The Many

The Many is an uncommon, intentionally diverse collective making music for people to sing together about peace and justice and a world where all are welcomed. Drawing on their indie folk and gospel influences, this is music created to help give voice to faith and doubt, questions and fears, laments and longings. It is music that speaks to a non-violent God, a Jesus who is with us and for us, and to a Spirit that can’t be easily defined or controlled. It is music for a movement of resistance to hatred and division, a movement for reconciliation and restoration, and music that always reminds us “”we are on this earth to love.” http://www.pluralguild.com/the-many

Session ID [381]

Julian DeShazier / JKwest

As a national speaker, advocate and emcee, Julian “J.Kwest” DeShazier has appeared on ABC, CBS, FOX, and Dr. Maya Angelou’s “Oprah & Friends” radio program. J.Kwest is also an Emmy Award-winning musician, featured in the video “Strange Fruit,” a commemoration of the Billie Holiday song and a meditation on racial violence. In 2012 he and his group, Verbal Kwest, appeared in the OXFAM and Bread for the World-produced documentary The Line, providing a critical voice against poverty and violence in the US. The Chicago native and graduate of Morehouse College and the University of Chicago is also pastor of University Church, which most recently worked on a campaign for a trauma center on Chicago’s South Side. J is an adjunct professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School and McCormick Theological Seminary, and is a regular contributor to Sojourners and Huffington Post publications.

jkwest.com/   LISTEN

Nannette Banks

Rev. Nannette Banks is a world traveler, people and poetry lover who believes in the power of worship and the sacraments to liberate and set free all who are marginalized and oppressed –for the table was set in the presence of (my)the enemy! She is also the voice of This is what happens Wild Goose Video.

Currently, she is an itinerant preacher and  serves as the Director of Alumni/ae and Church Relations at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago.

Shawna Bowman

Shawna Bowman is a Presbyterian Pastor and a Theological and Liturgical Visual Artist. She pastors a quirky and radically gracious community called Friendship Presbyterian Church that meets in the Norwood Park Metra Station in Chicago IL.  Shawna works with churches, faith communities and not-for-profit organizations to help them tell their story through visual arts. She also paints, builds and invites others to encounter God through art-making during worship and other events. Shawna is passionate about empowering others to integrate visual-arts in their spiritual and worshiping life. She teaches workshops and leads retreats in order to provides space for artists to integrate their spiritual and creative selves as well as learn how to incorporate the arts in their worshiping communities.

You can find Shawna’s work and words at artforgodsake.com and her sermons and lectionary reflections at shawnabowman.com. Her church is also on the web at fpcchicago.org.

Lenora Rand 

After spending over 25 years as a creative director at one of the world’s largest ad agencies, helping brands define and live their purpose, Lenora now helps individuals, churches and organizations do that for themselves through mentoring, consulting and her popular SELF. PROCLAIMED. Manifesto-Writing Workshops. She blogs with honesty, humor and disarming wisdom about trying to be more spiritual when you’re not very good at it on her Chicago-Tribune-hosted blog, Spiritual Suckitude, and co-directs THE PLURAL GUILD, a collective crafting music, prayers, visual art & liturgy for people who want to do justice, love mercy, and worship in new ways that welcome all. Because she never sleeps, she also writes lyrics for the band THE MANY, helps with communications for Wild Goose, and runs a boutique ad agency called smallGOOD, helping small businesses, solopreneurs, churches and non-profits grow their good.

www.LenoraRand.com

Gary Rand

Gary Rand, group lead for worship and liturgy for the Wild Goose Festival, is the Director of Worship Activities and Adjunct Professor in Worship at Chicago’s McCormick Theological Seminary, and for 10 years was director of worship and the arts at the progressive, inclusive, justice-focused LaSalle Street Church. He’s studied worship with John Bell at Iona in Scotland, spent time with the Taize community in France, immersed himself in Black Gospel music under the tutelage of Gospel Legend Elsa Harris, and leads workshops on progressive worship across the country.

He’s also co-founder of The Plural Guild, a website resource for liturgy, congregational music and discussion on worship issues, and he writes for and produces the alt-worship band The Many. Follow him on Twitter @GaryERand and @ThePluralGuild.