A Unique Opportunity for Emerging Faith Leaders
Pre-Festival Offering
What does it mean to prepare for ministry in an age of uncertainty and division?
How can we develop tools of resistance, justice & peacemaking into ministries of service and advocacy?
Come network with other emerging faith leaders to discuss progressive tools and tactics of resistance,
unity, and equity with cutting-edge leadership of the Wild Goose Festival.
What is it?
LeadNOW is a pre-festival experience for select seminarians and first-call ministers & justice leaders.
LeadNOW offers emerging faith leaders a life-changing opportunity to connect with and learn from today’s cutting-edge, transformational thinkers, authors and activists. Together, we will explore progressive tools and tactics of resistance, unity, and equity, and be equipped to create change NOW!
Who can participate?
LeadNOW is open to individuals who are currently enrolled in seminary or who have graduated within the past five years and are currently serving in a first-call ministry placement. There’s no fee to participate.
Come sit and listen to the sounds of the French Broad River, as you engage in a cohort style reflection group at Wild Goose Festival. Participants receive free admission to the festival, free space to tent camp, free parking, a t-shirt, as well as a four day experience to build community, sharpen resources, and spur each other to doing good in the world. Programming includes exciting church and justice leaders, as well as built-in time for reflection, community, and fun.
Register Now!
Registration is now open! If you’re a current seminarian or graduated within the last five years and are in your first ministry placement, apply today!
Simply click the link below and a member of our team will get back to you once your application has been reviewed.
LeadNOW! ApplicationLeadNOW! Facilitators
Additional facilitators to be announced
Joy Wallis
Joy Wallis was one of the first women ordained to the priesthood in the Church of England in 1994. She was the real-life Vicar of Dibley and the inspiration for the 1994 BBC comedy series of the same name. She’s the author of Beneath the Cassock: The Real Life Vicar of Dibley, and The Woman Behind the Collar. Joy and her husband, Jim Wallis (Soujourners), live in Washington, D.C. with their two children, Luke and Jack.
Wayne Meisel
Wayne Meisel is the Director of the Center for Faith and Service at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, IL. The Center develops programs through partnerships with local congregations and national church offices for a generation defined by their commitment to service and justice. The Center also seeks to renew theological education through collective efforts to recruit, train and launch individuals into both traditional and new forms of ministry.
Prior to this position, he served as the Director of Faith and Service at the Cousins Foundation in Atlanta, GA. and was the founding President of the Bonner Foundation. As a Presidential appointee to the Commission on National and Community Service, Meisel served as one of the architects of the AmeriCorps programs and also as a charter board member of Teach for America.
He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church and describes himself as an AmeriCorps Chaplain.
