Jim Wallis
Jim Wallis Jim Wallis is a New York Times bestselling author, public theologian, speaker, and international commentator on ethics and public life. He recently served on the White House Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships and was former vice chair of and currently serves on the Global Agenda Council on Values of the World Economic Forum. Jim is the author of 12 books. His most recent book, America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America, released in January. His most recent books include: On God’s Side: What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn’t Learned About Serving the Common Good, Rediscovering Values: A Guide for Economic and Moral Recovery; The Great Awakening:Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America; and God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It.
Diana Butler-Bass
Diana is an author, speaker, and independent scholar specializing in American religion and culture. She holds a Ph.D. in religious studies from Duke University and is the author of nine books, including Grounded: Finding God in the World—A Spiritual Revolution (HarperOne, 2015) and the widely influential Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening (HarperOne, 2012). Her other books include A People’s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story (HarperOne, 2009), nominated for a Library of Virginia literary award, and the best-selling Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith (2006) which was named as one of the best religion books of the year by Publishers Weekly and was featured in a cover story in USA TODAY. Diana regularly writes at The Huffington Post and The Washington Post and comments on religion, politics, and culture in the media including USA TODAY, Time, Newsweek, CBS, CNN, FOX, PBS, and NPR.
Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III
Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III is the Senior Pastor of the 8,000-member Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, “preaching a Black theology that unapologetically calls attention to the problems of mass incarceration, environmental justice, and economic inequality.” As a recipient of the 2016 NAACP Chairman’s Award, Dr. Moss was named one of 5 trailblazing leaders under the age of 50 who have “given voice and vision to the mantra that black lives matter.”
With a unique gift to communicate across generations, Dr. Moss’ creative Bible-based messages have inspired young and old alike. He is highly influenced by the works of Zora Neale Hurston, August Wilson, Howard Thurman, Jazz, and Hip-Hop music. The work and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the pastoral ministry of his father, Dr. Otis Moss, Jr. of Cleveland, Ohio, have been primary mentors for his spiritual formation.
William Paul Young
Wm Paul Young, author of the novels, The Shack, Cross Roads, and Eve, and non-fiction Lies We Believe about God, was born a Canadian and raised among a stone-age tribe by his missionary parents in the highlands of what was Netherlands New Guinea (now West Papua). He suffered great loss as a child and young adult, and now enjoys the “wastefulness of grace” with his growing family in the Pacific Northwest.
Facts never tell real stories. The journey has been both incredible and unbearable, a desperate grasping after grace and wholeness, the pain of trying to adjust to different cultures, of life losses that seemed too staggering to bear, of living with an underlying volume of shame so deep that it constantly threatened any sense of sanity, of dreams not only destroyed but obliterated by personal failure, of hope so tenuous that only the trigger seemed to offer a solution. A few facts also do not speak to the potency of love and forgiveness, the arduous road of reconciliation, the surprises of grace and community, of transformational healing and the unexpected emergence of joy.
Joy Carrol Wallis
Joy Carroll Wallis is a gifted communicator, community organizer and convener as well as a sought after pastor, preacher and minister. In 1994, she was one of the first women to be ordained in the Church of England as well as the youngest clergy member elected to the General Synod. Her ministry in the inner – city embraced the needs of the poor, homeless, mentally ill, families, youth and the elderly. Her experience in the priesthood was the inspiration behind the hit BBC sitcom, The Vicar of Dibley, starring Dawn French. Joy is the author of The Woman Behind the Collar: The Pioneering Journey of an Episcopal Priest.
Joy has spent the last eighteen years immersed in Washington DC schools and youth sports. As commissioner of Little League Baseball, fundraiser, event planner, PTA President, President of Wilson HS Baseball Boosters, organizer of Wilson baseball trip to the Dominican Republic, her networks run wide and deep. She is also a founding board member and currently board Chair of the Wild Goose Festival.
Joy lives in Washington, DC with her activist and writer husband Jim Wallis and their teenage sons, Luke and Jack.
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II
The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II is Pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, NC and architect of the Forward Together Moral Movement that gained national acclaim with its Moral Monday protests at the North Carolina General Assembly in 2013.
He has keynoted hundreds of national and state conferences, including the 2016 Democratic National Convention, and has spoken to a wide variety of audiences across the country
Dr. Barber has served as president of the NC NAACP, since 2006 and sits on its National Board of Directors. He is currently Visiting Professor of Public Theology and Activism at Union Theological Seminary New York and is a Senior Fellow at Auburn Seminary. Dr. Barber is regularly featured in major national media outlets and is the 2015 recipient of the Puffin Award and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award. His two most recent books include Forward Together (Chalice Press) and The Third Reconstruction (Beacon Press).
Nadia Bolz-Weber
Nadia Bolz-Weber is the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People(Convergent, 2015), available in bookstores now. She’s also the author of Salvation on the Small Screen? 24 Hours of Christian Television (Seabury 2008) and the New York Times bestselling theological memoir, Pastrix: the Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint(Jericho, 2013). Nadia has been featured in BBC World Service, The Washington Post, Bitch Magazine, NPR’s Morning Edition, Fresh Air, More Magazine, The Daily Beast and on CNN.
Brian D. McLaren
Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for “a new kind of Christianity” – just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good.
Notable among the many books he has authored are: “A New Kind of Christian”, which won Christianity Today’s “Award of Merit” in 2002; “Everything Must Change” tracing critical ways in which Jesus’ message confronts contemporary global crises; and We Make the Road by Walking, marking a turn toward constructive and practical theology. His 2016 release, The Great Spiritual Migration, has been hailed as his most important work to date.
Brian is married to Grace, and they have four adult children and five grandchildren. His personal interests include wildlife and ecology, fly fishing and kayaking, music and songwriting, art, history, and literature.
Micky ScottBey Jones
Micky ScottBey Jones is a perpetual learner, “justice doula”, consultant, facilitator, mama/sister/friend, nonviolence practitioner and contemplative activist living just south of Nashville, TN.
Micky facilitates conferences, trainings and online conversations while exploring a variety of topics including self-care in community, healing justice, intersectionality, faith-rooted activism, revolutionary friendship, race & justice, and theology from the margins. She loves to curate contemplative and dialogic spaces and activities. Named one of the Black Christian leaders changing the world in Huffington Post, Micky is the Director of Healing Justice at Faith Matters Network. She is currently serving as an Associate Fellow for Racial Justice with Evangelicals for Social Action an activist-in-residence at Scarritt Bennett Center in Nashville, TN. She consults with a variety of people, projects and organizations as opportunities arise.
Micky believes in traveling the world while spreading revolutionary love, engaging in authentic conversations, and participating in transformative experiences – and most importantly – she never passes up a dance floor.
Doug Pagitt
Doug is a novice ultra marathoner who at this very moment wishes he was out on a run. And in his spare time he’s a pastor ( Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis), an author, and a convener who seeks to be a goodness conspirator & possibility evangelist finding creative, entrepreneurial and generative ways to enlist people to join in the hopes, dreams, and desires of God for the world. He also gives leadership to the OPEN Network – a collective seeking to bring about a just and generous Christianity. He has authored seven books , most recently Flipped: The Provocative Truth That Changes Everything We Know About God. Doug and his wife Shelley live in Edina, Minnesota and are parents of 4 young-adult children, and one little grand child.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doug.pagitt Twitter: @Pagitt Instagram: @DougPagitt Website: http://www.dougpagitt.com/
Chris Davies
Chris S. Davies is the curator of Queer Clergy Trading Cards. She currently works for the United Church of Christ and is the point person for Congregational Assessment, Support, and Advancement at the National offices. Chris is a local beer enthusiast, creative queer liturgist, and dreamer beyond the normative church. She is a Connecticut native, a Cleveland transplant, and a wandering Irish Rover at heart. This project is a project of revolutionary love, bringing visibility to queer clergy, using humor and irreverence to help change the conversation to highlight common awe (and absurdities) in faith work. The project tells the stories of what oft is an isolating experience, and invites community beyond denomination. Chris loves Jesus and church deeply, and wants to help vision how we can transform the world, for the sake of the Gospel.
Frank Schaeffer
Frank Schaeffer is an artist and a New York Times bestselling author of both fiction and nonfiction. Frank is a much sought after speaker and has lectured at a wide range of venues from Harvard’s Kennedy School to the Hammer Museum/UCLA, Princeton University, Riverside Church Cathedral, DePaul University and the Kansas City Public Library. Frank has been a frequent guest on the Rachel Maddow Show on NBC, has appeared on Oprah, been interviewed by Terri Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air and appeared on the Today Show, BBC News and many other media outlets. Frank is also a blogger on Huffington Post, Alternet and Patheos.
John Pavlovitz
John Pavlovitz is a writer and pastor from Wake Forest, North Carolina. In the past three years his blog Stuff That Needs To Be Said has reached a diverse audience of millions. A 20-year veteran in the trenches of local church ministry, John’s mission is to help the Church become a more compassionate, loving environment for all people. He serves on staff at North Raleigh Community Church and his first book A Bigger Table, will be released in October.
Darren Calhoun
Darren Calhoun is an advocate, worship leader, and photographer based out of Chicago. He works to bridge relationships between people of differing perspectives through story and relationship. Intersectionality is his primary lens when facilitating dialogue and education about justice and inclusion for people marginalized based on race, gender, and/or sexuality. Currently, Darren is Worship Leader at Urban Village Church – South Loop, Associate Fellow for Racial Justice at Evangelicals for Scoial Action, in addition to owning Darren Calhoun Photography. He’s also an extrovert who loves hugs. Follow him on social media at @HeyDarren
Bart Campolo
Bart Campolo is an openly secular minister, speaker, and writer who currently volunteers as the Humanist Chaplain at the University of Southern California. Born and raised in suburban Philadelphia, Bart became an evangelical Christian as a teenager and was immediately attracted to urban ministry. After graduating from Brown University and serving as a youth pastor in Minneapolis, he returned to Philadelphia to found Mission Year, a national service organization which recruits young adults to live and work among the poor in inner-city neighborhoods. Later, the Campolo family spent nearly a decade working at street-level as part of the Walnut Hills Fellowship in Cincinnati, where Bart completed his deconversion. Since moving to Los Angeles in 2014, his work has been focused on inspiring and equipping all kinds of people to build more loving relationships, make things better for others, and cultivate a genuine sense of wonder and gratitude for the improbable privilege of being alive and conscious in the first place. bartcampolo.org
Gareth Higgins
Gareth Higgins is a writer from Belfast, Northern Ireland now living in Asheville, North Carolina. He was the founding director of the Wild Goose Festival, as well as the zero28 Project, a faith-based peace and justice initiative in Northern Ireland, and Movies & Meaning, a community making peace through story and image. He has written and spoken widely on religion and conflict, art & spirituality and cinema and reducing violence. He leads retreats every year in Ireland, and is happy to be a work in progress.
Stan Mitchell
Stan serves as the Founding Pastor of GRACEPOINTE in Nashville, TN, a progressive Christian community.
Peggy Flanagan
Peggy Flanagan, a citizen of the White Earth Nation of Ojibwe, is a longtime advocate for Minnesota’s children and families. A noted community and political organizer, she was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in November of 2015. Prior to joining the legislature, she served as the executive director of Children’s Defense Fund-Minnesota, an organization dedicated to leveling the playing field for all children in the region. She also worked for eight years at Wellstone Action, first as director and founder of the Native American Leadership Program, then as director of external affairs. As one of the original trainers of Wellstone Action’s signature program Camp Wellstone, she has trained tens of thousands of progressive activists, community and campaign organizers, future candidates, and progressive officeholders to make effective, sustainable, progressive change around the country.
Joerg Rieger
Joerg Rieger is Distinguished Professor of Theology and holds the Cal Turner Chancellor’s Chair in Wesleyan Studies at Vanderbilt University. Author and editor of more than 20 books, his most recent books include Unified We Are a Force: How Faith and Labor Can Overcome America’s Inequalities (with Rosemarie Henkel-Rieger, 2016) and Faith on the Road: A Short Theology of Travel and Justice (2015). This session will further develop the argument of his book Christ and Empire: From Paul to Postcolonial Times (2007). His books have been translated into various languages and lectures around the globe.
Following are all speakers, presenters, panel members, and performers in alphabetical order.
To do a fast search, use the online index.
Alyssa Aldape
Rev. Alyssa Aldape is the Associate Pastor for Young Adult and Youth Ministries for First Baptist Church of Washington, DC. She is a missionary kid who grew up in Pune, India. She is an active faith leader along Jen Butler and William Barber for Faith in Public Life and Repairers of the Breach ministries. She holds a Master of Divinity from McAfee School of Theology.
Terry Allebaugh
Folkpsalm
Terry Allebaugh learned to play folks songs and hymns on harmonica at a young age from his great-grandmother, Clara May Sandy, who lived in Broadway, Virginia, located in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley. He expanded his skills as a student at Berea College in Kentucky, learning old-timey and bluegrass, and when he later moved to Durham, North Carolina, he added blues and jazz styles to his musical base. His former band, Stuff in the Pot performed at the Bull Durham Blues Festival and he has played the national anthem on numerous occasions for Durham Bulls baseball games. Terry is often asked to play for weddings, funerals, and worship services.
Emily Joy Allison-Hearn
Emily Joy is a writer and spoken word poet who lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She holds a bachelor’s degree in theology and philosophy and writes at the intersections of gender, bisexuality, activism and faith metamorphosis. Emily has released two studio albums of spoken word poetry, competed in the 2014 Individual World Poetry Slam, and travels the country performing for churches, schools, conferences, festivals, and more. In addition to being a full-time artist, Emily is also the Communications Coordinator for Open Table Nashville, a non-profit interfaith homeless outreach organization, and a board member of East Nashville Hope Exchange, a non-profit that seeks to improve the literacy of at-risk grade school students in her neighborhood. When she is not traveling, Emily spends time practicing yoga and supporting the local Nashville activist and poetry communities. She lives with her spouse, two cats, and an adorable puppy.
Marita Anderson
Marita Anderson is a Chaplain with a Master in Jewish Studies from the Academy for Jewish Religion, California. She has served as Chaplain Intern at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, providing spiritual care to families in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and the Rehabilitation Unit. Additionally, she served as an Interfaith Chaplain at Cedar’s Sinai Medical Center, working with patients on the Oncology and Maternity Units. She is passionate about the exploration of spiritual resilience and courage in times of crisis. Marita also holds a Master in International Affairs with a concentration in Security Policy and Middle East from Columbia University. In her early career, she studied Arabic and Hebrew, while working as a researcher for various non-profit organizations and agencies in New York City. She was born and raised in Odessa, Ukraine and immigrated to the United States at the age of 11. Marita currently lives in Atlanta, where she is working as a freelance writer and educator. She shares her life’s journey with her husband, Rabbi Spike Anderson, and their three children.
Rebecca Anderson
Rev Rebecca Anderson (church planter, Gilead Chicago) is ordained in The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). She has a MDiv from the University of Chicago and a BA in Playwrighting from Hampshire College. A believer in the power of the spoken word, Rebecca’s been on Snap Judgment (radio) and The Broad Experience (podcast). As a comic, she was featured in The Boston Globe and The Christian Century. In Chicago, Rebecca has worked with story-telling companies like 2nd Story, The Moth, This Much is True, and Do Not Submit. Rebecca has developed and teaches workshops designed to introduce the craft of storytelling, foster interpersonal connection, and develop the ability of individuals to interpret stories and other texts, including Scripture. These workshops have also happened in nonprofits like Interfaith Youth Core, and Family Matters (a Chicago after-school program). She has worked to create live performance events in her own congregation, with the Glencoe Interfaith Clergy Association, and for regional and national Disciples gatherings.
Rev. Vince Anderson
Born in Fresno, California (the raisin capital of the world), Vince moved to New York City in 1994 to study at Union Theological Seminary with the intention of becoming a Methodist minister. The Reverend lasted three months in seminary, before sensing a new direction to take his music and message to where the people were – into the bars and taverns.
The Reverend calls his music, “Dirty Gospel”, a term reflecting both his musical influences and his theological perspective. He has released four albums, as well as playing a weekly show in New York City for over 20 years with his Brooklyn based band “The Love Choir”. He’s toured internationally as well as playing with artists such as The Roots, Daniel Johnson, and Melvin Van Peebles. His band includes members of TV on the Radio, Run the Jewels, Nick Waterhouse band, and Burnt Sugar. Rev. Vince is currently setting the book of Psalms to music.
Lindsay Andreolli-Comstock
Rev. Dr. Lindsay Andreolli-Comstock currently serves as the Chief Strategy Officer with Convergence US. Prior to joining the Convergence team, Lindsay initiated, negotiated and implemented a unique merger between The Beatitudes Society (for whom she was Executive Director) and Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City. She is an ordained Baptist minister who has served congregations in Virginia and Massachusetts, four years as an Advocate for Women and Children focusing on anti-human trafficking education and child sex tourism prevention in Southeast Asia and is the former Executive Director of National Farm Worker Ministry.
Andreolli-Comstock worked alongside indigenous leaders in Southeast Asia to conduct anti-trafficking campaigns in rural villages in Indonesia as well as developed and distributed child sex tourism prevention kits in Indonesia, Cambodia and Malaysia. During her time on the Board of Directors with the Alliance of Baptists, she served as Chair for the Ministry Partners Committee, was a member of the Justice for Israel and Palestine Committee and helped craft the Alliance’s statement in response to the death of Trayvon Martin.
Andreolli-Comstock is an accomplished speaker, consultant and preacher. She holds a BA in Religion from Chowan University, an M.Div from Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, and a D.Min from Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Her dissertation, “”More Than Charity: Educating and Equipping Lay Leadership for Social Justice Advocacy and Action””, can be purchased at the Theological Research Exchange.
Andreolli-Comstock speaks fluent Bahasa Indonesia, the national language of The Republic of Indonesia. She and her wife, Mary, reside in Atlanta, Georgia with their dog, Amber.
Deke Arndt
Deke Arndt is a climate scientist based in Asheville, North Carolina. For the past seven years, he has served as a lead editor of the State of the Climate report, published annually in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The report is the “annual physical” of the climate system, from the bottom of the ocean to the top of the atmosphere. More than 400 scientists from 50 countries contribute. He is currently the Chief of Climate Monitoring at Asheville’s National Centers for Environmental Information. He is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma School of Meteorology and a member of St. Eugene’s Catholic Church in Asheville.
Rev. Hannah E. Atkins
The Rev. Hannah E. Atkins is the fifteenth rector of Trinity Episcopal Church, Houston. To prepare herself as a third generation Episcopal priest, the Reverend Atkins earned a bachelor of arts degree in history at Douglass College, Rutgers University and a masters degree in divinity at the General Theological Seminary in New York in May 1996, with additional studies in theology at Universidad Centroamericana Jose Simeon Canas in El Salvador. The Reverend Atkins previously served as Senior Assistant Rector at St. John’s Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C. Before joining St. John’s Church, she served as Director of Theological and Christian Education in the Diocese of the Episcopal/Anglican Church of El Salvador, Associate Priest at St. John the Evangelist San Salvador, Priest-in-Charge at Holy Trinity Church Santa Teresa in San Martin, and as Interim Priest-in-Charge at St. Andrew’s Church in Amatepec, Soyapango. The Reverend Atkins is married to Elmer Romero and they have four children (and Paco, the dog).
Shannon Axtell Martin
It has been almost five years since Shannon Axtell Martin started working for the NC Council of Churches as a PHW Regional Coordinator. She previously worked as a hospital chaplain at Wake Forest Baptist Health, received her M.Div from Wake Forest University School of Divinity, and her BA from Catawba College. Shannon feeds her soul through outdoor adventures, art, music, cooking, time with her sisters and friends, and a weekly self-care tradition of walking with her family (her husband, daughter, and two dogs) to a local ice cream shop.
Nathan Baker-Lutz
Something sacred happens when people sing together. Nate Baker-Lutz and Josh Rockett launched Beer and Hymns Chicago after experiencing it at Wild Goose in 2013. With local musicians playing banjos, mandolin, guitar, accordion and anything else laying around they lead spirited sing-alongs where the only rules are faster and louder. They’re committed to minimal amplification, relying on those gathered to lead the way and guide the singing. They’ve also helped a group launch Holland, MI, spreading the joy to more saints, sinners and spirited sojourners. Each time people gather to drink and sing they also laugh, shout, dance and make joyful noises with the hope of rediscovering what it means to gather in the Spirit and allow great hymns to move through God’s people. All are welcome as we join the voices of the past with people in the present and look toward the future we can create together.
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.
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II
The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II is Pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, NC and architect of the Forward Together Moral Movement that gained national acclaim with its Moral Monday protests at the North Carolina General Assembly in 2013.
He has keynoted hundreds of national and state conferences, including the 2016 Democratic National Convention, and has spoken to a wide variety of audiences across the country
Dr. Barber has served as president of the NC NAACP, since 2006 and sits on its National Board of Directors. He is currently Visiting Professor of Public Theology and Activism at Union Theological Seminary New York and is a Senior Fellow at Auburn Seminary. Dr. Barber is regularly featured in major national media outlets and is the 2015 recipient of the Puffin Award and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award. His two most recent books include Forward Together (Chalice Press) and The Third Reconstruction (Beacon Press).
Blyth Barnow
Blyth Barnow is a queer femme raised working class in Ohio. She now lives in Oakland and is a writer, preacher, and community organizer. In 2015 she launched Femminary, an online ministry with a working class, femme, perspective. She is a harm reductionist, survivor advocate, and practical theologian. Her work focuses on the reclamation of dignity and finding Divinity in the profane. She graduated from Pacific School Of Religion where she received a Master of Divinity (MDiv) and the Paul Wesley Ying Preaching Award. More of her work can be found at https://femminary.wordpress.com/
Scott Bass
Scott Bass grew up in rural, southeastern North Carolina when schools in the region were desegregating – and churches were not. Messages from home, school and church about how to interact across lines of race were confusing. Racial tensions and inequities were commonplace.
Scott is now a family therapist living and working in Raleigh, North Carolina. He also offers spiritual direction, coaching, workshops, retreats and consulting. Current projects include working with a non-profit to increase inclusivity and working with a faith community to nurture meaningful communication about racial and political differences. Scott also works as Director of Victim Services for the nonprofit North Carolina Victim Assistance Network. He is married to Marcelle Clowes. They have 15-year-old twin humans and two cats.
Cynthia Bauer
Through her example, speaking, writing, and networking, Cynthia advocates for children with disabilities in Kenya, Tanzania, and the U.S. with increasing global interest. Cynthia co-founding “Kupenda for the Children”, with a Kenyan teacher, is narrated in a recently published book “An Unlikely Gift.” Born without her left hand, Cynthia was moved to action when she learned of the stigmas connected to disability in Kenya. Cynthia encourages others with disabilities to meet their God-given potential by sharing the message of God’s inclusive love in multiple ways including playing her guitar to demonstrate what is possible when opportunities are available to everyone.
Randy Bell
Randy Bell is the Director of Spring Creek Spirituality, a non-denominational spiritual setting independent of a specific religious dogma, welcoming all faiths and backgrounds as we explore each person’s individual spirituality using our everyday language. His spiritual path has taken him to many diverse sources, though he is principally a follower of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, Buddha, Lao-Tsu, and has been a Zen practitioner for 40 years. He has written extensively on various spiritual topics; offers a spiritual sanctuary for individual retreatants in the mountains of western NC; provides instruction in various meditation practices; serves as a guest speaker/session leader; and leads spiritual and personal growth workshops and retreat sessions. He is a member of Spiritual Directors International and the North Carolina Writer’s Network.
Jennie Belle
Jennie Belle was born and raised in Savannah, GA. She moved to Texas for her undergraduate education at Rice University, during which time she studied in Mexico, Peru and Argentina and participated in service projects in Central America. After graduation she moved to Spain for a year to teach English. Jennie then came to North Carolina for a dual degree M.Div./M.S.W. graduate program at Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill where her work focused on advocating for farmworkers and organizing churches for social justice. Jennie currently works at the North Carolina Council of Churches where she is the Program Director for Farmworker & Immigrant Rights.
Bryan Berghoef
Bryan Berghoef is a pastor, writer, pub theologian, and author of the book, Pub Theology: Beer, Conversation, and God. He insists that good things happen when we sit around the table together and talk about things that matter, and what better setting than at the pub, over a pint. Bryan has been facilitating weekly pub conversations for the past seven years, recently in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, DC, and currently in Holland and Saugatuck, Michigan.
Bryan and his wife Christy currently live in Holland, MI, where they are helping form a new progressive faith community:Holland UCC. They both sense that community is at its best where all feel welcome, where love of neighbor is extended and received, and simplicity and depth are at the core. Bryan’s writings have appeared in the Huffington Post, Sojourners, and Patheos, among other places.
Michael Birkel
Michael Birkel is Professor of Christian Spirituality at Earlham School of Religion and is a frequent speaker and workshop leader in Quaker, ecumenical, and interfaith gatherings. He has written several books, including an introduction to Quaker spirituality (Silence and Witness) and an exploration of the interpretation of the Qur’an among North American Muslims (Qur’an in Conversation).
Nadia Bolz-Weber
Nadia Bolz-Weber is the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People(Convergent, 2015), available in bookstores now. She’s also the author of Salvation on the Small Screen? 24 Hours of Christian Television (Seabury 2008) and the New York Times bestselling theological memoir, Pastrix: the Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint(Jericho, 2013). Nadia has been featured in BBC World Service, The Washington Post, Bitch Magazine, NPR’s Morning Edition, Fresh Air, More Magazine, The Daily Beast and on CNN.
Jenna Bowman
Jenna can usually be found riding around the grounds in various trucks, putting up and down the festival and making sure it all works. When she’s not doing that, you may find her helping out at the Desanka tent. She’s been volunteering here since The Goose’s second year.
She’s traveled and lived in Kenya, India, Peru, South American, and the U.K., knows various different sign languages and has worked with the Deaf worldwide. Jenna treasures family and community, and has a heart to serve, to give and spread love to anyone and everyone. She’s Interested in anything and everything involving human connection, nature, meditation and spirituality.
Jordan Bowman
Jordan has been coming to Wild Goose since 2011. He has volunteered for many years and now is serving as a contributor. Jordan also contributes to Goose and many other gatherings by serving with Desanka. A passion for loving and for being love to strangers all over the world coupled with a deep respect for the teachings of Jesus led him to Desanka and he jumped right in.
When it isn’t festival season, Jordan splits his time between perusing a Business degree from NC state University and leading a boys mentoring organization in the Raleigh area called Journeymen Triangle.
Jordan aspires to do many things during his short time here on this Earth. He plans to use his degree and life experiences to assist in the spiritual revolution, this time of global conscious awakening that we are living through and can be a part of.
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.
Kimberly Braun
Rev. Kimberly Braun, Minister, M.A., CSP and Meditation Coach has been devoted to meditation from the age of 5, with over ten years as a Carmelite monastic nun. Her Masters in theology was completed in 2001 in Washington D.C., and is concentrated upon the adult spiritual journey. She has a unique way of connecting to the heart and mind that of those with her, inspiring an experience the Spirit in which we live, move and have our being. Her style is playful, deeply inquiring, and intelligent in the synthesis of not only how to access this part of ourselves, but how to live from that place more consistently. She is a retreat and workshop facilitator, TEDx speaker, meditation faculty at the renowned Omega Institute, and fellow seeker on the path to living freely. Check out her Book, Love Calls, CDs, or book her for your retreat, church, or private session.
Ben Brazil
Ben Brazil directs the Ministry of Writing program at the Earlham School of Religion, a Quaker seminary in Richmond, Indiana. He has worked as a scholar, a reporter, and a travel writer, publishing in venues ranging from The Washington Post to Killing the Buddha.
Namoli Brennet
Namoli Brennet had already been pursuing a career as a touring songwriter and working as music director at a liberal-seeming church when she came out as transgender. People were both vocally opposed and supportive, and the church was ultimately forced to fire her despite the success of the music program. Since then she’s firmly established herself both nationally and internationally as a gifted, passionate songwriter and performer. She’s played on stages in the US, Canada, Europe and Mexico and was recently included in the Bilerico list, “50 successful transgender Americans you should know.” Namoli has been heard on NPR, German Public Radio and her music was featured in the Emmy-Award-Winning documentary, “Out in the Silence.”
LISTEN
Charles Bretan
Both of my parents were Jewish, but that is not what makes me a Jew. I am a Jew because I choose to be: because I choose to live my life in a Jewish way. I choose to study Torah and to live by its precepts; I choose to keep Shabbat and to follow mitzvot; and I choose to eat toasted bagels with a shmear of cream cheese, lox (not nova), and a nice slice of onion. Born and raised in Miami, I now live in Greensboro, NC with my wife, Gail, and our two sons, Lee and Evan. I am a teacher by trade and by disposition. With degrees in education from the University of Florida and from Nova Southeastern University, I have taught almost everything from composition to scuba diving and from leadership to life saving.
Anita Grace Brown
Anita Grace Brown is a wife, mama and yoga + meditation teacher hailing from beautiful South Jersey. Each day she enters the meadow with Sierrra, her golden retriever to affirm that ‘Either everything is a miracle, or nothing is”. She loves being a student of life even more than her role as teacher and humbly returns to Wild Goose for all the gifts of music, art and justice. Anita leads practice from her sacred heart connected to the Christ mystery in us all.
Claire Brown
Claire Brown is a writer, minister, and mama living and working in Tennessee. She is the author of Deep Blue Life, a narrative-based, liberative spirituality children’s curriculum, and blogs about parenthood and theology at seminarymama.wordpress.com.
Claire serves as the Director of Youth and Children’s Ministries at St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in Nashville. An alum of Vanderbilt Divinity School, she is a candidate for ordination to the Episcopal priesthood and is currently studying at the School of Theology at Sewanee. Claire and her partner have one young son.
Poor Clare / Lacey Brown
Based out of Seattle, WA, Poor Clare creates original music inspired by the mysteries of God and life. Poor Clare’s music echoes the beauty of the Pacific Northwest: melodies that soar from the peaks of the mountains, lyrics exploring ocean depths, textures that rain from the clouds like a dream. Led by songwriter and performer, Lacey Brown, Poor Clare invites you along on a musical journey reflecting the beauty and pain of life.
The name is inspired by Clare of Assisi who (with St. Francis) founded a second monastic order that was later named the Order of Saint Clare (or, the Poor Clares).
May these songs be a source of light and hope in a world that is often too dark.
Whitney Brown
Whitney Brown is an artist-theologian, freelance writer, and educator who is always seeking adventure. Whether through work, volunteer opportunities, or just to support friends, Whitney has traveled throughout the Eastern United States exploring many avenues of ministry-in-action. Now settled in Memphis, she seeks to lead and serve through the arts in multiple venues. Whitney’s ministry has been most impacted by the movement of God in her own life through the love of family and friends along with the simultaneous brokenness of creation. While poverty, addiction, racism, and fear seem to abound at every turn in our world, Whitney’s goals in ministry are to make this world more like the Kingdom, beginning with her own heart and vision. Whitney received a B.A. in Religion from Maryville College and an M.A. in Religion from Memphis Theological Seminary.
Find her on twitter @whitneymbrown
Brother’s Bear
Brother’s Bear returns to the Goose with a new full-length album’s worth of stories and sounds to share. Brother’s Bear is a Baton Rouge based multi-instrumentalist quartet spanning the sounds of Indie Folk, Americana, and Roots Rock, while representing a wide range of cultural and spiritual backgrounds. They are working on their second full-length album. The band aims to add to the beauty of the world by creating honest, open-handed art. brothers-bear.bandcamp.com/releases
LISTEN
Jenny Buchanan
Thom Buchanan
Thom started playing the guitar at the age of 12, and has been honored to back-up artists such as Jeff Fenholt, Phil Driscoll, Darlene Zschech, Joe & Becky Cruse, Cindy Cruse-Ratcliff, Kent Henry, legendary studio guitarist Mike Deasy, Georgian Banov, JoAnn McFatter, Don Potter, Suzy Wills-Yaraei and Roy Fields, to notably name a fewHe has musically supported ministries such as: TL Osborne, Reinhard Bonnke, Rodney Howard-Browne, Lou Engle, Jerry Brandt and Jerry Saville.
He is the founder of the bands SonsUVthundr, Thom Buchanan Band and (Band dú Soleil – currently). He’s been joined by his life-long friend and bandmate, Juma Sultan (percussionist for Jimi Hendrix), in all three of these bands. He has played on hundreds of other’s albums and has released three LP’s of his own: “”Living On Borrowed Time””, “”Beautiful”” & “”Christmas Revisited.” He is a New York native and is, currently, making his home in High Point, NC, with his wife Caroline and their children.
Jim Burklo
Jim Burklo is the Associate Dean of Religious Life at the University of Southern California. He is a co-founder of Mindful.USC.edu, a campus-wide initiative for learning, practice, and research; he has been practicing and teaching mindfulness meditation for nearly 40 years. He is an ordained UCC pastor and the author of six books: Open Christianity; Birdlike and Barnless: Meditations, Prayers, and Songs for Progressive Christians; Hitch-Hiking to Alaska: The Way of Soulful Service; a novel, Souljourn; Deeper Love: Faithful Rhetoric for Progressive Social Change; and MINDFUL CHRISTIANITY. He writes a weekly blog, MUSINGS, on progressive Christian spirituality and social activism. Many of his liturgical elements and meditations appear at ProgressiveChristianity.org, and he is an activist, writer, and board member with Progressive Christians Uniting. An avid hiker and lover of the desert, he dabbles in artistic tinwork. He and his wife, Roberta Maran, live in Hollywood; they are blessed with three children and two grandchildren.
Jeff Burns
Dr. Jeff Burns, a recovering evangelical/charismatic Christian and former minister shares about his peacemaking journey with Muslims in the U.S. and abroad in a series of popular stories that he has shared around the world in churches, mosques, and synagogues. Jeff has been a peacemaker between the Muslim and Christian community since 2005. As a charismatic pastor, his world got rocked, and he became a peacemaker and friend to Muslims when he discovered the core message Jesus which is loving my neighbor and treating other people the way we desire to be treated. His stories have given a lot of hope to people.
He lives in Carolina Beach, North Carolina with his lovely wife of 31 years Oceana, and their ten-year-old beautiful, energetic daughter Olivia. When Jeff is not working and traveling, his greatest joys are walking with his wife on the beach, body boarding with his daughter at low tide and writing. jeffburns.org
Cody Burton
Cody is a passionate advocate for for social Justice and full inclusion of within the Church. He is an active member of The Well at Springfield in Jacksonville, Florida. Cody has helped to launch Beer & Hymns Jax in 2014 as well as The Intersections Festival earlier this year.
Jacqui Buschor
Jacqui Buschor is a justice-obsessed organizer, policy wonk, and soon-to-be-seminarian living on the Westside of Columbus, OH. With nearly ten years experience, her deepest passion is teaching and leading people of faith toward new, creative ways of doing justice together and experiencing the transformative power of community.
Diana Butler-Bass
Diana is an author, speaker, and independent scholar specializing in American religion and culture. She holds a Ph.D. in religious studies from Duke University and is the author of nine books, including Grounded: Finding God in the World—A Spiritual Revolution (HarperOne, 2015) and the widely influential Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening (HarperOne, 2012). Her other books include A People’s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story (HarperOne, 2009), nominated for a Library of Virginia literary award, and the best-selling Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith (2006) which was named as one of the best religion books of the year by Publishers Weekly and was featured in a cover story in USA TODAY. Diana regularly writes at The Huffington Post and The Washington Post and comments on religion, politics, and culture in the media including USA TODAY, Time, Newsweek, CBS, CNN, FOX, PBS, and NPR.
Mary Button
Born and raised in East Texas, Mary Button is a liturgical artist and activist. She received a BFA in Photography and Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and earned a Master of Theological Studies from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Her artwork has been exhibited across the United States and the United Kingdom, with exhibitions at the Museum of Biblical Art in New York City, the Church Center for the United Nations, Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, and Wesley House at Cambridge University, to name a few. She currently serves Evergreen Presbyterian Church in Memphis, TN as their Mission Developer.
You can check her artwork out at marybutton.com.
Joseph Caldwell
Dr. Joe Caldwell currently serves as the President of the Memphis Center for Urban and Theological Studies a fully accredited college level program devoted to making higher education available to some of Memphis, Tennessee’s lowest income neighborhoods. Additionally Joe has served in teaching and administrative roles at Gardner Webb University and Golden Gate Baptist Seminary. Deeply committed to social and educational justice Dr. Caldwell is currently chairing the “Memphis Teach-in on the Church and Civil Rights” which is part of the National Civil Rights Museum’s one year commemoration of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tony Caldwell
Tony Caldwell, LCSW is a psychotherapist in private practice, a Social Work educator at the University of Mississippi, and Director of College Ministry at Oxford-University United Methodist Church in Oxford, Ms. He is a member of the Memphis-Atlanta Jungian Seminar and the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. As a public speaker, human rights activist, project facilitator, town hall moderator, and workshop leader, Tony has partnered with The William Winter Institute For Racial Reconciliation, The Human Rights Campaign, Mississippi Racial Equity Community of Practice, the W.W. Kellogg Foundation, The Sarah Isom Center For Women and Gender Studies, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Radical South Conference. Tony and his colleague, Dr. Jandel Crutchfield, have enjoyed success in their grassroots Together Projects promoting interracial and interfaith dialogue across the state of Mississippi. Tony loves writing about the intersection of theology, depth psychology, and social justice. You can find some of his writings at www.tonycaldwell.net
Darren Calhoun
Darren Calhoun is an advocate, worship leader, and photographer based out of Chicago. He works to bridge relationships between people of differing perspectives through story and relationship. Intersectionality is his primary lens when facilitating dialogue and education about justice and inclusion for people marginalized based on race, gender, and/or sexuality. Currently, Darren is Worship Leader at Urban Village Church – South Loop, Associate Fellow for Racial Justice at Evangelicals for Scoial Action, in addition to owning Darren Calhoun Photography. He’s also an extrovert who loves hugs. Follow him on social media at @HeyDarren
Michael Camp
Author of Craft Brewed Jesus (2016) and Confessions of a Bible Thumper (2012), Michael Camp’s insights as a former conservative evangelical and amateur historian will open your eyes to spiritual paradigms rarely imagined today. Michael spent twenty-five years in the evangelical movement, as a missionary to Muslims, a development worker in Africa, and a lay leader in independent, charismatic, and Baptist churches before experiencing a huge faith shift.
Today, he blogs, attends pub theology gatherings, participates in non-conventional spiritual community, speaks to secular and faith-based audiences, and facilitates empowerment projects for the poor in Africa and Asia through his Rotary Club near Seattle, Washington. Engaging his journey just might set you free from the chains of modern, organized religion and “churchianity.” On such e-media as Homebrewed Christianity, Darkwood Brew, The New Covenant Group, Provoketive Magazine, and Recovering Fundamentalists, he shares his story and experience engaging the world with God’s inclusive love outside a traditional religious box.
Sister Simone Campbell
Sister Simone Campbell has served as Executive Director of NETWORK since 2004. She is a religious leader, attorney and poet with extensive experience in public policy and advocacy for systemic change. In Washington, she lobbies on issues of economic justice, immigration reform, and healthcare. Around the country, she is a noted speaker and educator on these public policy issues.
During the 2010 congressional debate about healthcare reform, she wrote the famous “nuns’ letter” supporting the reform bill and got 59 leaders of Catholic Sisters to sign on. This action was cited by many as critically important in passing the Affordable Care Act.
She has led five cross-country “Nuns on the Bus” trips, focused on economic justice, comprehensive immigration reform, and voter turnout. She is also the author of A Nun on the Bus: How All of Us Can Create Hope, Change, and Community, published in April 2014 by HarperCollins. https://networklobby.org/staff/simonecampbellsss/
Bart Campolo
Bart Campolo is an openly secular minister, speaker, and writer who currently volunteers as the Humanist Chaplain at the University of Southern California. Born and raised in suburban Philadelphia, Bart became an evangelical Christian as a teenager and was immediately attracted to urban ministry. After graduating from Brown University and serving as a youth pastor in Minneapolis, he returned to Philadelphia to found Mission Year, a national service organization which recruits young adults to live and work among the poor in inner-city neighborhoods. Later, the Campolo family spent nearly a decade working at street-level as part of the Walnut Hills Fellowship in Cincinnati, where Bart completed his deconversion. Since moving to Los Angeles in 2014, his work has been focused on inspiring and equipping all kinds of people to build more loving relationships, make things better for others, and cultivate a genuine sense of wonder and gratitude for the improbable privilege of being alive and conscious in the first place. bartcampolo.org
Joseph P. Carson
Joseph P. Carson, PE, is a nuclear safety engineer in the US Department of Energy and a “multiple-time prevailing whistleblower” – he is a deeply concerned Christian, engineer, federal agency employee, American, and human. In a real sense, Joe has been a human sacrifice to “the gods” of the “suicide machine” that our unprecedented global civilization increasing resembles – one’s professional standing and economic security – via his decades of much “suffering persecution for justice’s sake” in confronting, non-violently, civilization-threatening institution evil in his profession of engineering and the federal civil service. www.broken-covenant.org www.christianengineer.net
Tom Chappell Lewis
In 2015, Tom Chappell Lewis accepted an unusual call: to leave a seven-year career in church-based youth ministry and step out as a chaplain to the bar scene. Embracing the concept of ministry of presence, Tom turned his mixology hobby into a serious study and acquired the nickname “the Bar Chaplain” from his time spent listening atop a barstool. As a PRN hospital chaplain, Tom’s ministry takes him everywhere from patient rooms to homeless shelters, but his passion is for taking this same skill set into Jacksonville’s breweries and cocktail bars. Tom consults with churches and bar owners and writes on theology, cocktails, and other topics at barchaplain.com.
Annalyse Clark | Guitar
Annalyse Clark is a 21 year-old musician from the Nashville area. She is currently about to enter her third year of studying Music Composition and English Literature at Vanderbilt University. Annalyse (or Anna for short) loves most kinds of music, scary movies, books, and good vegetarian food.
Jeff Clark
When Jeff isn’t leading The Goose, he’s probably either teaching grad students at MTSU, riding a bike, consulting in a political campaign, dancing in a club on Broadway, directing an academic conference in Chicago, or out finding the best ice cream shop in town. Jeff is happiest when he’s multi-tasking.
Jeff loves music and production and creating. In addition to bringing strategic thinking to The Goose, you’ll find him all over the festival grounds making sure the lighting and sound are perfect. And dancing in front of the stage.
Jeff is President and Producer of the Wild Goose Festival and Director of Graduate Studies in IT at Middle Tennessee State University.
Lucinda Clark
Lucinda Clark resides in Charlotte, NC where she recently completed a three-year spiritual direction program and started a private practice. She received her training at Charlotte Spirituality Center. Lucinda is grateful to journey and witness the unfolding of the Divine in those that she companions, as they seek a deeper awareness. Lucinda is a contemplative interfaith spiritual director, respectful of all faith traditions and inclusive of all people. She’s also passionate about volunteering her time in the community offering spiritual direction and she’s looking forward to being of service at Wild Goose.
Mike Clawson
Mike Clawson is the founder of the The Spiritual Transformation Project which works at the intersection of spirituality and social change. He recently completed his PhD in Religion at Baylor University writing a history of the Emerging Church Movement. A former church planter, he currently lives in Austin, Texas with his two children where they enjoy geeky movies, swimming holes, and taco trucks on every corner.
Claire Clyburn
Rev. Claire Clyburn is an ordained Elder in the UMC and pastor in Raleigh, NC. She’s the co-founder of Raleigh Beer and Hymns.
Illiterate Light
Illiterate Light is an alternative rock duet from Harrisonburg VA comprised of two best friends who strive to find the balance between late-night house shows and early morning farm chores. The Flaming Lips meets Contemplative Prayer meets Frank Zappa meets Apophatic Alternative Rock. Guitarist/singer Jeff Gorman is a student of Richard Rohr’s Living School for Action and Contemplation and plays guitar with his hands and bass with his feet as drummer Jake Cochran plays his customized drum set standing up while belting angelic harmony. Their prior Wild Goose appearance was in 2013 when they biked to Hot Springs from Harrisonburg as part of the “Petrol-free Jubilee Bicycle Tour.” They write about everything from non-duality to social justice to millennial dating norms.
LISTEN
Illiterate Light
Illiterate Light is an alternative rock duet from Harrisonburg VA comprised of two best friends who strive to find the balance between late-night house shows and early morning farm chores. The Flaming Lips meets Contemplative Prayer meets Frank Zappa meets Apophatic Alternative Rock. Guitarist/singer Jeff Gorman is a student of Richard Rohr’s Living School for Action and Contemplation and plays guitar with his hands and bass with his feet as drummer Jake Cochran plays his customized drum set standing up while belting angelic harmony. Their prior Wild Goose appearance was in 2013 when they biked to Hot Springs from Harrisonburg as part of the “Petrol-free Jubilee Bicycle Tour.” They write about everything from non-duality to social justice to millennial dating norms.
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David Colbert
David Colbert is a youth leader, worship minister, and blogger at IChurch in Hickory, North Carolina. As a recent graduate of Appalachian State University, he is now in the process of becoming ordained as a full-time pastor at IChurch. David has been involved with youth for 5 years now, and is sensitive to the need of community among Millennials. It is his goal and life’s passion to see how Millennials can fall in love with the Church all over again.
Lerita Coleman Brown
Professor of Psychology Emerita at Agnes Scott College, is a spiritual companion/director, writer, retreat leader, and speaker. A graduate of the Spiritual Guidance Program at the Shalem Institute, Lerita writes about and promotes contemplative spirituality in everyday life, the life and work of Howard Thurman, and uncovering the peace in one’s heart on her website PeaceForHearts.com, and also on Facebook.com and Twitter. Her publications include, “Praying without Ceasing: Basking in the Loving Presence of God,” published in the edited book, Embodied Spirits: Spiritual Directors of Color Tell their Stories, and “Dissecting Racism: Healing Minds, Cultivating Spirits,” published in the edited volume, Living into God’s Dream: Dismantling Racism in America.
Tim Conder
Tim is the founding pastor of Emmaus Way in Durham, NC. He organizes nationally with the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) and locally with Durham CAN serving on their Strategy Team and as a leader of their Clergy Caucus. Currently he working with IAF on a national campaign against gun violence (Do Not Stand Idly By) and locally with CAN on policing transformation, affordable housing, living wage legislation, and educational reform in Durham. Tim is a PhD Candidate at the University of North Carolina in Cultural Studies researching as a pastoral leader/ethnographer in the NAACP “Forward Together” Moral Movement in NC. He is the author of three books including the forthcoming “Organizing the Body” (Fall 2016; Chalice Press), “Free for All: Rediscovering the Bible in Community”, and “The Church in Transition: The Journey of Existing Churches into the Emerging Culture. Tim is also a Trustee Emeritus at the Seattle School of Theology & Psychology. emmausway.net and organizingchurch.com (to be launched in Spring)
Lil Copan
Lil Copan serves as Senior Acquisitions Editor for general trade books at Eerdmans Publishing. Having previously worked in acquisitions for several religious publishing houses — Abingdon Press, Ave Maria Press, and Paraclete Press, among others — Copan brings two decades of experience to Eerdmans. Among her areas of expertise are trade line development, project management, author and platform cultivation, substantive editing, and cross-platform content development. Copan has worked with an impressive array of bestselling authors, including Madeleine L’Engle, Scot McKnight, Debbie Blue, Amy Frykholm, Thomas Lynch, and Lauren Winner. She acquired Frederick Buechner’s Faces of Jesus for Paraclete in 2004 and was credited by Jana Riess in a 2011 Publishers Weekly interview for having “brilliantly suggested” the concept for her book Flunking Sainthood.
Jennifer Copeland
Jennifer is a native of South Carolina and an ordained minister in The United Methodist Church. She has pastored churches across the Upstate of South Carolina and for 16 years served as the United Methodist Chaplain at Duke University, where she also taught undergraduate and divinity school classes, served on committees and task forces, and attended lots of basketball games. She is a graduate of Duke University several times over with a BA, double majoring in English and Religion, a Master of Divinity, a PhD in religion, and a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies. She is the author of, Feminine Registers: The Importance of Women’s Voices for Preaching and an editor of the volume, Preaching Gospel: Essays in Honor of Richard Lischer. Jennifer has two children: Nathan, a software developer who lives in Durham, NC, and Hannah, a student at the University of Tampa.
Sherry Cothran
Brian McClaren calls Rev. Sherry Cothran a “rare combination…an artistic/spiritual trifecta, a first rate singer/songwriter, a dynamic performer and trained theologian.” Leaving a career as an award winning recording artist for Mercury Records, NY to pursue a spiritual journey, Sherry Cothran, M.Div., ordained elder, United Methodist church, combines songs and stories rooted in ancient traditions, theology, myth and her ongoing work as senior pastor/wounded healer to the marginalized populations in her urban community. She fuses her gifts of writing, teaching, preaching, singing, songwriting and workshop presentations as well as her empathic counseling to help others unpack and embrace their own transformative Soul restoring, “wounded healer” power. Sherry has been featured in USA Today, UMC.org, led at Festival of Homiletics, was the Artist in Residence, 2015, at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary. The lead song off of her new CD, “Tending Angels,” is featured in a new music video by award winning film maker, Tracy Facelli.
Susan Cottrell
SUSAN COTTRELL is the prominent voice for faith parents of LGBTQI children. She is an international speaker, author and spiritual director. Through her nonprofit, Susan champions the LGBTQI community and families with characteristic tender-heartedness as she zealously challenges Christians who reject them with wise insistence that love of God and others is the foundation of faith. She spent 25 years in the nonaffirming Evangelical church, is President of FreedHearts, has a Master of Arts in Theological Studies, served as VP of PFLAG Austin, and was featured on ABC’s 20/20, Nightline and Good Morning America. Her books “Mom, I’m Gay”—Loving Your LGBTQ Child and Strengthening Your Faith (Westminster John Knox Press), and True Colors – Celebrating the Truth and Beauty of the Real You, are endorsed by HRC, PFLAG, Gay Christian Network and others. She has been married 30 years, has five children, two of whom are LGBTQI, and lives in Austin.
George Craig McMillian
George Craig McMillian {Kirantana} began his formal spiritual research with the Catholic Brothers of the Holy Cross of Notre Dame. He had already mastered two styles of Kundalini yoga in over 20 years of practice in ashram and monastic life before meeting Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, who taught and initiated him into the Kalachakra Tantra. After having received a vision of the Universal Christ, he gave up all titles and compiled the knowledge of his three decades of spiritual search into the “Peace Yoga” classes and seminars. Today he is a musician, licensed Naturopathic Medical Doctor, and teacher of peace studies.
Bec Cranford
Bec Cranford is a self-identified Bapticostal misfit preacher* from Atlanta, Georgia. When she’s not hanging out with her dog Basil or painting, you can probably find her at the Gateway Center working to make homelessness brief and rare in the city. Or at Candler School of Theology, rocking her students’ socks off. Or, preaching, marrying folks, or sitting on her front porch with friends, having conversations about life, God, and everything in between. This year at the Goose, Bec’s happy to serve as Volunteer Coordinator and offer hospitality to everybody she meets.
Andi Cumbo-Floyd
Andi Cumbo-Floyd is a writer, historian, and farmer, who lives at the edge
of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains with her husband, 4 cats, 4 dogs, 6
goats, 3 rabbits, and 40 chickens. She writes about the history and legacy
of slavery in Virginia, and you can find more of her writing at andilit.com
and ourfolkstales.com.
Also find Andi Cumbo-Floyd at
www.andilit.com — www.godswhisperfarm.com
Kaitlin Curtice
Kaitlin B. Curtice is a Native American Christian author, speaker and worship leader from Atlanta, GA. She is publishing a book with Paraclete Press this November titled “Glory Happening: Finding the Divine in Everyday Places,” a collection of fifty short essays and prayers centered around the idea of glory. She is a contributor for Sojourners and writes on the intersection of spirituality and everyday life on her blog. She is also a contributing writer for The Sisterhood of Progressive Christians. Kaitlin is passionate about helping people find the sacred in everyday experiences through storytelling. Her Potawatomi heritage and voice in the church give a unique perspective on continuing the conversation between the church and indigenous peoples.
Rev. Lainie Love Dalby
Rev. Lainie Love Dalby is an Misfit Minister, Embodied Leadership Mentor & Sacred Artist on a mission to free human spirits that have been oppressed and devalued to Sparkle SHAMELESSLY™ & step into their power. As a spiritual thought leader with her own brand of multimedia ministry, she is dismantling old systems, ideas, and ways of being that promote separateness and limit our full (r)evolutionary potential. She is also deeply passionate about ending the violence we perpetrate against each other and our own bodies by reminding us of our inherent Divinity within. Like a modern day medicine woman, her ultimate goal is to help us feel more comfortable in our own skin and live in greater alignment with who we truly are by unleashing our bold creativity, innate wildness & fierce feminine courage. As global ritualist Barbara Biziou has said, “Like a great sculpture, Lainie Love can see what lives inside of you and frees it to live fully.” http://www.lainielovedalby.com/
Chris Davies
Chris S. Davies is the curator of Queer Clergy Trading Cards. She currently works for the United Church of Christ and is the point person for Congregational Assessment, Support, and Advancement at the National offices. Chris is a local beer enthusiast, creative queer liturgist, and dreamer beyond the normative church. She is a Connecticut native, a Cleveland transplant, and a wandering Irish Rover at heart. This project is a project of revolutionary love, bringing visibility to queer clergy, using humor and irreverence to help change the conversation to highlight common awe (and absurdities) in faith work. The project tells the stories of what oft is an isolating experience, and invites community beyond denomination. Chris loves Jesus and church deeply, and wants to help vision how we can transform the world, for the sake of the Gospel.
Doug Day | Drums
Aline Defiglia
Aline Defiglia LCSW, MPH, CADC is an integrative, licensed psychotherapist adventuring at the intersection of health, healing, and the restoration of connection in a disconnected world. Aline currently serves as a behavioral health provider at a primary care clinic through the National Health Service Corps. She also owns a private practice and works with clients using a unique blend of mind and body healing modalities, life coaching, and team performance improvement. She lives with her husband in Chicago. Discover more at ABWellness.life.
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.
Sarah DeShields
Sarah DeShields is an artist and musician from Scotland, currently finishing her certification this year as a Spiritual Director at Charlotte Spirituality Center. Claiming a Celtic Spiritual heritage and a newness to the contemplative life, Sarah can be found creating spaces for the contemplative arts in communities, forming creative liturgies and sacred spaces where the invitation for all is deeply felt. As a spiritual director she has experienced the beautiful ministry of companioning others in their unique experiences, and is delighted to be returning for a second year at the Goose to offer her time as a director.
Tommy Dillon
The Rev. Tommy Dillon is Priest-in-Charge of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Baton Rouge, LA. In Tommy’s world, there is no such thing as the “outcast and the stranger.” His work with newly-released prisoners, with people suffering mental illness and homelessness, and with Hurricane Katrina survivors gave him a fearless compassion for human need in Louisiana before moving to the West Coast in 2006. While serving as priest in San Francisco and the Seattle Area, LGBT, parish food bank, and elder ministries flourished; Diocesan, parish, and neighborhood Disaster Preparedness groups formed; and connections in El Salvador were created through the Anglican Church of El Salvador and Foundation Cristosal.
Tommy serves on the Boards of the Wild Goose Festival and the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church and is a frequent retreat leader, pilgrimage planner, and an instructor of liturgy.
Collaborating to create beautiful liturgy feeds his soul. Good food, good friends, and road trips with his Whippet pal Josh reveal the Holy in the everyday world.
Reverend Dr. Denise Donnell
The Reverend Dr. Denise Donnell is an ordained elder in the Mississippi Conference of the United Methodist Church.
Denise spent the last 5 years of parish ministry on a successful journey in a cross-racial appointment at Mississippi City United Methodist Church in Gulfport, Mississippi.
Gaining a much larger parish, Denise made the transition from pulpit to community pastor by joining the Human Rights Campaign as Senior Faith Organizer.
The Human Rights Campaign believes total liberation is possible for all God’s children in our lifetime. To that end, Denise has devoted this season of her life to advocating specifically for persons who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender or Queer (LGBTQ).
Dr. Donnell holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English from Jackson State University (1994), a Master of Arts Degree in Secondary Education from The University of Mississippi (1996), a Master of Divinity Degree from Perkins School of Theology (2003) and a Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Education Administration and Supervision from Jackson State University (2008).
Mims Driscoll
Mims Driscoll is a faculty member and spiritual director with the Charlotte Spirituality Center. Mims is also a certified trauma informed yoga specialist. Her passion for people led her to start Living Mangaliso, (Mangaliso is Zulu for You are an Amazement), an in person and online community that focuses on restoring people to their bodies, breath, souls and spirit. Mims’ training includes Restorative Yoga, Yoga for Children with ADD, ADHD, and those on the Autism spectrum, as well as Yoga for Veterans and those suffering with PTSD. Mims is of the contemplative Christian faith, with a passion for interfaith and ecumenical work.
Eiro / Ben Garrett & Holly Duncan
Holly Duncan and Ben Garrett are EIRO. EIRO exists to invite and equip churches to join in the flourishing of their communities. Through workshops, consultations, and relationship building, EIRO is bringing churches back into their neighborhoods where they can join in God’s reconciling work.
Holly is originally from Chattanooga and has lived in Tucker, Georgia for the past 11 years. Prior to founding EIRO, Holly was the Executive Director for NetWORKS Cooperative Ministries. She led NetWORKS through a change process to create a ministry that was focused on building relationships and aimed at empowering everyone who came into contact with her ministry.
Ben is a Marietta, Georgia native. He has worked with churches and nonprofits in Atlanta, Birmingham and Chicago. Ben is a fairly recent divinity school graduate and often still thinks on the quarter system
Mattan Ervin
Photo and Bio to come.
Tio Eshleman
Tio Eshleman is nothing if not passionate. From her early years in Pennsylvania to her exploration of the (inside) of a Pasadena mental hospital, she draws on her life as a gay, half-Japanese bipolar gal to create powerful stories of common humanity. Her stories pull you in. They make you giggle, ask you to sit with your tears and help you experience the “Ah…” of reflection. She is a highly-decorated physician and educator, recognized for her ability to connect with her patients and her students. If you don’t catch her in the middle of an operating room story to illustrate the beauty of grit, you’ll find her toodling about Little Rock, Arkansas. She can be found in the evenings relaxing by a backyard campfire with her mother, Setsuko, and with Sammy, her super smart poodle, IHHO.
Laura Everett
Laura Everett is happiest exploring somewhere new, preferably by bike. Laura is the author of “Holy Spokes: The Search for Urban Spirituality on Two Wheels.” Ordained by the United Church of Christ, Laura is formed by many parts of the Church. By day, Laura serves as the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches, scouting for signs of Christian unity. By night, she’s an unabashed urbanist and a bicycle evangelist. Laura aims for attraction not persuasion. A moderately competent seamstress, Laura loves working with her hands. She believes the work of this moment is to notice and dismantle the racism that has divided this nation and the Church. She’s convinced that if we’re all not free, it isn’t the gospel truth. Laura lives in Boston with her wife Abbi, who has a far more interesting vocation as a middle school Latin teacher.
Carla Ewert
Carla Ewert is the Relationist for Convergence, a parachurch network seeking to build a multi-denominational movement of progressive congregations and leaders. She hosts the Holy Writ Podcast and is a regular panelist on the Christian Feminist Podcast. Carla is the creator of the national gathering for women in church leadership, She Is Called.
Carla lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where you might find her on a summer day in cycling on the city trails or playing at Lake Harriet with her daughters. The long northern winters give her plenty of time for her other diversions—coffee, bourbon, and books.
Anne Findlay-Chamberlain
Rev. Anne Findlay-Chamberlain was ordained as preacher and teacher in the United Church of Christ in 2004. She is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University (1975), Shippensburg University (1985) and North Park Theological Seminary (2004). Anne served three different United Church of Christ congregations in Hawaii before returning to the East Coast in 2016. In her work as a pastor, spiritual director, and retreat leader, Anne loves accompanying individuals, small groups and congregations in discovering God’s presence in their lives.
David Finnegan-Hosey
David Finnegan-Hosey is a campus minister, currently serving as a Chaplain-in-Residence at Georgetown University. He is author of an upcoming book, Christ on the Psych Ward (coming in 2018 from Church Publishing Group), a series of reflections on his journey with bipolar disorder, psychiatric hospitalization, and Christian spirituality. David is passionate about the intersections between faith, story, mental health, and social justice. He also has a blog and a podcast, though who doesn’t these days (but don’t let that keep you from checking out foolishhosey.blogspot.com). A graduate of Wesley Theological Seminary, David lives in Washington, DC with his wife Leigh and their adorable dog Penny Lane.
Papy Fisher
Papy is a warrior-lover, attempting to love every person in the world with the One True Love. His paying gig is being an Outreach Pastor at Fellowship of Christ, EPC in Cary, NC where he is given amazing latitude to teach, train, equip and release some of the most giving and loving individuals in God’s green earth. Papy, when asked what he believes, considers himself “”biblically conservative and socially liberal””. Yes – oxymoronic, but that complexity is Love and Papy is all about Love.
In an attempt to revitalize and invigorate the faith-life of young adults in his circles, Papy has founded Desanka which is more of a movement rather than an organization or mission arm of a church. Through Desanka (and another non-profit he helped co-found called Journeymen Triangle, a mentoring network for boys and men), Papy hopes to mobilize a generation of “Lovers-of-Jesus” that seek to love others in the worth, the words, and ways of Jesus.
Papy is made more socially stable by his faithful wife of 34 years, Debbie. He has 3 adult sons and 100’s of spiritual sons and daughters he refers to as his “lovelies”. And they are lovely because they are each loved by the Person of Love. #DesankaOn
Eric Fistler
Eric Fistler is senior pastor of First Congregational Church of Crystal Lake,IL and the Co-host of the Pulpit Fiction Podcast. Pulpit Fiction is a lectionary podcast for preachers,seekers and bible geeks. Eric started Pulpit Fiction with Robb McCoy in 2013 and they are currently on their second trip through the lectionary. Aside from preaching and teaching, Eric enjoys playing video games, running, kayaking, reading and spending time with his wife, Nina, and their two boys Samuel and Axel.
Peggy Flanagan
Peggy Flanagan, a citizen of the White Earth Nation of Ojibwe, is a longtime advocate for Minnesota’s children and families. A noted community and political organizer, she was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in November of 2015. Prior to joining the legislature, she served as the executive director of Children’s Defense Fund-Minnesota, an organization dedicated to leveling the playing field for all children in the region. She also worked for eight years at Wellstone Action, first as director and founder of the Native American Leadership Program, then as director of external affairs. As one of the original trainers of Wellstone Action’s signature program Camp Wellstone, she has trained tens of thousands of progressive activists, community and campaign organizers, future candidates, and progressive officeholders to make effective, sustainable, progressive change around the country.
Linda Flynn
Leader, Spiritual Direction Team
Linda Flynn is Executive Director of the Charlotte Spirituality Center, a spiritual and educational institute that offers training of spiritual directors, companionship in spiritual formation and spiritual direction in the Southeast. A spiritual director and retreat leader for sixteen years, she specializes in Ignatian Spirituality, discernment, twelve step, and the Enneagram. With a degree in Hospitality Management, Linda received her ministry training through the Jesuits, the Enneagram Institute, her certification from the Charlotte Spirituality Center and supervisory certificate from “Together in the Mystery Supervision Program” associated with San Francisco Theological Seminary. A member of Spiritual Directors International, Linda describes herself as a progressive, ecumenical Catholic who values community, non-violence, and equality. Linda is also the co-founder of the annual event “Blanket Banquet” for the homeless and author of the retreat workbook “Praying Twelve Steps With Jesus: A Journey Back to Wholeness.” Her hero is Dorothy Day.
Nathan Evans Fox
Nathan Evans Fox is an Americana/folk musician from Glen Alpine, North Carolina, where he grew up surrounded by country, folk, gospel, and Americana. These roots form the rich undercurrent of his music, which combines bluegrass riffs, folk stories, and religious imagery with unorthodox layers of sound and a heavy dose of wit. Fox has been writing music for ten years, experimenting with a variety of genres and learning new instruments along the way. He has collaborated with other artists as a fiddle player, guitarist, and vocalist. His lyrics confront political, religious, and personal inconsistencies (even his own), but also offer a meditation on what it means to live with and love another. Fox wrote, performed, and produced his first full-length album “Home,” which was released in January 2017. He lives in Houston with his best friend/wife Elizabeth and their dog Maisie.
LISTEN
Emily Francis
Emily M. Francis is a writer and urban educator with a MAE in English and Education. After teaching high school English for 15 years in Toledo Public Schools in Toledo, OH, she currently teaches first-year writing for the Writing and Rhetoric Department at Oakland University. She lives in Rochester Hills, MI with her husband Tuf Francis and their two children. She also teaches Jazzercise and spends most days writing, dancing and shuttling people about in her minivan. She has a passion for creativity and for helping others live creative lives. A few years ago, while doing laundry, she remembered she was a poet. Emily recently attended University of Michigan’s Bear River Writers’ Conference as a poetry scholarship recipient and is currently working on her first collection of poems.
Tuf Francis
Tuf (pr. “toof”) Francis began playing music on a single Middle Eastern drum, called a derbeki, 24 years ago. He broadened his musical repertoire over the next few years with guitar, drum kit, and song writing and recording. He was a public high school teacher, youth group leader, and praise leader from 1997-2007. He then took a seven-year hiatus from music to finish a doctorate in teacher education at the University of Michigan (inevitably making him an insufferable Michigan football fan). Currently, he is a family man, tenure track professor, scholar, public speaker, and active musician. His research interests focus on initial teacher certification, education program development, and building partnerships with inservice teachers. His speaking and musical efforts focus on helping churches and other organizations raise money for philanthropic causes. Check out his music video, To the Party, on youtube.com. Learn more about Tuf and his music: @TufFrancis and www.tuffrancis.com.
LISTEN
Gwen Fry
The Reverend Gwen Fry is an ordained Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Arkansas. Her experience coming out as a trans woman of faith makes her keenly aware of the necessity for the equality of all God’s children.
Experiencing the effects of discrimination first hand, she has been actively involved in the work of justice in the transgender community both in Arkansas and across the Episcopal Church.
Gwen is an advocate and activist for the transgender community who was a leader in the coalition of organizations who fought back the anti-transgender bills introduced in the Arkansas General Assembly this year. She is the Vice President of National Affairs for Integrity USA. She is a board member of Pridecorps, an LGBTQ youth center in Little Rock, Arkansas. An active member of TransEpiscopal, Gwen, also serves on its steering committee.
George Fuller
Rev. Dr. George Fuller, Jr – Founder and Executive Director of Silver Compassion, born out of George’s 40 years as a minister in churches, community service focused on the homeless, mental illness and addiction as well as his 13-year journey of caring for both his parents and his in-laws through the end of life. He discovered how confusing and emotionally draining it was to be a caregiver. The Life Plan Compass Protocol was developed to help navigate the complexities of aging and address the insecurities of young adults, while securing the resources needed and sharing life with those we love. George holds a Masters of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry with a specialty in small group process. He is also a Certified Senior Advisor (CSA) and a trained mediator.
Tripp Fuller
Tripp is a husband to Alecia, Father to Elgin & Khora, a minister, avid Laker fan, competitive home brewer, & a theology nerd pursuing a PhD at Claremont Graduate University. He is also the self-proclaimed president of the John Cobb fan club where he holds the title of #FANiac in Chief.
Tripp is also a member of Homebrewed Christianity Podcast. Since March 13, 2008, Homebrewed has been bringing you the best nerdy audiological ingredients so you can brew your own faith. You will find conversations between friends, theologians, philosophers, and scholars of all stripes. What started as a reason for Tripp to interview the authors of his favorite books has turned into a community of podcasts, bloggers, & Deacons (what we call our regular listeners) invested in expanding and deepening the conversation around faith and theology. We hope you listen, question, think, and then share the Brew!
Tret Fure
Tret Fure has released 15 acclaimed albums in her 47 year career. Her latest, “Rembrandt Afternoons” is receiving stellar reviews. In addition, Fure has engineered and produced a variety of artists, including herself.
Some of the awards Tret has won include The South Florida Folk Festival Singer/Songwriter Competition in 2 out of 3 categories, the Jeanne Schliessman award for Outstanding Contributions to Women’s Music. and “Pride In The Arts Favorite Female/Lesbian Musician”. She is number 3 on the top 20 CD charts for OitVoice.net and is number 1 on Reverbnation in the Hampton Roads area..
Tret markets her own line of clothing, teaches guitar and songwriting individually and in workshop settings and paints pet portraits on commission. Along with bridging the marketing, production, art and music worlds, Tret is President of Local 1000, The Traveling Musicians Union. She is truly a Renaissance woman!
Justin Gabbard
As the Young Adult Missioner for the Episcopal Diocese of Lexington, Justin Gabbard works to build non-traditional spiritual communities among young people in northern Kentucky. For most of the last fifteen years, he has made his home in downtown Covington, where he also serves as a curate for Trinity Episcopal Church.
Kevin Garcia
Kevin Garcia is a writer, speaker, musician, and creative based in Atlanta, GA. He graduated from Christopher Newport University in 2013 with a BM in Music Education, and has been everything from a barista to a corporate office worker to a non-profit professional since then. After coming out in the fall of 2015 as a gay Christian, Kevin has reached thousands of individuals across the globe with his blog, theKevinGarcia.com, his podcast, “A Tiny Revolution,” and through speaking engagements at churches and universities. He’s heavily involved with The Reformation Project’s mission to make the global church more inclusive, is presently a candidate for a Masters of Divinity from Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, GA, and an active member of Grace Midtown Church. In addition to LGBTQ advocacy, Kevin’s passions include vocal jazz, tacos, and really horrible dad jokes.
Bruce Garner
Dr. Bruce Garner serves as the president of Integrity USA, the flagship ministry of the Episcopal Church to and from the LGBTQ community and as the chairman of Lost ‘n Found Youth, Inc., a agency which provides housing and life stabilization services for LGBTQ teens in his hometown of Atlanta, GA.
For his work in the non-profit arena on behalf of the marginalized and disenfranchised, Bruce was recently awarded an honorary doctorate from Berkeley Divinity School of Yale University for his work in the non-profit arena on behalf of the marginalized and disenfranchised.
Sharon Seyfarth Garner
Rev. Sharon Seyfarth Garner, Director & Founder of Belly of the Whale Spiritual Direction & Retreat Ministries, is an avid mandala colorer, mother of two, returned peace corps volunteer, and life-long contempl-activist (one who seeks to be grounded in contemplative practices while actively working toward peace with justice). Sharon is the author of two books – Praying with Mandalas: A Colorful, Contemplative Practice and Mandalas, Candles and Prayer: A Simply Centered Advent. Formally, she holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A.) and Methodist Theological School of Ohio (M.Div); and has earned graduate certificates in Spiritual Direction (Ignatian Spirituality Institute of John Carroll University), Diversity Management (Cleveland State University), and Ecumenical Studies (World Council of Churches). Informally, she loves being at her little cabin in the woods, kayaking, making pottery, singing loudly and talking walks with her husband and beloved dog, Bear.
EIRO / Ben Garrett and Holly Duncan
Holly Duncan and Ben Garrett are EIRO. EIRO exists to invite and equip churches to join in the flourishing of their communities. Through workshops, consultations, and relationship building, EIRO is bringing churches back into their neighborhoods where they can join in God’s reconciling work.
Holly is originally from Chattanooga and has lived in Tucker, Georgia for the past 11 years. Prior to founding EIRO, Holly was the Executive Director for NetWORKS Cooperative Ministries. She led NetWORKS through a change process to create a ministry that was focused on building relationships and aimed at empowering everyone who came into contact with her ministry.
Ben is a Marietta, Georgia native. He has worked with churches and nonprofits in Atlanta, Birmingham and Chicago. Ben is a fairly recent divinity school graduate and often still thinks on the quarter system.
Gina Gass
Gina Gass was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio. She graduated with a bachelor’s in theater and communication from the University of Toledo. She works for the college of Engineering recruiting high school students. She has a Lutheran and Catholic background and is appreciative of all faith walks. She has been in numerous plays and wrote, directed, and produced her own show as her senior thesis at UT. She loves performing and connecting with people. She hopes to create a free flowing session where people from all walks of life will be able to relate and connect with each other in a profound way.
Mitchell Gold
Mitchell Gold, co-founder and chair-man of Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams (www.mgbwhome.com), is a different kind of man running a very different kind of business.
Besides running a multi-million company, Mitchell is co-founder of Faith in America, a non-profit dedicated to educating people about the harm religion-based rejection causes LGBT Americans, especially vulnerable teens (www.faithinamerica.org). He also served on the Board of Directors of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), an advocacy group for LGBT rights, for seven years.
Mitchell is also editor of CRISIS: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing Up Gay in America. Response to the book has been incredibly gratifying as so many people have told Mitchell how it has changed their lives.
Everyone who knows Mitchell knows he wears his personal beliefs on his sleeve. In every aspect of his personal and business life, Mitchell strives to make a difference. http://www.faithinamerica.org/bio-mitchell-gold/
Anna Golladay
Anna thrives on curating creative & entrepreneurial possibility via Work of Place and Faithmarks. She is a United Methodist pastor, a creative ninja, entrepreneurial to the core and sarcastic to a fault. Via Work of Place, she helps urban churches understand how their underutilized facilities can work alongside burgeoning entrepreneurs, often lacking in resource and financing, with the intent of sparking both neighborhood revitalization and an increase in ideators who change their communities. She is also the curator and founder of Faithmarks, a photographic art exhibit that showcases the spiritual stories behind tattoos. With storytelling at the heart of this traveling show, Anna invites our stories to provide the creative foundation for the new Kingdom that is needed, not to bind us to the mold of the one that birthed us. Instagram and Twitter: @unholyhairetic
Terry Gonda
Drawing from the complexities of her own journey as a Catholic, lesbian, engineer, artist; Terry Gonda has been weaving stories of hope and inspiration through song for over 30 years. Her voice is strikingly soul-stirring, yet it is her passion, humor, and raw vulnerability that connect deep within the listener. Traversing genres of folk, pop, country and coffeehouse rock; she pairs her powerful vocals with skillful and playful guitar – from dynamic rock rhythms to delicate harmonic-laced finger style.
Terry is thrilled to bring her full band with musicians from Detroit and Atlanta to this year’s Goose. Their dynamic performance of original tunes mixed with select cover songs will leave you encouraged, comforted, and challenged to tell your own story of love and hope. Terry has released two CDs: “Love, Lose, Repeat” and an album of retreat theme songs, “Children of God”.
David V. Goodwin
David V. Goodwin is a recent MDV graduate of McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, IL. During seminary he has organized for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, Fight for 15, the People’s Lobby, and Seminarians for Justice. He is also a storyteller and creative writer, which he uses in his ministry to, among other things, retell biblical stories as anecdotes and folktales. At Wild Goose, he hopes to bridge these two passions, encouraging the storyteller in everyone as a powerful resource for building the world-as-it-should-be. You can find David on Twitter @theoforyourself and at theoforyourself.wordpress.com.
Ben Grace
Ben Grace is an Australian songwriter who lives in Brooklyn NY with his wife Sara Ann and adopted “Brooklyn Terrier” Gigi. Persistent and prolific Ben has had more than 50 songs released over the last 20 years and has written in a range of styles from power pop to country. In late 2011 he left his hometown of Sydney to pursue cowriting in the US and has hosted a songwriting community that meets monthly in his apartment for the last five years. Ben has a passion for local craft beer, good stories, messy
community, and better questions. He is the worship director at Forefront Brooklyn, curates and creates progressive worship music for The Calendar Years, and works to see church be a place where everyone has a seat at the table.
Melissa Greene
Melissa Greene is a speaker, singer, curator, pastor and writer. The first ten years of her professional ministry were spent traveling as an artist; seven of those years she sang as part of the contemporary Christian music group, Avalon (American Music Award Inspirational Artist of the Year in 2003, Grammy Nominated in 2005, and Dove Award Winning.) In 2009 Melissa resigned from touring and was immediately hired at GRACEPOINTE Church, a progressive Christian community in Franklin, TN. Melissa worked as Associate Pastor for 8 years at GRACEPOINTE curating the services, leading the music and arts program, nurturing the community and preaching once a month.
As the Hope Curator for Timothy’s Gift (a prison outreach), Melissa produces Concert Tours with other artists designed to entertain and uplift those in maximum security prisons. She is an intentional creator fueled by her love of the beauty, truth and goodness in this world, her belief of the inherent worth of all who inhabit it.
Emily Griffin
Emily will be co-leading children’s activities at Wild Goose again this year. She’s an Episcopal priest at St. Alban’s in Washington, DC and a trainer in Godly Play – a hands-on, creative method of spiritual guidance used primarily but not always with kids. When she’s not in a circle sharing stories, she’s either reading voraciously, attempting French cooking with her husband, or brushing up on her Spanish. She’s most at home in the mountains and can’t wait to sing and work and pray and play again this year at the Goose.
Bill Guerrant
Bill Guerrant and his wife Cherie raise goats, chickens, pigs and chemical-free vegetables on their farm in southern Virginia. Bill is a retired attorney, a seminary graduate and the author of Organic Wesley: A Christian Perspective on Food, Farming and Faith (Seedbed, 2015).
Morgan Guyton
Morgan Guyton and his wife Cheryl are co-directors of the NOLA Wesley United Methodist Campus Center at Tulane and Loyola in New Orleans, LA. He has just released his first book How Jesus Saves the World from Us: 12 Antidotes to Toxic Christianity with Westminster John Knox.
Elizabeth Hagan
Elizabeth Hagan is the Executive Director of Our Courageous Kids, a foundation dedicated to orphan care education, a free-range pastor in the Washington DC area, and the author of a spiritual memoir, Birthed: Finding Grace Through Infertility. She’s now an adoptive mom and the family travel agent as together with her husband, Kevin they’re always planning their next trip.
Josh Hailey | Keys
Josh Hailey
Melissa Green and Josh Hailey have worked together for the past 16 years. They currently both serve at GRACEPOINTE church where Melissa is the Associate Pastor and Josh is the Creative Director.
John Hamilton
John Hamilton is an Episcopal Priest serving at St. Elizabeth’s Church in Dahlonega, Georgia. Making ancient wise spiritual practices from his Anglican Tradition available to others is his current focus, outside his parish. Chief among these is the Daily Office. This year will be his fifth Goose. He studied theology at the University of Oxford and at the General Theological Seminary in New York City, lived in L’Arche, and was a missionary in Honduras where he learned serving the world well requires a foundation in prayer. In high school he found the daily office, also called the liturgy of the hours, and he has pursued this ancient spiritual practice both individually and communally for four decades, in four languages, on three continents. Basically he’s a daily office junkie and wants to get you hooked! But he advises caution: God just might answer prayer!
David Hansen
David Hansen has served in ministry in the United Church of Christ and more recently in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) for more than 40 years. His studies at the Pacific School of Religion and the Graduate Theological Union focused on religion and society and economic policy. He has served as campus minister in Oregon and Saskatchewan, and in congregations from Wisconsin to Hawai’i. He served as the conference minister of both the Hawai’i Conference of the United Church of Christ and the Kansas-Oklahoma Conference of the United Church of Christ. He and Sally, his wife, are parents and grandparents of an interracial, multicultural family that includes Christians, Muslims, and atheists, as well as French and Turkish citizens. His passion is to create a society in which interracial and multicultural justice and peace are normative.
Scott Hardin-Nieri
Scott Hardin-Nieri is partner, dad, spiritual director, pastor, and sojourner. He is the Director of the Creation Care Alliance of Western North Carolina and Associate Minister of Green Chalice of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Prior to living in North Carolina, Scott and his family served in the vulnerable cloud forest of Monteverde, Costa Rica. There he learned to how to climb Fig Strangler trees, spot Two-toed Sloths, call like a Mot Mot, and listen to people and nature in a new way. Scott is an ordained pastor with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and enjoys accompanying people during transformative experiences, whether during hikes, spiritual direction, wilderness quests, shared stories, service learning trips, live music concerts, camps or retreats. He continues to be reminded of his true self most clearly in the forests, oceans and deserts and seeks to invite others, particularly faith communities into conversations regarding creation.
David Harold
David Harold M.Div. LCSW
David Harold is a long time psychotherapist, social activist, and practitioner of cross cultural healing and meditative traditions, while remaining grounded in his Christian faith. With over 40 years practice in Tai Chi and Qigong he is working to integrate principles from these practices with western psychological and Christian contemplative ways to embody personal and social peace.
Lynden Harris
Hidden Voices is a radically inclusive, participatory, and co-creative organization committed to creating just, compassionate, and sustainable relationships. Our core values are simple: All lives have meaning. All stories matter. As practitioners of a radically inclusive process, we’re committed to breaking traditional artistic and social boundaries so as to tell the stories that matter most, shed light on complex situations and voices, and envision together the future we wish to create.
Founder of Hidden Voices, Lynden Harris collaborates with underrepresented communities to create award-winning works that combine narrative, performance, mapping, music, digital media, animation, and interactive exhibits. Lynden is a member of the MAP Fund Class of 2016 and in 2014 was named a Founding Cultural Agent for the US Dept. of Arts and Culture. She also teaches Stories for Social Change at Duke University and is a founding team member of Duke Transformative Prison Practices.
Through Hidden Voices, Associate Director Kathryn Hunter Williams has co-created performances with undocumented youth, families escaping violence, military spouses, survivors of sexual assault, communities facing gentrification, and the currently incarcerated. Kathryn is faculty at the Dept. of Dramatic Art at UNC, a long-standing member of PlayMakers Repertory Co., and has worked with Living Stage, The Negro Ensemble, New Dramatists, and the Chautauqua Theater Company.
Lyndon Harris
Lyndon Harris is the Co-director of Tigg’s Pond Retreat Center in Zirconia, NC, where he is developing a Journey to Forgiveness Institute. Harris is also a forgiveness coach, and an inspirational and motivational speaker, having spoken at numerous conferences across the United States and around the world. He served more than 20 years as a pastor and his work at Ground Zero as priest-in-charge of Saint Paul’s Chapel (located directly across from the World Trade Center in New York City) has been written about widely, including the NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Christian Science Monitor. His work in forgiveness is featured in the award winning documentary, “The Power of Forgiveness” (Journey Films 2006). Harris is also the Executive Director of the Gardens of Forgiveness, an educational non-profit dedicated to teaching the way of forgiveness as tool for conflict transformation and peace making.
Vanessa Hawkins
My journey into spirituality was sparked during my seminary studies and during my service as a mission partner at a small South African Anglican seminary where I was encouraged to engage in spiritual practices. The seminary’s approach to spiritual formation arrayed before me a rich tapestry of spiritual practices that moved me to pay closer attention to God’s presence in my life.
In a spiritual direction session, I seek to engage a person’s heart and mind through the art of contemplative listening which helps us to tap into an inner knowing—a deeper intuitive knowledge that enables one to follow the blowing of the Spirit. I have practiced spiritual direction since earning a Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Direction from San Francisco Theological Seminary in 2014.
Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, PhD
Knowing intimately that the borderlands are a place of learning and growth, Robyn draws on their identity and heritage as a Trans queer Latinx in everything that they do. From doubt to divine and everywhere in between, their call as an activist-theologian demands the vision to disrupt hegemony and colonialist structures of multi-layered oppressions. As an anti-oppression, anti-racist, non-binary Trans*gressive Latinx, Robyn takes seriously their call as an activist theologian and ethicist to bridge together theories and practices that result in communities responding to pressing social concerns. Robyn sees this work as a life-orienting vocation, deeply committed to translating theory to practice, and embedded in re-imagining our moral horizon to one which privileges a politics of radical difference.
Native American Friends
Ya’at’eeh, Greetings! We are the Henry family. We are Dine, mostly known as Navajos. We originally come from a place called Spider Rock, which is apart of Canyon DeChelly, in Chinle, Arizona which is the Central part of the Navajo Nation. My name is Andreana Henry. I live in Fort Defiance, Arizona, approximately 15 minutes from a well-known place called Window Rock, Arizona of the Navajo Reservation. I’m a mother of two boys, Keaden whom is 12 years old, and Kenyon, who is five years old. My parents have four kids, five grand-children and one great-grandchild. My dad is a Silversmither and my mom makes beaded jewelry. This how they made a living and how they brought us up. This is our family. We are told not to forget where we come from. We are proud of who we are and where we come from as a Family. Ahe’hee!
Chris Henson
Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.A. in Psychology/Human Resource Development from NCSU (1998), and received his M.Div. from Duke (2001). He is an ordained Elder (2006) in the Western NC Conference of the United Methodist Church, serving as a pastor for over 15 years, first in England followed by appointments in the Piedmont-Triad of NC. Chris was the Pastor-in-Residence with the Wesley-Luther Fellowship at UNC Greensboro. Presently, he’s a resident chaplain at WFBMC where he is responsible for the burn unit and adult behavioral health units. Chris is a husband to Summer, father to Sophie, admitted cigar-arsonist, creative, subversive, and living with clinical depression.
Grayson Hester
Grayson Hester is currently a pastoral intern at Glendale Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee, a welcoming and affirming congregation affiliated with the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America. He graduated just two months ago from Carson-Newman University in Jefferson City, Tennessee with a degree in communications and religion. When he’s not communicating religiously, he enjoys hiking, playing guitar, running, reading, and a whole bunch of other gerunds. This is his third time at the Goose and is hoping it really is the charm.
Stephanie Hester
Stephanie Hester is the Founder and Visionary of Audacious Faith, the parent company of the Paint Your Story program. She is also a successful speaker and artist. Having worked with both Fortune 500 and Inc. 500 companies she has been speaking and hosting team building workshops for over 20 years. She began painting as therapy for her PTSD and her art is now displayed in homes and businesses across the country. In her own words, “I paint to heal, to communicate, to celebrate.” She is an advocate for our military and is involved with several organizations that support them and their families. The author of the motivational book Choose a Better Life: Common Sense for Uncommon Living, Stephanie’s mantra is: “you can’t always control what happens to you, but you can always control how you respond to what happens to you.”
Gareth Higgins
Gareth Higgins is a writer from Belfast, Northern Ireland now living in Asheville, North Carolina. He was the founding director of the Wild Goose Festival, as well as the zero28 Project, a faith-based peace and justice initiative in Northern Ireland, and Movies & Meaning, a community making peace through story and image. He has written and spoken widely on religion and conflict, art & spirituality and cinema and reducing violence. He leads retreats every year in Ireland, and is happy to be a work in progress.
Sheridan Hill
My life, and my work as a personal biographer, has taught me this: Life is a series of stories that you tell yourself; the worst mistake we make is believing our stories of victimization and repeating them in our heads, re-traumatizing ourselves and ensuring that we will continue to react instead of respond to each moment. Reactions rush forth out of past pain and are full of self-justification (the moral high horse); responses arise from an inner capacity to be-with-what-is (breathing into the vulnerability that love calls us to). I call myself a master griever because of the grief work that life foisted on me–no, graced me with–and am proud to work with forgiveness activist Lyndon Harris. I believe in the healing power of rituals as simple as lighting a candle with an intention, both as private actions and as moments of community-building and group witnessing.
Claire Hitchins
Claire Hitchins is a learner in life whose journey of radical discipleship has led her from food justice work in Richmond, Virginia to living among marginalized communities in Cochabamba, Bolivia, making an ancient pilgrimage across Spain to accompanying immigrant farm-workers in central Washington. In December 2015 her original music was featured on the blog of On Being with Krista Tippett, initiating a leap of faith into new musical pursuits. She recorded her debut album, These Bodies, which she self-released in October 2016. When she’s not on the road offering her music as medicine, she can be found at home at Charis Community in Charlottesville, Virginia, co-cultivating generative, resilient and healing lifeways in resistance to empire. Claire received her BA in Religious Studies from The University of Virginia in 2013 and served with Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest ’15-’16.
LISTEN
Daniel White Hodge, PhD
Daniel White Hodge, PhD, is the Director of the Center for Youth Ministry Studies and Assistant Professor of Youth Ministry at North Park University in Chicago. Dr. Hodge has worked in the urban youth and Hip Hop context for over 20 years. He is also the founding editor-in-chief of The Journal Of Hip Hop Studies.
Dr. Hodge, a Hip Hop scholar and urban youth specialist, focuses on Hip Hop Studies, urban/ city youth culture & development, race relations, film, pop culture trends, and spirituality. Having received his PhD from Fuller Graduate School of Intercultural Studies, his dissertation focused on the life, theology, and spiritual message of Tupac Amaru Shakur (TITLE: Baptized in Dirty Water: The Missiological Gospel of Tupac Amaru Shakur). He graduated cum laude from Cal State Monterey Bay where he focused on academic attainment and self-esteem among African American Adolescents.
Dr. Hodge and his wife, Emily, and daughter, Mahalia Joy, currently reside in Chicago.
Shannon TL Kearns and Ashley Hovell, Uprising Theatre Company
Uprising Theatre Company believes that stories can change the world. Something powerful happens when we get away from facts and figures and spreadsheets and simply tell each other our stories. It makes the “big issues” more tangible and it allows us to wrap our minds around how we can be a part of bringing about change.
Uprising tells powerful stories about important topics in a way that’s not preachy or strident, but is instead rooted in people’s lived experiences. From mental illness and suicide to transgender issues, we tell stories that come from people who have lived those experiences.
But we don’t want it to stop with just telling stories. We hope people are so inspired by stories that they want to make a concrete difference. So we partner with local organizations who are working on the issues presented in the show to funnel the energy and excitement generated by storytelling into action that will make the world a better place.
Kristen Howerton
Kristen is a licensed marriage and family therapist, mom of four, and the founder of the blog Rage Against the Minivan, where she writes about parenting a transracial family. Kristen has a passion for engaging people on the topic of racial justice. She spent 10 years teaching students at Vanguard University on the topic of psychology and diversity, and is now a full-time writer. She also helps lead Beer and Hymns in Orange County, CA.
Matthew Huett
Matt has spent the past 20+ years as a pastor and a university professor. He has recently relocated from central Florida to western Carolina where he serves as a teaching pastor, bartender and campus missionary.
Will Humes
Will has been a pastor in the United Methodist Church for 30+ years, and is someone who tries, though often fails, to follow Jesus. He works for the full inclusion of all people in Christ’s church, and strives to help people discern the presence of God in their lives. He received his training in spiritual direction at Sustainable Faith in Cincinnati (sustainablefaith.com). One of his favorite quotes is by Frederick Buechner: ““My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because . . . it is precisely through [our] stories in all their particularity, as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself known to each of us more powerfully and personally. If this is true, it means that to lose track of our stories is to be profoundly impoverished not only humanly but also spiritually.”
Kate Hurley
To my friends and the friends I have not yet met, let me tell you a bit about my journey…
I grew up in a mountain town in Colorado, surrounded by beauty. When I think of what gave me solace in that time, there are two things that come to mind: the old rickety upright piano in our living room that I would play for hours at a time and the big wheel I would ride around our deck with my brother Will. Those things still bring me joy…writing and playing music that I hope declares beauty to my community and to other communities,and the friends and family around the world that make my life meaningful.
After many years of writing songs “in the closet,” I finally went public and begantouring in 2002. This was also the same year that I started my non profit organzation, Mercy Projects. The goal of Mercy Projects is to bring visibility and funds to AIDchild orphanage in Uganda, iempathize, an organzation that fights child explotiation, and other charities that I have tried to support over the years.
A few years ago, I asked myself the question,”Kate what if for the rest of your life, all you did with your music was write songs for your neighbor that was going through a divorce or a death. Would that be enough for you?” I thought for a while and said “Yes it would be enough.” In the midst of this, I started teaching music lessons, which has been a dream job for me. After each lesson I can’t believe I have the privilege of bringing the magic of music into people’s lives, a catalyst for them to know the treasures that are inside of them.
I wrote my book, Cupid is a Procrasinator: Making Sense of the Unexpected Single Life in 2013. Whether it is my music, writing, or teaching, I pray that my motivation for creating is to love people well.
Matt Inman
Matt Inman is a psychotherapist with a private practice in Austin, Texas. He hosts Inefficiency Podcast, a show exploring the sacred inefficiencies of relationships, convictions and spirituality. Matt admittedly has the most to learn about living inefficiently. His wife is encouraging him in creativity and his kids are teaching him the importance of play. While Austin is home, part of Matt’s heart is in Kansas City, MO and several pieces are scattered up and down the California coastline.
Instagram: @inefficiencypodcast twitter: @inefficiencypod
Gard Jameson
Gard Jameson teaches Indian & Chinese philosophy at the University of Nevada.
He is the Chair of the Interfaith Council of Southern Nevada and Children’s Advocacy Alliance. He is the author of 3 books, Phaethon, an epic of the West, Monkey, the epic of China, and Ramayana, the epic of India. He and his wife co-founded Volunteers in Medicine of Southern Nevada and the Jameson Fellowship, jamesonfellowship.org.
J. Marshall Jenkins
J. Marshall Jenkins, Ph.D., is a writer, counseling psychologist, and spiritual director. Through his writing and listening ministries, Marshall strives to validate the faith and empower the discipleship of people facing emotional pain. The Beatitudes point to rich insights for that mission, and he shares them in his Beatitudes Blog at www.jmarshalljenkins.com and in his recently published book, Blessed at the Broken Places: Reclaiming Faith & Purpose with the Beatitudes (Skylight Paths, 2016). He received certificates in spiritual formation at Columbia Theological Seminary and in spiritual guidance at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation. Since 1987, he has served as Director of Counseling at Berry College and conducted an evening private practice in psychotherapy and spiritual direction. He lives in Rome, Georgia with his lovely wife, Wanda Cantrell.
www.jmarshalljenkins.com
Russ Jennings
Russ Jennings an avid reader and (in all modesty) an amazing cook. He’s from rural Michigan, spent a lot of years in the SF Bay Area, and now lives on the island at the center of the world, New York City. Russ has had many incarnations. His many years of concert production in the Bay Area led him to stage manage the Goose’s main stage for all but the first Wild Goose. In the last couple of years he has created a podcast (LoveInADangerousTime.net) that looks at Church issues.
Becky Waldrup Johnston
Becky Waldrup Johnston is the Program Director of The Abraham Project in Winston-Salem, NC, an intentional Christian community for young adults. A former Baptist Minister, Becky served as a lay leader for fourteen years in the Presbyterian church, but now calls the Episcopal Church home. She attends St. Timothy’s in Winston-Salem with her husband, Dan, 2 girls, and 2 dogs, including a really cute, really hyper Golden retriever puppy.
Annette Joseph
Annette Joseph is an Episcopal Priest at Holy Cross in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. She works out in the community with many different denominations and faith communities. She developed the Worship Mob which happens between five local churches crossing not only denominational but racial lines. Just recently Holy Cross has been designated as a Jubilee Ministry for its work with poverty and advocacy. In 2013 she traveled to Luis South Sudan as part of a diocesan mission trip and taught a pastor’s class. She relies heavily on participation and interaction from the attendees and not lectures.
Shannon Kearns, Brian Murphy, Queer Theology
Queer people have more to offer the world and the church than what we are not. We have a unique way of experiencing the world and this is a gift to ourselves, the church, and theology. Do you want to move past apologetics and into a theology that is life affirming and challenging? So do we.
QueerTheology.com was founded by Father Shannon T.L. Kearns and Brian G. Murphy to provide inspiration, support, and resources to LGBTQ+ Christians and their supporters.
Fr. Shay is a transgender man. He has an M.Div from Union Theological Seminary and is a Priest in the Old Catholic Church. He is also a playwright, speaker, and writer. Brian G. Murphy is a filmmaker, activist, and entrepreneur. He has a passion for using digital storytelling engage hearts and inspire action.
Brian G. Murphy is a filmmaker, activist, and entrepreneur. He grew up evangelical Christian in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC and for the past ten years has been engaged in faith-based activism and social justice work. He participated in the 2007 Soulforce Equality Ride and co-founded Legalize Trans*.
Brian has a passion for using digital storytelling engage hearts and inspire action. He works with visionary individuals and organizations to develop and share their work through online channels: web, social, email, and video. He has worked with qubo Television Network, GLSEN, Red Letter Christians, The Simple Way, Tony Campolo, and the Evangelical Associate for the Promotion of Education; as well as producing television shows and short films.
QueerTheology.com
Karen Keen
Karen Keen is founder and primary provider at The Redwood Center for Spiritual Care in Durham, North Carolina. More than anything, she loves seeing people come alive as they experience meaningful connection with God and others. Karen first honed her listening and helping skills while earning degrees in psychology and counseling (B.S., Corban University; M.S., Western Oregon University).
Working as a mental health therapist she became convinced that spiritual wellness forms the foundation for all other well-being. Karen earned her certificate in spiritual direction from the Training Program for the Ministry of Spiritual Direction under the auspices of the Faithful Companions of Jesus, a congregation of Catholic Sisters in the Ignatian tradition. She has also enjoyed pondering questions of faith through advanced biblical and theological studies (M.A., Western Seminary; Th.M., Duke Divinity School). Karen loves listening to people from all walks of life.
Doug King
Doug King (Graduate Study, Theology and Biblical Languages) is an author, speaker, and President of Presence International, an Integral Theology think tank revisioning the role of spirituality for the common good. Doug has a background in business, being founder and CEO of a technology company in Atlanta, Ga. for 20 years. Doug serves on the Advisory Board for Forum 21, a nonprofit dedicated to education and activism surrounding the UN Sustainability Goals.
Doug’s passion is a trans-narrative reframing of the biblical narrative, illustrating its move away from insular in-group concerns to an All-in-All God as our source. In his work in Integral Theology, Doug overlays sacred history with the comprehensive macro-developmental model Spiral Dynamics. Transcending us vs them dichtomies, Scripture comes alive again, revealing an all-encompassing spirituality inviting us to let go of alienation and live in full presence and connection – with God, self, each other, and our planet.
Sally Kirkpatrick
Sally Kirkpatrick loves playing with cloth and string, and the fibers of which they are made. She is a fiber artist, teacher and physician, who believes in the power of sensory experience to deepen and enrich our understanding and relationships, with ourselves, each other, creation and God. She lives with her husband and daughter in northern Maine, where wool abounds.
Alexa Klein-Mayer
Alexa Klein-Mayer recently graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in religious studies. After joining Students for Justice in Palestine her freshman year, she went on to serve in a number of roles, and worked on the NUDivest campaign, which successfully passed a divestment resolution through student government. Since August, she’s been organizing in DC with Friends of Sabeel North America and Sanctuary DMV. She will be attending Harvard Divinity School in the fall, focusing her studies on Buddhist chaplaincy, liberation theologies, and queer theory.
Jennifer Knapp
Jennifer Knapp is Dove Award winning, Grammy Award Nominated American-Australian folk rock musician. Jennifer is best known for her first hit single “Undo Me” from her debut album Kansas (1998), and the song “A Little More” from her Grammy Award-nominated album Lay It Down (2000). The Way I Am (2001), was also nominated for a Grammy. In total, the three albums have sold approximately 1 million copies. After taking a 7-year hiatus, Knapp announced in September 2009 that she was returning to music, releasing Letting Go (2010) and Set Me Free (2014). Jennifer is presently touring, and working on a new album. In addition to her passion for music, she advocates for others: in 2011, Jennifer launched Inside Out Faith, an advocacy organization for LGBTQ people of faith.
Jessica Knippel
We are a group of artists, academics, theologians, spiritual leaders, therapists, and activists (mainly from California, Tennessee & Georgia) engage in creative and dynamic forms of liturgical lament for various communities. We believe that creative community centered lament and the creation of space for grieving is the basis for creative nonviolent activism and insight.
Jim Kucher
A self-described “ecclesiastical agitator”, Dr. J. Howard “Jim” Kucher is an internationally recognized thought leader in social entrepreneurship. An Assistant Professor in the Brown School of Business and Leadership at Stevenson University; Kucher teaches courses in social and commercial entrepreneurship, marketing, management, sales, project management and product development. Jim also works as a consultant to leading and emerging social benefit initiatives and has assisted over 100 area nonprofits and social enterprises in developing new models for meeting the needs of their constituents while increasing the sustainability of their organizations. An ordained Elder in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A), he has been an annoyance to various leadership boards at the local and regional level. Jim is the founder and lead organizer of Baltimore C.A.D.R.E. (Congregational Assets Deployed to Restore Equality), a grass roots movement to invest church assets back into the community with expectations of financial and social return.
Phiwa Langeni
The Rev. Phiwa Langeni is a trans-masculine genderqueer person who’s passionate about helping people understand that different doesn’t have to be dangerous. They are particularly effective in working with those whose identities align with the mainstream by helping people reframe society’s tendencies to lean into fear as the default. Especially in the last three years, their time spent in St. Louis, MO has shaped how they embody the intersections of their identities. It also continues to transform how they invite others into the liminal spaces between what has been and what is yet to be. Phiwa is an ordained United Church of Christ minister and is currently starting a new multi-faith community in Lansing, MI.
Peter Lanier
Peter is an avid gardener, landscaper and writer. He has been serving with Desanka since 2014. Currently he is managing the Desanka Community Garden, which aims to provide our local community with fresh produce, and he contributes content for the Desanka website blog.
Victoria Lantz
Victoria Lantz brings to life her experiences of the Divine through a variety of creative expressions. She is an author, poet, podcaster, artist, speaker, song writer, meditation leader, spiritual gathering facilitator, and sacred listener. Her self-published books include God Is: An Accidental Mystic Discovers the Nature of God, You’re Not Crazy: and Other Encouraging Words Every Mystic Needs to Hear, Longing: Poems from a Mystic Heart, and Union: Mystic Musings and Stories. She also hosts the God Is Podcast available on iTunes and the You Have Been Invited Meditation Series available on Insight Timer. Additionally, she helps others embrace their spiritual journeys through her Let’s Get Real! gatherings and in one-on-one listening sessions. Currently living in Phoenix, Arizona, Victoria can typically be found hiking the desert landscape or playing her pineapple ukulele. Visit her website at VictoriaLantz.com.
Lyric Leeda Jones
“Forget being signed. Paper fades. Legends don’t. I was born one.” This is what this band lives by. They started out as street musicians, filling downtown Asheville streets corners while touching many hearts . “The streets is where we love to be. We get so much positive feedback that it pushes us to work harder. This is where we started and I wouldn’t have it any other way,” said Leeda Jones(Lyric). With a sound and style that is so unique, they’re sure to please any crowd. Their album entitled, “Guitar Feet.” this album takes you on a walk through the promise of a better day. Through all hardships and struggle, this album has been known to lift people’s spirits!!
I, Star, Silvermoon Chocolate
From the heart of Appalachia, I,Star rises… Encompassing a core fusion of husband-wife duo, MC/poet Truth-I Manifest’s potent lyrical flow, and singer/songwriter Aradhana Silvermoon’s angelic melodies- with a stellar band of multi-instrumentalists’ profoundly funky prowess- I,Star’s performances are a dynamic interplay of hard-hitting poetics weaving between evocative refrains, building to harmonies in the hooks. Their wholly original “folk-hop” carriage bears powerful and relevant commentary on personal and global spiritual transformation, stewardship of the Earth, social justice, and visionary love. With soundscapes ranging from simplicity in Aradhana’s acoustic guitar to the complex layers of the band, I,Star inspires listeners to groove deeply and journey into their rich imagery. Singer-songwriter Sus Long met bass and banjo player Michael Conner in seminary in 2013 and they kept talking because they liked the same books. The two started meeting up to play Ramones covers and bluegrass standards, eventually forming a songwriting partnership that draws on folk and jazz, country and blues, blending the best of two very different musical tastes.
istarvision.com; silvermoonchocolate.com
Luke Lingle
(Luke, Laine, Annabel, and Oliver)
Luke is a western North Carolina local who is searching for new ways to connect with God and people. Luke is an ordained United Methodist elder who has worked in the local church, as a church vitality strategist, and is now the Director of Community Development for the Missional Wisdom Foundation which teaches about and experiments with new forms of Christian Community. He is also a father, husband, basketball fan, and grill master.
As we are learning from quantum mechanics, at its most basic level, matter only exists in relationship to something else and we understand God as fundamentally relational within the trinity, so to know and experience God we do so most fully through relationship with others. Therefore, Luke believes that the way forward for Christian spirituality is through community.
Luke lives in Candler, North Carolina, with his family. www.missionalwisdom.com and www.hawcreekcommons.com
Geoff Little
Geoff Little returns as a festival entertainer having formerly presented one-man plays SOLOMON (2013) and REDNECK (2014). Active in his longtime home of Nashville, Tennessee, he has performed live comedy and stories in numerous theaters and clubs. Geoff is a former co-host of TenX9 Nashville, a critically acclaimed storytelling group. He founded (and still leads) his city’s large Beer & Hymns chapter, which he jokes drives his most recent (and precipitous) descent into madness.
Jocelyn Lyons
Jocelyn Lyons (Joy) has been a spiritual director for 18 years. She completed her formation for spiritual direction and directed retreats at Creighton Univ. Jocelyn has led retreat, workshops across the country and locally. Jocelyn also holds a MA in Education (University of Connecticut) and MTS (Spring Hill College). She is an experienced administrator having served as a school principal and in other administrative positions.
Christi Malone
Christi is a Richmond, VA native who graduated from Virginia Tech in 2012. She currently works at VCU and coaches all-star competitive cheerleading. She will soon be beginning a new adventure by moving to Japan to live and work for a year to teach English while serving as a cultural ambassador. This is her second Wild Goose Festival and she could not be happier to be here!
Chad Markley