to the winning songwriter at the Goose this summer.

Click here for more information.

Mar 09
Love5

Mystic Action Camp: A Pre-Festival Offering

By Goose News

We are excited to announce Wild Goose’s Pre-Festival Mystic Action Camp from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on July 7th, preceding the opening ceremonies for the Festival itself. This pre-festival offering is brought to you by co-curators Adam Bucko, Holly Roach and Teresa B Pasquale and the generous sponsorship of the Center for Action and Contemplation. Mystic Action Camp will integrate dialogue and practices which intersect contemplative spirituality and activism brought by wisdom teachers from both Christian and interspiritual traditions.

Our world sits on the precipice of a new age of both spirituality and activism, one in which we are beginning to learn the essential interconnection between these two arenas of hope and healing to manifest activism that is grounded in the Divine and contemplative spirituality which is able to be activated in and for the goodness of God in the world. We are in a process of making and becoming a bigger tent of faith and action. We are the makers of the next iteration of tent revival in the world — a tent we carry with us, manifest in our lives and faith contexts, and where radical love and liberation are the root motivations, liberation for all of us, or none of us at all. Join us under this bigger tent to dream, pray, and live into this new tent of action and contemplation.

Click here for more information about Mystic Action Camp or buy tickets here.Print

 

Feb 22
Love5

Spring Ticket Special

By 2016 Festival, Goose News

The Goose is calling! As Spring is emerging, our thoughts are turning to Hot Springs and summer. Hugs from old friends, making new ones, a little rain, a little humidity, raising a beer as we sing a hymn…..finding something new in our soul!

Spring Ticket Special , March 20 – June 19, 2016
Adult – $249.00
Senior 65+ – $169.00
Student – $125.00
Youth 13-17 – $75.00
Children 0-12 – Free

June 20 – Festival
Adult – $299.00
Senior 65+ – $169.00
Student – $125.00
Youth 13-17 – $75.00
Children 0-12 – Free

Group of 10+
Adult – $169.00
Senior 65+ – $149.00
Student – $99.00
Youth 13-17 – $49.00
Children 0-12 – Free
Contact Mary at [email protected] for promo code

Feb 18
Love0

Sojourners’ Jim Wallis to Curate a Timely Interactive Series at the 2016 Wild Goose Festival!

By Goose News

jim wallisAmerica’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America, the newly released best-selling book by Jim Wallis, Sojourners President and Founder, forms the foundation of the timely interactive series we’re proud to announce he’s curating at the 2016 Wild Goose Festival!

The book is getting enormous traction – Amazon ran out of stock on the first day, it made the Barnes & Noble online top ten, and is number 8 on the Washington Post Top 10 Best Seller list – in just its first week of release.

Join Jim in the conversation at the 2016 Wild Goose Festival (July 7– 10, Hot Springs, NC) as we challenge our community to be more than consumers of information – to be co-creators of a world in which we want to live! Wallis says,

“This conversation—leading to action—on racial justice and healing is critical for the Wild Goose and urgent for the country at this moment. I’m really looking forward to vital discussions and discoveries on the ‘Bridge to a New America’ with the Goose community this summer! Where better to have that discussion?”

America's Original SinBy the way, Amazon has re-stocked and Barnes & Noble is still counting. We encourage you to read and to recommend this important book to literally help launch the conversation that is so painfully timely right now!

Feb 18
Love0

Dean Emilie Townes to Present Justice Notes

By Goose News
Dean Emilie Townes Emilie is the new Divinity School Dean. She comes from Yale. (Vanderbilt Photo / Daniel Dubois)

Dean Emilie Townes
Emilie is the new Divinity School Dean. She comes from Yale.
(Vanderbilt Photo / Daniel Dubois)

Imagine taking a walk through five notes on why justice and peace are profound values to hold if we choose to live our lives with passion, commitment, integrity, justice, hope, and love. You’ll have that opportunity at Wild Goose Festival 2016, as Emilie Townes presents, “Justice Notes.”

The Wild Goose is thrilled to welcome Emilie Townes, Dean and Carpenter Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, to the festival this year! Dean Townes is a widely recognized leader, a creative innovator, a clear and certain voice in the pursuit of justice and she will be an important contributor to our community. Dean Townes is the first African American to serve as Dean of the Vanderbilt Divinity School and the first Black woman elected to the presidency of the American Academy of Religion (AAR). The Durham, NC native is an American Baptist clergywoman. She holds a Ph.D. in Religion in Society and Personality from Northwestern University and a Doctor of Ministry degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School. She has taught at Yale Divinity School, Union Theological Seminary, and Saint Paul School of Theology. Townes is the author of four books, including the groundbreaking Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil and editor or co-editor of four books.

“We must choose righteous anger that does not excuse inequities, does not tolerate poverty, does not sanction false hopes.  Righteous anger takes to the ballot box, encourages us to claim the responsibility of citizenship and educate ourselves about the issues of the day and also the ways we can address them, works as communities united with a vision that refuses to accept a weary status quo that allows a few to flourish and the rest struggle to survive.”

Read Emilie’s blog.

Professor Emilie Townes speaks of Jesus’ righteous indignation and our need to be angry in the face of injustice.

Feb 18
Love1

Triple GRAMMY® Nominee Matt Maher to Play the 2016 Wild Goose Festival

By 2016 Festival, Goose News

matt maherMatt Maher, a Grammy nominated musician whose latest release, Saints and Sinners is a call for social justice rooted in the work of historic faith leaders such as Archbishop Oscar Romero, Martin Luther King Jr., St. Therese of Lisieux, and Mother Teresa, joins the 2016 Wild Goose opening night experience! Many Goose faithful have been asking for Matt for years and we’re excited that we’re finally able to get it done!

Matt is up for three GRAMMY® nominations in tonight’s 58th Annual GRAMMY Awards. He was nominated twice in the “Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song” category and his album, Saints and Sinners, was nominated for “Best Contemporary Christian Music Album.”

Here’s Matt giving the backstory of Sons & Daughters one of the song and his self-described centerpiece of the album:

Moving to Nashville, the South, I encountered a greater understanding that so much of the American tradition of music was born out of the slavery movement- rock ‘n’ roll, gospel, country, R&B, hip-hop. It all goes back to a group of people who were enslaved and who desired freedom. I had been wanting to write a song based on the speech ‘We Shall Overcome’ by Dr. Martin Luther King. I asked a buddy of mine – fellow worship leader and songwriter Ike Ndolo, who grew up in Columbia, Missouri – to write with me.

I took what we had started, and asked Ike to, ‘Draw from your experience as an African-American male living in the shadow of the civil rights movement still praying for all those things to bear their fruit.’ It’s really the job of the church today to finish what was started in the ’60s. Just because you can outlaw racial discrimination doesn’t mean you get rid of it. This heart behind this song was to inspire other people. I have to think that there are other leaders in the church right now who have a burden on their heart to help lead a movement like this. I think it’s the centerpiece of the whole record; it’s a really special moment.

Root for Matt at tonight’s Grammy’s, buy your Wild Goose tickets, tell others about the Goose, and get ready for a wild time this July 7 through 10 in Hot Springs, NC!

Son & Daughters (Lyrics)

How free is anyone, when some are still in chains
Slaves to brokenness, all this blindness
How free is anyone, when all these doubts remain
In the dead of night, no sign of the light
Child don’t grow weary, soon we will see the sun
All my brothers help each other
All my sisters walk together
No one is a stranger
We’re all sons and daughters
Join hands with everyone, don’t you hear the song we sing
Oh there might be tears, but we are more than our fears
We are marching on, but there’s a price we have to pay
For love means taking on, the weight of what was won

Jan 05
Love2

Open Call for 2016 Contributors

By Goose News

It’s time to let us know what YOU would like to do at Wild Goose!

The 2016 Wild Goose continues to create space for courageous, imaginative, and participative social justice work, creative expression, spiritual practice, and astonishing music and art.

We’ll be exploring all this in the context of STORY: What are our shared narratives? How have they shaped us – in our joy and in our suffering? How do we challenge the destructive narratives in the presence of a growing wave of fear, violence, and control?   Can one person’s story of success be another’s story of oppression? How do we see the truth in the mash-up?

We encourage you to go “all out” to increase the level of participation and interactivity – a lot! Whatever your role – artist, musician, speaker, or… when crafting your presentation, think without boundary or expectation in ways that will actively involve your audience.

The deadline for applying is midnight on February 29th. Our programming team will consider all submissions and we will notify applicants of the status of their submission no later than April 1st. In rare instances, a submission may be waitlisted and notified no later than May 1st.

There’s a $40 application fee to offset programming costs. If you have any questions contact [email protected]

Thank you for all your submissions.

Dec 28
Love1

And the 2016 theme is…

By Goose News

STORY

Receive | Respond | Reshape

Stories shape our world. Are you listening?

The 2016 Wild Goose continues to create space for courageous, imaginative, and participative social justice work, creative expression, spiritual practice, and astonishing music and art.

We’ll be exploring all this in the context of STORY: What are our shared narratives? How have they shaped us – in our joy and in our suffering? How do we challenge the destructive narratives in the presence of a growing wave of fear, violence, and control?   Can one person’s story of success be another’s story of oppression? How do we see the truth in the mash-up?

As the festival begins to take shape, we already have firm commitments from several great speakers, musicians, and artists. And self-submissions will open in just a few days (January 4)!

We encourage you to go “all out” to increase the level of participation and interactivity – a lot! Whatever your role – artist, musician, speaker, or… when crafting your presentation, think without boundary or expectation in ways that will actively involve your audience.

“Each of us is a story.  We were created by God as a story waiting to be told, and each of us has to find a way to tell our story. In the telling of it we come to recognize and own ourselves… 

When you step into a story, you find it is without limits and you can walk around with it and inside it.  It is natural to sing, dance, and reenact a story. It is too big and too deep to be merely ‘understood’ or taught.”

Richard Rohr

–The Wild Goose Planning Team

Buy your tickets  at Wild Goose Festival and mark your calendar for July 7 through 10 in Hot Springs, NC.

Self submissions open January 4th!!  Details will be posted on our website Wild Goose Festival and our facebook page facebook/WGF. 

Aug 10
Love0

The Wild Goose Flock Reflects: The Second Blog Roundup of WGFEST15

By 2015 Festival, Goose News

The mornings are growing cooler as summer winds to a close, but your thoughts and experiences at #WGFest15 continue to burn and blaze. As the flock ruminates, here is a second installment of everything that is on your mind.
Read, think, share and repeat.
(You can find the first blog roundup here.)

WHAT IS THE WILD GOOSE?

Happy Wild Goose Kids

Everything Old is New Again

“…liturgies abound. Some of them were rather traditional. The Episcopal tent, for example, held Compline services every night. They also broke out of the mold and hosted a songwriter circle and an agape feast. The Goose is like that.”

— Tripp Hudgins

Slippery Fish

“In many ways, faith for me is a slippery fish. Whenever I seem to get a firm grip on belief, something happens in my life that makes truth squirt out of my hands. Because of this history, I enjoy talking with people about controversial topics, especially people I don’t agree with. However, with all the news about confederate flags, marriage equality, and Obamacare, I find it hard to have safe conversations with almost anyone of faith. That is what The Goose is becoming for me. A safe place to explore, be vulnerable, and pursue truth, that slippery fish that fights my desire to keep God in my grasp and finite, not the multi-faceted, infinite being that powers my world.”

— Slippery Fish, Paul Stanley

Buddha Inside/Jesus Outside

“I lie in the French Broad River of North Carolina in early July and expose my palms announcing, pleading really, ‘Open my wounds to grace and reveal God’s glory!’. I really need a God with open wounds like mine.”

— Emerging Voices, Anita Brown

Re-Wilding The Goose

I couldn’t believe it, I had become the fidgety kid kicking the pew and I had successfully upset the status quo. The status quo at the WILD Goose?!?!?! Anger kept me from an appropriate engagement so I packed my things and left to ruminate.

— Ian Lynch

Voices of the Wild Goose Festival

“The Holy Spirit, the Wild Goose, the Wind that formed all things out of chaos and called them good, leads this celebration. The Wind blows where it will with power like the twister with tongues of fire at Pentecost. No walls can trap this Wind. No laws can cage this Bird. No bigotry can quiet this crowd singing love.”

— J. Marshall Jenkins

A NEW KIND OF CHRISTIANITY

Wild Goose Eucharist in the woods

Scaring the Hell Out of Christians

“For me, this is what the Christian faith is all about: restoration. Restoring our souls, restoring our connection with creation and with our Creator, restoring our relationships with other humans — even restoring a healthy relationship with death. All reasons for hope.

Sadly, modern Christianity often leads people away from a sense of loving restoration and into a land of judgement, contempt, and fear — fear of God, fear of hell, and fear of people who think or believe differently — which tragically results in many professed Christians working against justice because they fear empowering “the other” and must defend “their” faith from attack, as if God needs to be protected from dangerous outsiders.”

— Melanie

God is Wild

“The Wild Goose Festival is home to a lot of people who are wondering where God will live next. Some of us have big plans for building houses for God, and moving the divine presence right in so that we can have ready access. But the very metaphor of the wild goose evokes the myriad ways in which God cannot be domesticated.”

— LECTIO

New Revised Goose Version

“Underneath the fuchsia, violet, green and blue French braids, the spiky mohawks, the luxurious beards, the shaved heads and the dreadlocks…there’s something stirring within and among the gathered ones at the Wild Goose Festival. It’s not the Spiritual But Not Religious crowd. And it’s not the Nones, the Unaffilated or the Dones.

It’s something different. It’s what I’m calling the “New Revised Wild Goose Version” (NRWGV) of Christianity… I did the math and I’ve preached at least 400 sermons. I know some things about the Bible. But the way that Mark Charles,  a Navajo activist and educator, talked about how white settlers in the Americas lacked a “land covenant” with God to guide our relationship, or the way Bree Newsome talked about how Jesus worked for peace, not order, or how Tony Campolo talked about the love of Jesus moved in his heart to advocate for GLBT persons in the evangelical movement—literally, OMG.”

— Sarah Griffith Lund

Christo Shamanic Ritual

Call of the Wild Goose

“After being in ministry for so many decades; fulfilling almost every role a local church could offer (from youth leader, young adult leader, worship leader, choir director, crisis counseling, curriculum and Bible study author, senior pastor and church planter) and in most every form of church expression (community churches, house churches, alternative churches) – I found myself so hurt and damaged by shrapnel of this implosion that I put myself in exile. Self-imposed exile.
…
Little did I know that THE Wild Goose, Herself, was orchestrating something that was crucial to my healing … and little did I know what excruciating pain I was about to endure.”

— Sacred Touch, Pastor Nar

Lithium and a Prayer: A Few Thoughts on Mental Illness, Medication, and Spirituality

“Ultimately, we’ll need to do the work of going into our darkness, of poking around in it. Whether that’s a matter of spiritual direction or some other practice of faith, it’s only by going in and through that we can discover our true selves and begin to work out what it is that we are called to be.”

— Emerging Voices

BONUSES

CultureCast

Live shows are always a blast, but the LIVE CultureCast at Wild Goose festival was a new kinda awesome. Hear from Lisa and Michael Gungor, Romal Tune, Tony Kriz, Leroy Barber, Christian Piatt, Josh Linton and Micky Scottbey Jones, among others!

— Homebrewed Christianity

A Reading List

Here are twelve essential recent / forthcoming books by authors speaking at Wild Goose… From Forward Together to Redeeming Sex.

— The Englewood Review of Books

Link To Ticket Page

Read At Wild Goose 2015

Aug 09
Love0

The Wild Goose Flock Reflects: A Blog Roundup of WGFEST15

By Goose News

It’s been nearly a month but the Wild Goose Festival is anything but over. Our flock is no longer gathered on the banks of the French Broad River. But, we’re still thinking, learning, enacting our faith and connecting across the country.

Which songs are still stuck in your head?
What art has poured from your fingers?
Are there any new ideas that just won’t dislodge itself from your mind?
The Wild Goose is more than a festival. It’s a movement.
So, let’s start sharing what we’ve learned.

Below are links to blog posts by fellow goosers. Check them out. Share them with your friends. Comment. Let’s keep the community growing.

In the mean time, we plan to create a second round-up in two weeks, so be sure to send your blog posts, art, and reflections inspired by Wild Goose to [email protected] or comment with a link below.

COMMUNITY
Wild Goose Community

Brave Goose

“He sat in the front seat of the rickety golf cart. “This your first time to the Goose?”
I swear, his white beard was past the nipple line.
“Yes,” we tittered. My knuckles were tensing around the seat.
“Well spread your wings and let the Holy Spirit make you fly!” He lifted an arm out of the cart for emphasis. I worried the cart would tip, that we’d splatter on the trodden dirt of the campground.”

— lizzie, Wandering Writes

Duck, Duck, Wild Goose!

“Whether it was the sounds of impromptu jam sessions singing praise for the day’s blessings, the sights of young people freely expressing their joy with dance, the pop of the embers exploding into the night air as we journeyed into a Celtic ancestor meditation, or inhaling the sweet exuberance of a burgeoning relationship of a dear friend, each moment was manna for the soul.”

—Religious Refuse


Hopeful dreamers, dirt covered hippies, and radical Jesus followers

“On Friday afternoon, just as the sun was really starting to heat things up I found myself sitting on a large rock in the middle of the French Broad river surrounded by cairns erected by other festival goers as a form of centering meditation.”

— Cody, overchurchedblog

The Hard Work of Hope

Despair has become too automatic a reaction lately, facing environmental apathy and the egregious civil rights attacks that won’t stop coming. But standing side by side with hundreds of kind, intelligent justice-seekers has renewed my faith in humanity.

—Jenn, The Dew Abides

the gift of light

“And so, last week, as I stood in front of the main stage at the Wild Goose Festival listening toGungor – a group whose music has been impacting me for years – I was struck dumb when I heard them explain their new song, Light.”

—Michelle McConnell, Clearing Webs From The Hovel


Homosexual relationships are not about sex…cue eyeroll.

“But, when Betsy and I walked hand-in-hand through the Wild Goose campground, all I felt was radiating, unqualified, unapologetic joy. In the spirit-filled bubble that is The Goose, we felt loved, safe and free to live into our burgeoning love. When we ventured beyond the delicate membrane of The Goose, wandering through the little town of Hot Springs, we became acutely aware of how others might regard our hand-holding.”

—Kimberly Knight

ICYMI, BREE NEWSOME WAS THERE….
bree newsome at wild goose 2015(Before you do anything else, be sure to watch her panel discussion here.)

No One’s Going To Stop Until We’re All Free

“Another Wild Goose speaker of note was the Rev. Traci Blackmon, pastor of Christ the King United Church of Christ in Florissant, MO. Blackmon, a prominent activist and organizer, was appointed to the Ferguson Commission after her early response to the racial tensions that followed the killing of Michael Brown Jr. She was at the festival to preach at Sunday’s closing ceremony and participate in a panel called “Revolutionary Love & Militant Nonviolence.”

After Newsome’s speech, reporters, performers and activists gathered under a small tent behind the stage for a brief press conference and photo op. All fell silent as Blackmon stepped up and embraced Newsome—the two activists meeting for the first time. Blackmon began to cry as she held onto Newsome. “Thank you,” she whispered.“Thank you for snatching down that flag. Thank you.”

Newsome replied, “Y’all lit my fire in Ferguson, and no one’s going to stop until we’re all free.”

— Jordan Foltz, Mountain Xpress


“I was a security threat to Bree Newsome at the Wild Goose Festival.”

Maybe I’m an anti-activist. (My book is subtitled, “Some Thoughts on NOT Changing the World.”) We journalists are trained to stand above the fray, to provide some sort of God’s-eye view. But something Newsome’s human step-stool said is sticking in my craw. “As a white Southerner I’m taught to be silent in the face of racism,” said Tyson, who grew up as a Presbyterian.

What is respectable and what is right are two very different things. Your silence is doing violence. As white people, we’re the ones who perpetuate white supremacy. … Even if you lose friends from telling the truth, you’re being held and cherished by God all the time.

Tyson pointed out that the proper, Southern gentleman was also the slaveowner. I wonder if there’s an analogy with us journalist types: What a privilege, what a luxury, to not have to get involved, to not have to feel, if we don’t choose to.

— Jesse James DeConto, Christian Century


The Most Important Thing We Can Learn From Bree Newsome

This begs the question: how do entire situations get made right? How do we pursue wholeness of individuals or communities? Well, I’ll tell you how we don’t get there: we don’t get there by refusing to confront injustice and oppression, or by telling the oppressed to stay calm (the later being something I’ve been guilty of previously, and hereby most contritely repent). However shalom is achieved, the first step is ending oppression, and that means we must name it and confront it– aka, we “agitate, agitate, agitate” as the abolitionists used to say.

— Ben Corey, Formerly Fundie

LESSONS LEARNED
Wild Goose Festival

Until You Bless Me

“Do y’all do blessings and shit?”
I asked it shyly, unsure of the proper etiquette (even though the sign in front of the white tent advertised all manner of blessings available). I hoped the casual and shit would mask how badly I wanted to be blessed, how I’d felt my heart pull me toward this corner of the campground over and over all weekend.
I said it with a smile, but what my heart whispered fiercely was “I won’t let you go until you bless me.”

—Micah J Murray


Working for the Economic Flourishing of our Places

One comment that was driven home by this panel was that churches should be involved in the work of economic development in their particular places. Economic development, for those who might not be familiar with the term, is “the sustained, concerted actions of policy makers and communities that promote the standard of living and economic health of a specific area.” (Wikipedia) This idea that churches should be doing this kind of work resonated with me, as Englewood Christian Church, my church on the urban Near Eastside of Indianapolis, has been engaged in economic development for over a decade. We didn’t set out to do economic development, but stumbled into it as a result of seeking to be faithful in our neighborhood and to bear witness to the healing and flourishing that God intends for all places.

—C. Christopher Smith, Sojourners


5 Things I love about wild goose

We finally made it to Wild Goose. After the last four years saying “I really wish we could go,” which became “let’s give it a try,” which became “we’ll go next year.” It finally became “we’re going!”

— Drew Downs


Why I will not pray for unity.

Peacekeeping is a job for the loud.
For those who can command a room.
For those who can confidently stride
to the front of a room and declare
“Can’t we all just get along?”
…
Power prays loudly for unity.
But some are peacemakers.
Makers. Creators.
Who call forth from the deep something that had not been before.
Peacemakers are bold. They are confident. But not always loud.
Because even strong voices can sound small from the back of the room.
From the margins.

— Jacqui Buschor

Aug 08
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There Is A Ferguson Near You

By Guest Post
Author Leah Gunning Francis

Leah Gunning Francis

Leah Gunning Francis (who spoke at Wild Goose Festival 2015) is more than the author of Ferguson and Faith: Sparking Leadership and Awakening Community, she is also an activist and a passionate champion for changing the public narrative about young black men.

When the tragic death of Michael Brown occurred in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, 2014, St. Louis-based Chalice Press needed to be part of a positive and justice-seeking response. In partnership with the Forum for Theological Exploration (FTE), we were honored to work with Dr. Gunning Francis, who went out and interviewed more than two dozen faith leaders and young activists to tell the behind-the-scenes story of what happened in the days and months following the event that propelled the #BlackLivesMatter movement on the national stage.

As Shane Claiborne has called it, Ferguson and Faith is “an important book … a theological memoir of a movement.”

In his foreword to the book, Jim Wallis, founder and president of Sojourners, writes,

I believe that if the young Ferguson leaders hadn’t gotten up day after day and gone to the streets night after night, and some courageous clergy hadn’t joined them there and spoken out in their community, there might never have been a historic national commission on policing or a damning Department of Justice report on the Ferguson Police Department — and we would not be at the beginning of a new national conversation on reforming the criminal justice system. But it is only the beginning …

With new reports of police shootings in the news nearly every day, we know Wallis is right, and it is our hope that this book will be part of sparking the national conversation among people and communities of faith as to how to faithfully respond. Because, as Dr. Gunning Francis writes in the book, “There is a Ferguson near you.”

Order Ferguson and Faith online now!

Watch and share this video message from Ferguson and Faith author Leah Gunning Francis!

Other Wild Goose 2015 speakers whose books are available from Chalice Press:
Forward Together by Rev. William Barber II
Pre-Post-Racial America by Sandhya Rani Jha
Blessed Are The Crazy by Sarah Griffith Lund
Coming Home by Zachary Moon
PregMANcy by Christian Piatt
Sacred Wounds by Teresa B Pasquale

Jul 05
Love1

The Beauty of Peace: Art At Wild Goose 2015

By 2015 Contributor, 2015 Festival, Goose News

troy bThere are more ways to explore peacemaking than just through music and speaking. This year, our theme will permeate through every segment of the festival, including the visual arts. In fact, there are some ways that peace can only be explored through art.

“In curating the theme Blessed are the Peacemakers, we noticed that peacemaking included everything from making peace, to reconciling worlds to being prophetic in the world about what is at peace or at war,” explains Troy Bronsink. Troy is this year’s art content leader for the festival.

So, what will you see at Wild Goose this year? Here’s a small sampler.

1. Stations of the Cross: Mental Illness

Mary Button Stations of the CrossAs you walk around the the festival you’ll notice Mary Button’s installation, Stations of the Cross: Mental Illness. Take some time so see how her artwork both tells a story and creates space for new encounters with what it means to be at peace, long for peace, and make peace.

2. Live Art!

You’ll also see the work of Dan Nelson who will be painting the festival at the Live Art Tent. Take time to talk with him about your experience of peacemaking as he listens for the voice of the Goose and depicts this powerful weekend and burgeoning community through his art.

3. The Art Tent Gallery & Beyond

dewayne barton and artThere will be work from at least five artists in the Art Tent Gallery with very different perspectives and approaches as well as hosts who can walk you through an experience of that work. Stefan Gustafsson and Fred Wise are two of the artists that will be featured there. Stefan is from Sweden and his works involve lengthy processes of mingling minerals and pigments to explore reconciliation and differentiation. Contrast that with the work of Fred whose watercolor and oil paintings depict stories of struggle and mystery. Art will appear around the festival as well. For example, DeWayne Barton, pictured above, will have a sculpture on display somewhere on the grounds.

4. Maker’s Space

DSC_0338We’ll have a maker’s space for you to participate in making materials for the Art Liturgy on Saturday at 2 pm, which will include a large acoustic stringed instrument orchestra. So bring your guitar or banjo if you have it!

5. Thoughtful Discussions

menewhorizonsThis year, author and long time friend of the Goose, Frank Schaeffer, will be showing some of his recent paintings. Also on Saturday, he’ll be in conversation with A’Driane Nieves (pictured above) about the role of our own stories and family’s stories in making and reading art. Nieves’ work is a reflection on her experiences as a mother, a woman of color, someone who has battled with mental illness, and as a minority in the growing liberal city of Austin, Texas, all lived through the perspective of faith. Her work has been featured in regional and national #blacklivesmatter forums and she’ll be including a recent book of works and excerpts from her blog.

6. Art as Spiritual Practice

Patrick MahonThere are other artists showing this year who identify their work as direct spiritual practice. Cassandra Lawrence develops art with worshippers and within worship to enable participants to corporately participate beyond words. Patrick Mahon is a contemplative and student of Merton. (One of his photographs is pictured above.) His photography is intended to cultivate peace within the viewer, calling you not to simply “see” but to be present in the seeing.

Jun 25
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Faithmarks Gallery At Wild Goose

Faithmarks: Yes, You Can Get A Tattoo At Wild Goose This Year

By 2015 Festival, Goose News

Faithmarks Gallery At Wild GooseLast year was Faithmarks’s first time at Wild Goose. They are coming back and they are bringing a little something special for the Wild Goose flock: tattoos, both permanent and temporary.

FaithMarks is a photographic gallery show exploring the intersection of spirituality and the art of tattoos. Initially conceptualized by St. Marks Church, this inter-denominational, interfaith ministry used models from all over the country. It is an experience meant to take each person on their own spiritual journey. The show provides a non-threatening experience for those who visit, evoking the opportunity for spiritual conversation to flow naturally.

Faithmark Tattoos At Wild GooseAlthough founders Carl Greene and Anna Golladay heard the whispers (or far-off honking) of the Goose in the past, last year they finally decided to take the
leap and attend.

“We have been really warmly accepted everywhere we have taken the show,” says Anna. “But, Wild Goose? It is absolutely, hands down, the coolest and most exciting place the show has ever traveled. The warmth and true excitement from folks was palpable.”

The show includes professional photography of tattoos along with the model’s story, explaining why they received it. The blend of the visual and written really sparks spiritual conversations. “The Wild Goose Festival provides a forum for open and honest dialogue,” says Anna, “Something that is encouraged when the Faithmarks show travels other places.”

FaithmrksThis year, seven team members will make the trek from Chattanooga, Tennessee to Hot Springs, North Carolina. They will be bringing a set on new images this year. Last year, Faithmarks consisted of 22 canvases and stories. Anna is excited: “We’ve doubled the number of images and stories! Just because you spent some time with the show last year doesn’t mean that it won’t still be new and fresh in 2015.”

The word seems to be spreading about the tattoos as well. They will have both permanent and temporary tattoo artists with them this year at the Goose.

“I’m not sure I could be any more giddy about this if I tried,” says Anna.

“We’ll soon launch a sign-up for those folks wanting to get a real tattoo during the festival, so keep an eye out! What better way to commemorate your experience than to head home with a Faithmark of your very own?”

 

purchase-tickets

 

Jun 20
Love1

Disabling Guns And Forging Peace At Wild Goose

By 2015 Festival, Goose News

RAWtools Disabled HandgunThis year’s festival will feature an exciting opportunity to “forge peace” in a very literal way highlighting our theme—Blessed are the Peacemakers.

RAWtools, with the help of Tim Coons and Justin Bullis, will be leading two peacemaking liturgies at the Wild Goose Festival next month. The liturgy includes the usual singing, scripture readings and testimonies, but with an added dimension. Together we will also create a physical representation of God’s prophecy in Micah and Isaiah of “beating your swords into plowshares”.

The gun will be disassembled and, using a small furnace, the metal components melted down to create a tool of creation. Romal Tune will be speaking at the PeaceMaker on Gun Violence Liturgy and John Dear at our PeaceMaker on War Liturgy.

RAWtools Wild Goose FestivalFounder Mike Martin had considered the concept for RAWtools for many years. His anabaptist faith background coupled with experience in the family landscaping business combined to birth the concept. But, it was the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in 2012 that propelled him into action.

In 2013, Mike launched the RAWtools at the Justice Conference, held in Philadelphia that year.

“Our goal is to create new narratives of nonviolence and peacemaking, instead of narratives of violence,” says Mike.

Guns used during the liturgy are donated by individuals who no longer want a weapon in their home and sometimes by  police officers. Mike hopes to formally partner with police departments, offering a constructive way to dispose of confiscated weapons. “We want to let them know that we’re an option as far as what what we can do with weapons, that we’re an option for police departments or even just for people who are uncomfortable having a gun in their home,” he explains. At the end of the liturgy, the newly made tool is given to someone involved in the service or sold to help fund the work of RAWtools.

RAWtools peacemaker-shirtMike can’t wait to get to Wild Goose this year. The two liturgies being held at the festival are part of the PeaceMaker Tour which was launched this January.

He knows that, in some ways, he’ll be preaching to the choir.

But for Mike, peacemaking is about more than the occasional liturgy; it’s a daily practice.

“It’s living out the witness of Christ, being a listener, loving alongside people,” explains Mike.

“Being a peacemaker is about a lot of little stuff—being in relationship—and not necessarily big, grand, Nobel-Peace-Prize stuff,” he says. The hardest part is having patience and practicing peace toward those with whom we strongly disagree or even dislike. Not that Nobel Peace Prize scale is bad (Nobel Peace Prize nominee John Dear is speaking at our Friday Liturgy.).

In fact, he has a practical suggestion for how to ‘forge peace’ this week.

Have lunch with someone you don’t like to be around, suggests Mike, “an enemy, someone that hits all your pet peeves.”

“To sit down and listen and have lunch with somebody,” says Mike. “That is an act of peacemaking.”

RAWtools logo

Jun 20
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Andrew Lewis

To Be a Peacemaker is to Be Evangelical

By Goose News

Andrew LewisBy Andrew Lewis

“What’s the ELCA?”

It’s a question every Lutheran will be asked at some point, at least outside of Minnesota. The Lutheran tradition is, after all, best analogized with a spilled can of alphabet soup. And for those of us who grew up in different traditions, we all sort of wince when we say, “The EVANGELICAL Lutheran Church in America.”

Evangelical: it’s a weighted term and yet it hangs in the air. It carries with it four decades of right-wing politics and quasi-religious rhetoric which taught the US that God is a Republican who uses hurricanes to punish cities and tells presidential candidates to run for office. It conjures pictures of street preachers confidently assuring angry crowds that…well, almost everyone is going to hell. In the popular imagination, evangelicals are door-to-door Jesus salesmen.

But I’m not selling a brand-name faith with an eternal warranty. So when I explain what the ELCA is, I hesitate. Why oh why couldn’t we have picked a less loaded name?

I could give some long explanation about Lutheran history and denominational mergers or a passionate defense of Luther’s original use of the term, both of which explain why we ended up as the ELCA, but there is more to the story. It’s about our identity as Christians. We are, after all, an apostolic Church, sent out to proclaim the euangelium, or Gospel (and the root word for evangelism).

We tend to think of evangelism as spreading the right knowledge of how a person gets to Heaven, as though we are teaching a secret password to an exclusive club. Knock on a door, share the Good News, and leave knowing that you’ve won another soul for Jesus. One more person out of Hell.

But what if we thought of evangelism as inviting people into right relationship with God and, through God, with our sisters and brothers, our neighbors and our enemies? What if evangelism took longer than the few seconds required to hand out a tract? What if we viewed evangelism as accompanying people on their pilgrimage towards God? And what if the Gospel we  proclaimed had implications on Earth as well as in Heaven?

The early Church understood evangelism as accompaniment. New Christians were sponsored through a long initiation process which led to the Font and to the Table. They were accompanied through poverty. They were accompanied through prison and martyrdom. This tradition survives, in text if not in practice, through the baptismal liturgies which ask for the entire assembled Body at worship to affirm, on behalf of the entire Church catholic, that they will “support [the newly baptized] and pray for them in their new life in Christ” (Evangelical Lutheran Worship liturgy for Holy Baptism).

It’s not a simple promise. It requires that we give of ourselves, to offer love unconditionally and forgiveness abundantly. It requires that we feed the hungry, visit the sick and the imprisoned, clothe the naked, and much, much more. It requires that we weep with those who weep and laugh with those who laugh. That we sow peace where there is anger and violence.

It’s a way of understanding evangelism which builds peace by proclaiming the Gospel of Christ’s Resurrection and acting out of God’s abundant love.

To be evangelical is to be a peacemaker. The one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church is sent out to proclaim the peace of God’s Kingdom. May we be blessed in doing so.

Andrew Lewis is a candidate for ordained ministry in the ELCA. Originally from Georgia, Drew has lived in the Midwest and Germany following his father’s career as a military chaplain. He holds theological degrees from Emory and Lutheran Southern, and is an avid hiker. He and his wife will soon move to Minnesota.

Jun 18
Love0

Meet Jeff Clark and His List Of 8 Must-Hear Music Experiences Appearing at Wild Goose 2015

By 2015 Festival, Goose News
Jeff Clark

Jeff Clark

“Music at the Wild Goose for many is the soundtrack of the experience—sometimes in the foreground, when we’re attending a performance, and otherwise a near constant presence drifting among us in the background—holding us into conversation and lifting us through connection to freedom and hope,” says Jeff Clark, president of Wild Goose Board of Directors.

What are the highlights?

“Diversity, inclusion, gifting—musically, it’s an amazing line-up this year and it’s made more amazing by the fact that most of the performers are coming as a part of The Wild Goose community,” says Jeff. For example, in addition to their “on-stage” feature performer roles, you’ll also see Michael Gungor, Matt Morris, Emmanuel Jal, David Gungor, and others serving as worship leaders, speaking, and participating on panels. “This individual connection and commitment to the Wild Goose community is perhaps unprecedented,” he adds.

Jeff is deeply invested in this year’s music (he’s the 2015 music programming leader). Here are his top eight highlights for this year’s line-up!

1 & 2: EMMANUEL JAL & THE BRILLIANCE


“Emmanuel Jal’s “We Want Peace” and “Brother” from The Brilliance–are both powerful songs that are on my playlist daily.”

3: MATT MORRIS

 “Like a lot of the Goose family I’ve been repeatedly viewing Matt Morris’ beautiful performance on Ellen (with Justin Timberlake backing him up).”

4 & 5: TIMOTHY’S GIFT & TY HERNDON


“The music of Timothy’s Gift, with our “own” Melissa Greene, is made even more powerful by the stories behind their work and Ty Herndon’s story is a deeply personal account of redemption and courage.”

6: LATE NIGHT MUSIC!

“We’re breaking the sound barrier! Sort of… we actually found a great way to have fun without breaking the Hot Springs, NC sound ordinance law. The Goose this year will have a Silent Disco (dance party with headphones) powered by SilentEvents, AcoustaGoose (a late night acoustic “jam” event with a different host band each evening), and Beer & Hymns on the schedule every night!”

7: WILD GOOSE FAVORITES & NEW PERFORMERS

“This year there will also be a lot Wild Goose favorites returning (including The Collection and Charles Pettee and FolkPsalm) and some wonderful new talent coming into the community.”

8: INTRODUCING THE CAFÉ

DSC_0860“The Café should become a popular gathering place for refreshment and relaxation and will host performances from noon until 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. The on-site coffee shop setting, rather than local restaurants, may become the Goose living room for many.”

Jun 14
Love0

Ready for Round 2! 

By 2015 Festival, Guest Post

uts at wild goose festival

The Admissions Team at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York is back again at the Goose.  Last year we had such a great time greeting our fabulous alumni/ae and meeting prospective students that we couldn’t stay away!

The idea of theological education can be a big step.  We are grateful to again be able to share our Union experiences as students and alumni/ae. We were also really moved to see folks from all over the country, and the world, connecting at our recruitment table. That we played a role in facilitating these surprising connections was a real highlight of our experience.  And we are grateful.

At Wild Goose, there is no shortage of booths to visit and people to meet. Between the warm welcome from the people of Hot Springs, NC to the visiting community that’s built especially for this weekend, you’re sure to find something that piques your interest and feeds your passion. We hope that Union Theological Seminary can be on that list of inspirations.

So come and find us in the Spirituality Tent this year.  Just look for the large “Union” banner.  We will again have a team of folks ready to answer any questions you may have, from “what is seminary like,” to “how do you manage living in New York City?” and anything in between.  And if you don’t have any questions, you are warmly invited to share some of your story, reminisce about Union, or simply say “hello.” We look forward to seeing you!

– The Admissions Team of Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York
[email protected]

 

 

Jun 13
Love0

Slow Church in the face of Deep Injustice?

By 2015 Contributor, 2015 Festival, Goose News

Last year I was pleased to be at Wild Goose for the first time and to talk about my book Slow Church (co-written with John Pattison), and how the Slow Food movement and other burgeoning Slow movements might offer wisdom for us as we seek to cultivate community in the patient way of Jesus. One of the questions that I was asked at Wild Goose last summer was: “What is the meaning of Slow Church in situations that demand urgent responses: e.g., situations of deep injustice?” This question echoed through many of the conversations that I’ve had about Slow Church over the last year, especially in the wake of racial injustice in places like Ferguson, MO, Staten Island, NY, Baltimore and most recently McKinney, TX. The question was a central one in several conversations I had with my friend Brandon Wrencher (an African- American UMC pastor in rural NC). We decided to co-facilitate a conversation on this question at Wild Goose next month.

Brandon_WrencherA post of this sort is entirely too brief to tackle a question of this kind of significance. However, I do want to offer a couple of thoughts that I believe are vital to answering this question. My first thought in answering this question is that an essential part of what we are calling Slow Church is it is not enough simply to respond to crisis situations, but we must be ever attentive to how we respond. Or in other words, our means must fit the ends that we seek. In this regard, I am reminded how vital prayer vigils were to the Civil Rights movements, as a way of preparing marchers to bear witness non-violently to the sort of peace and justice for all humanity that we have been called to in Jesus. On a similar note, I recently heard Rev. Traci Blackmon, a UCC pastor and community leader in Ferguson, tell the story of an elder in that community who in the midst of the marching and the escalating tension between police and protestors would daily drive up to a parking lot near the protest zone, and set up tables of abundant food and serve whoever was hungry. This Eucharistic sort of story reminds us of the space that the table – and especially a table that is seen as the Lord’s Table, at which anyone is welcome – creates for getting to the basic roots of humanity (e.g., the need to eat) and for conversation in which we begin to know and trust others.

A second thought in response to this question is that we live in an interconnected creation. Deep injustice is never merely a problem to be fixed, but is interwoven in intricate ways with other forms of injustice. One of my favorite theologians, Dr. Willie James Jennings of Duke Divinity School, emphasizes, for instance, that the racial injustices that are on the front of many of our minds today, had their origin in the early modern era in the social, economic and ecological injustices of human disconnectedness from land and place.

This complex web of injustice that has given shape to modern life as we know it in the twenty-first century eludes easy solutions, and might even be so massive and deeply embedded in life as we know it to tempt many of us to give up hope. The hope that we need, and the hope that lies at the heart of Slow Church, is the possibility of an alternative community, a community that embedded in the struggles for justice, but one that that is oriented toward the hope of God’s reconciliation of all things in and through Jesus. Our fundamental call as churches is not to be networks of religious individuals, but rather to be communities rooted in our particular places that are seeking to offer an alternative to the rampant injustice of our age. We should walk alongside our neighbors who are having injustice heaped upon them, and lament these injustices with them, but our primary call as churches is to imagine and to begin to embody in our life together a social order that is defined by the conviction that God desires peace, justice and reconciliation for all humanity and all creation.

These thoughts, I realize, hardly begin to scratch the surface of the basic question of Christian faithfulness and the deep injustices of our world, and especially when our concepts of Christian faithfulness – as Willie Jennings and others have argued – have threads of injustice interwoven into them. And so, I challenge you not to lose hope in the face of overwhelming injustice, but to continually seek to embody an alternative community that is rooted in the person of Jesus, whose life, teaching, death and resurrection was the very epitome of peace and justice.

And I invite you to join with Brandon and myself as we host a conversation at Wild Goose about these essential and unavoidable questions.

C. Christopher (Chris) Smith is a part of the Englewood Christian Church community on the urban Near Eastside of Indianapolis and is senior editor of The Englewood Review of Books. The co-author of Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus (IVP Books, 2014), he is currently finalizing a new book entitled Reading for the Common Good: Toward the Flourishing of our Churches, our Neighborhoods and the World.

Jun 12
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In Honor of Phyllis Tickle

By Goose News

Phyllis Tickle At Wild GoosePhyllis Tickle is one of the reasons Wild Goose exists. Her enthusiasm and affirmations of this journey have called so many of us together, even to endure ticks and floods in the deep woods of North Carolina.

As many of you know, earlier this year Phyllis was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. In her honor, we will be incorporating prayers from the pocket edition of The Divine Hours prayer book into the schedule of the festival.

The Divine Hours, edited by Phyllis, was the first major literary and liturgical reworking of the sixth-century Benedictine Rule of fixed-hour prayer.

Phyllis Tickle At Wild Goose“For many years Phyllis has been one of my chief encouragers,” says Wild Goose Festival Producer Rosa Lee Harden. “ Although some didn’t even know she was there in the background, her words of wisdom led me to the Goose. We were all hoping that she would be able to be with us this year. Since her health will not allow that, we are bringing her to be with us through her work and our prayers.”

Tripp Hudgins is this year’s curator of liturgy at the Wild Goose Festival. He and festival attendee Chris Smith first thought of this way to honor Phyllis. (Read Chris’ review of The Divine Hours here.)

“Phyllis has long been an encouraging presence in my own spiritual life,” says Tripp. “Her resource, The Divine Hours, was yet one more bridge that she offered the chaotic ecumenical environment called Christianity. It is a great example of what she does so well: provide space for all to come together in prayer to discern how what was can also be reborn into what is now and what is next.”

We hope those prayers for her through the ‘hours’ of the Goose will send her strength and encouragement for her journey.

Festival attendees are encouraged to buy a copy to bring to the festival. You can purchase a hardcover copy here or download it to your Kindle.

During our four day pilgrimage at Hot Springs next month, we will have people praying through the day, everyday, using Phyllis’ prayer. We hope those prayers for her through the ‘hours’ of the Goose will send her strength and encouragement for her journey.

In the meantime, if you’d like to pay tribute to Phyllis now as a member of the Wild Goose community, you can do so here.

(Here is a snippet of Phyllis explaining why she loves Wild Goose.)

 

https://youtu.be/VhEE7SfI9kE?t=5m55s

Jun 11
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Preliminary 2015 Schedule Released

By Goose News

2015 Schedule Screen ShotHere it is, a preliminary draft of the 2015 Wild Goose Festival schedule!

We are excited to give you a sneak peek of Wild Goose Festival 2015. Musicians. Speakers. Storytellers. Performers. It’s all here. Just click on the links below to see schedules for each day of the festival.

Remember, this is only a draft schedule and there will be adjustments prior the the festival. No need to print and bring these drafts. The finalized schedule will be printed in this year’s program.

So, enjoy and safe travels to Hot Springs!

July 9: Thursday Draft Schedule

July 10: Friday Draft Schedule

July 11: Saturday Draft Schedule

July 12: Sunday Draft Schedule

Wild Goose Schedule