Music and Liturgy for Resilience and Resistance
Pre-Festival Offering
Thursday August 28, 2025
9 am – 5 pm
cost: $59.00
Exploring and creating congregational song and words of Resistance and Resilience.
We hope to discover songs and liturgy that help us as a faith-centered community to sing and speak the kind of resistance to empire that characterized the teachings of Jesus. We will examine already written songs and compose a song of our own.
If you have a song written or material for a song, bring it with you. This workshop is brought to you by the Convergence Music Project, a source of new congregational songs centered around inclusivity, justice for all people, and care for the creation.
Facilitators for this workshop will be: Ken Medema, songwriter, composer, and singer from Mt. Olive Lutheran Church, Rochester, MN; Richard Bruxvoort Colligan, Psalmist and Director of Spiritual Formation; Lisa Janke, Directing Pastor and Artist of Liturgy; Travis Beck, Deacon and Director of Worship, Music, and Arts
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 52 years in many different venues: churches, conventions, colleges, corporations and more, for groups ranging from 50 to 50,000 people. 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. At Wild Goose, Ken will sit side stage while leaders/speakers speak – and then he’ll provide a spot-on, on-the-spot musical response. It’s another amazing Wild Goose experience.
Rev. Lisa Janke serves as the Directing Pastor of Mount Olive Lutheran Church in Rochester, MN. As a pastor, Lisa loves finding creative ways to support and encourage people in their spiritual life. She also enjoys pushing boundaries, questioning traditions, and exploring around the edges, but she wasn’t always this way.
Growing up, Lisa was comforted by the idea that God looked just like the most powerful people around her. So, it’s no surprise that when she was introduced to feminism, a miserably painful (but deeply important) season of questioning everything ensued. Perhaps this is why she feels particularly drawn to people who have struggled with the Bible, the church, or their life of faith in some way.
Prior to earning her Master of Divinity degree and becoming ordained, Lisa worked for 10-years in social services, with a particular focus on violence prevention. This work grounds her sense of call and her commitment to expanding our image of God.
Richard Bruxvoort Colligan is enthralled with the psalms, and thinks about worship as an endeavor of longterm spiritual formation. He has transposed all the psalms into 21st-century community songs and leads events at Olive Branch Community at the corner of theology and the arts in Rochester, MN. His first book about the psalms, Dangerous Songs, will be released early next year.
Travis Beck is a church musician and facilitator/trainer who wants to inspire congregations to worship in more inclusive, expansive, and non-violent ways so they can be houses of prayer for all people.
Ordained as a deacon in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), he currently serves full time at Mount Olive Lutheran Church in Rochester, MN. His current interests include facilitating strategic planning for congregations; exploring how faith communities can engage in active, non-violent resistance to empire; and finding the perfect cup of coffee. Travis holds music degrees from Wartburg College and Luther Seminary. He lives in Rochester, MN, with wife Samantha and daughter Nora.
Check In for pre-festival events will be available on Wednesday from 1 pm to 5 pm, and Thursday from 7am to 9 am.
If you’re tent camping, there’s no additional campsite charge for Wednesday night.
Some campsite locations are restricted due to large venue tent construction in several areas.
RV campers will need to purchase an additional night.