With the second annual Wild Goose Festival – a 4-day gathering of thousands of progressive Christians and others in the woods of North Carolina celebrating justice, spirituality, music and art – just a month away, we checked in with festival executive director Gareth Higgins to find out what’s new this year, what he’s most excited about, and why all of us should be there.

(And should you need any more incentive for attending after reading Gareth’s beautiful responses, Patheos is running a special 15% off promotion this week:  Go to the Wild Goose website here  http://wildgoosefestival.eventbrite.com/ and click the reddish “Enter Promotional Code” link.  When prompted, enter PATHEOS to receive your discount on your full weekend ticket.  Patheos will be there – we hope you will be too!)

Gareth, the Wild Goose Festival is just a month away! What are you most excited about this year?

So, there’s music and there are speakers and there’s social justice advocacy and there’s great conversations… and that’s all wonderful… but that’s not what i’m most looking forward to. What i’m most looking forward to is the feeling of community on the site, people living together for 4 days who want to promote the common good and who become more than the sum of the parts. Perhaps my favorite element of that is bringing a lot of people together from a lot of different backgrounds, and perhaps especially when you get quite well- known public figures in a space with the rest of us, just being the same and relating equally with another.  Last year we had Oscar winners and Grammy winners and NYT best-selling authors in the same space with people who haven’t yet got a recording contract or are struggling to get published, yet there was no ego in the room.  Just a sense of at this intersection of justice, spirituality and art, we all want many of the same things. We want to learn and experience a deeper love of God, neighbor, and self.

What new plans do you have for this year’s festival?

The biggest change is that the festival will run through Sunday night.  Last year it ended at noon on Sunday; this year we have a full afternoon & evening planned (for the same price).  It’s going to have a more relaxed vibe.  Sunday evening we have three of our most amazing musical acts of the weekend: Over the Rhine, Gungor and David Crowder.

The second thing is that we’ll have more unstructured space.  We wanted more space for people to just be together and have their own conversations.  The third thing is, if you have something you want to talk about, you can sign up for an opportunity to give a talk, or host a converation.  Or you can sign up and request a topic to be talked about and we’ll try to find soemone to host that converastion.

What are some of the speakers and musicians you’re most excited about showcasing this year?

Dave Andrews from Australia is someone I admire and enjoy a lot; Cathleen Falsani, who will do some stuff about spirituality and friendship; Nelson and Joyce Johnson who are distinguished civil rights activists from Greensboro, who were involved in the first Truth and Reconciliation Commission that happened in the US regarding a civil rights march that took place in 1979 where the KKK killed 5 of the marchers.  Other speakers I’m excited about: Alexia Salvatierra, an immigration rights activist and Lutheran minister; Aljosie Knight, an activist and poetic thinker around the role that women can play in shaping the beloved community; and Vincent Harding, elder statesman of the civil rights movement, a deeply humble man, a man who understands democracy and part the role ordinary peole need to play to make American what it can be.  He’s a man in his 80s who’s seen it all, and still has a vision of hope.

Musically, Phil Madeira is coming who just did an amazing collaborative album called Mercyland with artists like Emmy Lou Harris, Dave Perkins, and Civil Wars.  He’s coming with some pretty famous musicians he worked with on that album. Naomi Shelton and The Gospel Queens, a Brooklyn-based gospel band.  And Michelle Shocked, a festival favorite.

Our film program has also expanded this year and we’ll be premiering a surprise new film.  We’ll also have an on-going arts program, and stuff for kids and youth.  We invite people to treat the festival as a choose-your-own adventure book. People can get overwhelmed when they see the program, there’s so much stuff.  But you don’t have to go to everything.  Just navigate according to how your spirit leads.  And if all you do all weekend is hang out at the coffee bar or beer tent, you’re going to have a great experience anyway.

So if someone’s still sitting on the fence about coming to the Festival, what would you say to get them off the fence and buy their tickets?

I think there’s nothing like this in the United States. A festival at the intersecton of justice, spirituality, and art that is still small enough to have a conversational experience with people they would never otherwise meet, and that invites participation from the people who come.  It’s not a conference.  There are no Madonna mikes here.  It’s an interactive space, it’s a community and it’s still embryonic, so if you want to shape something, this is a place wthere you can do that.

What are your ultimate hopes for the Wild Goose Festival?

We are really striving to invite, work with and collaborate with marginalized voices, particulary women, people of color and LGBTQ people.   We’re not going to get that perfectly right – the Beloved community is our goal, it’s not our starting point, otherwise, it wouldn’t be a goal. It’s become clear that this festival is stewarded and planned by people, most of whom have had experiences of marginalization in the church.  It’s not just important to bring them to the table — first of all, there’s a problem with the use of the word ‘them;” this is “us.”  It’s important to ask whose table is it, what shape is the table and who gets to determine the shape of the table, and to recognize that multi-culturalism and diversity and the kaleidescope of God’s creation is the point, it’s not just a topic or an option, it’s the point of what we’re doing.  I’m hesitant to say that because I know we won’t acheive it now, or the next year, or the year after, and I know that it can sound arrogant or presumptuous.  So all I can say is that it’s a humble offering. We are trying to be attentive to the spirit of God,  and feel that is where the spirit is leading us.

Some people have asked us “What does the Wild Goose Festival believe?”  It’s an unusual question becaue I’m not sure a festival can ‘believe’ anything.  But what we’ve done is written up something called the Wild Goose “Invitation”.  It’s not a doctrinal statement or a set of beliefs. It’s an invitation to build a a particular kind of community.  We’re not saying we’ve got this right, we’re saying this is what we’re dreaming of.  You don’t have to endorse or fully believe or accept anything on that statement, but if you have a vision for beloved community, and have an interest in justice, spirituality and art, then come and be involved in shaping this thing … as long as you know the key value we’re promoting is God, neighbor and self.

One last question — yesterday, you announced a second festival site near Portland this coming Labor Day Weekend!  Why did you choose Oregon and what are the plans?

The United States is a really big country!  And there were a number of people from the Northwest who came to North Carolina last year and expressed to us a desire to do something like this on the West Coast.  So, we’re trying a different kind of experiment. We’re not going in and imposing on the Portland/Seattle region; we’ve been invited to collaborate with a steering committe of local people.  You know, there’s just a thirst for this universal spirituality, justice and art space, and for a fresh hearing of the teachings of Jesus, whether you’re a Christian or not, whether you have a religious commitment or not.  I’m really excited we’re doing this — i’m just really excited to share this festival with more people.

Visit the Wild Goose website for more information about this year’s festivals.

Several years ago, before I moved to Denver and began working at Patheos, I had the great privilege of serving as the Program Manager for the Programs In Christian Spirituality at the San Francisco Theological Seminary in Northern California. Among the many life-giving (and life-changing) programs we hosted was a continuing ed event called Before the Cradle and Beyond the Cross: A Lectionary Retreat for Preachers. Every summer for a week, pastors from all across the country would come together to study – and pray – the lectionary for the year ahead, in community with fellow ministers.

In addition to a morning keynote speaker — an expert on the texts being studied — each day included spiritual practices and prayer designed to integrate the head learning with the heart learning, led by Program Director and Spirituality Professor Sam Hamilton-Poore. Afternoons included ample time for rest, walking, and reflection.  A contemplative prayer service began and ended each day.   Participants regularly spoke of being spiritually and intellectually renewed and refreshed by week’s end.

With this year’s retreat just a couple months away (July 23-27, 2012), I invited Hamilton-Poore to share more about this program, and why combining sermon prep with spiritual formation is so important.

Why does your retreat focus on preachers?

Preachers have an incredible responsibility; they read and interpret the scriptures on behalf of their communities.  Most of the preachers I know work very hard at this, trying to grasp and articulate the message of the scriptures—and in ways that speak directly to the needs and dynamics of their communities.  On the one hand, preaching is a great privilege, and the people who attend our retreat really enjoy this aspect of their ministry.  On the other hand, preaching is also a regular source of anxiety.  Sunday after Sunday, week after week—trying to answer the question posed to the prophet Jeremiah: “Is there a word from the Lord?”

So what does your retreat offer preachers?

Several things.  We offer them a time and place for renewal.  Our campus is beautiful, quiet, and restorative.  Our schedule, though pretty full, offers a slower rhythm of rest, worship, study, prayer, with plenty of open time for lingering conversations or reading or walking or even napping.  But at the center of all this is an opportunity to personally reconnect with the scripture and the power of the gospel alongside other men and women who are committed to the ministry of preaching—who, like you, share in its privilege and its challenges.

You say that preachers will “study and pray” the lectionary texts.  What does this mean?

Somewhere along the way—and for various reasons—“study” and “prayer” became separated in Christian practice and imagination, including in different approaches to scripture.  But throughout most of the history of preaching—from Augustine to Calvin to the present day—the scriptures can’t be adequately studied without also praying over them and with them, asking for the guidance and insight of the Holy Spirit.  And the scriptures can’t be adequately prayed with if the person hasn’t also given his or her disciplined attention to the texts themselves—their literary forms, historical contexts, and so on.  Rather than being two separate actions, studying and praying are interconnected, overlapping dynamics of the same practice: trying to understand and interpret the scriptures for today.

So how does this all happen at your retreat?

The short answer is “with the Spirit’s help”.  The longer answer is that we try to plan our days and times together in ways that encourage the overlap and interconnection of study and prayer.  Each day begins and ends with a contemplative style of worship, centered on a single text from the coming year’s Gospel—this year it will be Luke.  Each morning until noon, participants are engaged by a biblical scholar in exploring the historical, literary, and theological contexts of the Gospel, while also paying attention to how the Spirit may be speaking to them in and through the text.  Our biblical scholar this year is Dr. Annette Wire, emeritus professor of New Testament at SFTS, a very accomplished teacher and scholar.  After a long, mid-day break, preachers gather in small groups to practice and process various scripture-centered prayer practices such as lectio divina or something we call “embodying scripture,” again using texts from the next year’s Gospel lection.  These small groups are each led by trained and experienced spiritual directors who are also preachers.

By the end of the week, then, the participants will have studied and prayed together quite a bit.

Exactly!  And our hope is that by the end of the week all of our preachers will feel personally and professionally rejuvenated, not only for their ministry of preaching, but in their own spiritual journey with the Living Word.  They’ll also leave remembering that they’re part of a community of preachers, all committed to the same ministry.

Learn more about this retreat for preachers here.

Easter morning approaches, bringing with it a fresh opportunity — and challenge — to unpack the mystery of the Resurrection to an alternately curious, skeptical and hopeful world. Here’s how a few of our Patheos bloggers plan to preach it this Sunday.

[Let us know how you're planning to preach (or would preach) the Resurrection in the Comments section below.]

Christian Piatt

Bending Toward Love

Lots of folks love preaching about the risen Christ on Easter Sunday without talking about what he went through to get there. It’s a bad habit we Protestants have, but plenty of us skip right over Maundy Thursday and Good Friday to Easter. Part of this is because we don’t like to have to deal with the darkness of Jesus crucifixion, suffering, death and burial, but it’s also because we don’t really understand the resurrection.

For me, resurrection is a process, rather than a one-time event. It’s more like how Martin Luther King spoke of history’s arc, bending toward justice. God’s arc for the whole of humanity is long, chaotic and sometimes even violent. But it bends toward hope. It bends toward life and love. That love, though not yet fully realized, is a restoring love that is greater than the sum total of the destructive forces humanity can muster.

Resurrection literally means to make something right again. Though we are bent, bruised and bloodied by life’s darkness, God’s love makes us upright once again. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But faith in resurrection means that our entire existence bends toward God’s fullness.

Chris Piatt is creator and editor of Banned Questions about the Bible and Banned Questions About Jesus. His memoir, PREGMANCY: A Dad, a Little Dude and a Due Date, comes out next month. Christian blogs at Father, Son and Holy Heretic.

Elizabeth Nordquist

I would preach Easter this year as the Quiet Revolution. I am reading Susan Cain’s insightful new book, Quiet, which demonstrates the power of the introvert, and chronicles the deep changes that can be made in quiet and confidence, rather than by the brass quartets and mass choirs that our culture celebrates. The quintessential Easter story for me is in John 20:11-18, where three quiet movements underlie the earthshaking and radical shift that the resurrection of Jesus brings.

First, Jesus comes to Mary as a complete surprise, alone, unrecognizable at first. Yet all the rules of the universe have been changed. Far away from the chanting crowds of Friday, this huge sea change is intimate, but deep. Furthermore, Jesus demands that we learn to love and follow him in a new and different way. “Don’t hang on,” he tells Mary. Easter challenges us to keep learning who the Holy One is, with an expanding repertoire of trust and care.

Moreover, the resurrection mandates that Mary participate by going and telling, sharing this new reality with the community. Even though this Easter is quiet, it is not private; it is good news for the world that God love. Across the background of shrill and clanging noises of our geopolitical world, the quiet revolutionary act of God in the resurrection changes everything and gives us hope and energy for our lives in this world and the next.

Elizabeth Nordquist is a pastor, a teacher, a spiritual director, a family lover and a friend. She blogs at A Musing Amma.

Monica A. Coleman

The story does not end with crucifixion.

That’s the message I need to hear this Easter.  In the last weeks, wider America has become more conscious of what African Americans have always known: crucifixion can happen at any moment.  When pulled over by the police, when walking home, when shopping for Skittles and iced tea.  As parents, we teach our children how to walk, talk, dress, move their eyes and place their hands on a steering wheel in meager hopes that the prejudice of the empowered will not kill them.

The case of Trayvon Martin causes us to remember the many crucified innocents: Emmett Till,Amadou Diallo, Jordan Martin, Kenneth Chamberlain, and far too many others African American boys and men.

They stand in the same vein as Jesus, the crucified innocent of our faith.

I need to be reminded that the crucifixion does not save us; the resurrection does.

The resurrection reminds us that the story does not end in slaughter.  There is life after death.  This year the crucifixion asks us where we will find the risen Christ.  Where will we find life after death?  How will we make meaning out of tragedy?

I hope to find Easter in the raised consciousness and solidarity among those who recognize discrimination when they see it.  I hope to find Easter in the protests and rallies. I hope to find Easter in justice.

Monica A. Coleman is Associate Professor of Constructive Theology and African American Religions at Claremont School of Theology and the author or co-editor of 4 books including the recent Not Alone: Reflections on Faith and Depression.  She blogs at www.BeautifulMindBlog.com.

Instead of the lectionary text, I feel drawn to the next chapter in which Jesus appears to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias. Just as Jesus is made known “in the breaking of the bread” on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24), we are invited to see how Jesus’ presence may be experienced on a beach with friends, while roasting fish over a charcoal fire. After breaking bread together and experiencing such a Communion, our post-Resurrection challenge is to “Feed my lambs”: to feed those who are hungry, in body and spirit, as we have been graciously fed.

Read Carl’s complete “Practice Resurrection” post here.

Carl Gregg is the pastor of Broadview Church in Chesapeake Beach, Maryland. He blogs at Pluralism, Progressivism, Pragmatism: A Protestant Pastor in a Postmodern World.

David Henson

A Homily For Easter

Goddamn evil
Goddamn abuse
Goddamn injustice, slavery and rape.
Goddamn racism
Goddamn war
Goddamn that strange fruit of bigotry and hate
Goddamn suffering
Goddamn hunger
Goddamn indifference, apathy and waste
Goddamn noose
Goddamn death
Goddamn despair, depression, the wait
Goddamn Good Friday
And a Goddamn cross
Goddamned it all,
Goddamned it too late
Yet we live like it’s Easter
Like God has been raised
We live like it’s light,
In spite of the dark.
We live like there’s joy
With spite in our hearts
For all that remain of our Goddamned days
These Goddamned
Good Fridays.

David Henson is a postulant for the priesthood in the Episcopal Church and is writing his first book. He blogs at Edges of Faith. Check out his post on Protesting Holy Week here.

Bruce Epperly

This year I’m spending Holy Week in Bethany Beach, Delaware, taking a much needed Sabbath with my family.  In the course of the week, I will be spreading my brother’s ashes along the Atlantic Coast.  The interplay of life and death will be present as I let go of my brother and prepare to welcome my second grandchild.  As Howard Thurman says, “all around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born.”  Our world is perpetually perishing, yet new life is constantly emerging.

As I ponder the Easter story, recorded in Mark 16:1-8, I am struck by the women’s question: “Who will roll away the stone for us?”  There are many stones that stand in the way of our futures, and we can’t roll them away on our own.  We need a quantum leap of energy, inspiration, and love; the sort of resurrection that can only emerge in a faithful community, attentive to God’s transforming presence.

Resurrection will always be a mystery.  But, we know it when it happens.  Mark’s resurrection story (Mark 16:1-8) ends with the women in awe, fear, and silence.  Resurrection is too much to comprehend when we assume the finalities of death and defeat.  But, the empty tomb portends an open future in which the Risen One goes ahead us as companion, guide, and inspiration.  While I don’t worry about the mechanics of the resurrection, I believe that Jesus lives – I have seen resurrection in unexpected courage and surprising love; in the face of my grandson, the child of a cancer survivor; in willingness to sacrifice for a great cause; and in the persistent quest for justice despite the odds.  I believe that Christ is alive and in his resurrection, we can face the future with strength, courage, and wisdom as we take our place as God’s partners in healing the earth.

Bruce Epperly is a theologian, pastor, and author of 22 books, including Process Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed and Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living. He blogs at Living A Holy Adventure.

Sam Alexander

Other years I’ve spent time worrying over what happened on Easter morning, but not this year. This year I want to know what it means, particularly through the eyes of Mary Magdalene in the 20^th chapter of John. The text says she saw, (theorein), Jesus and the Angels – but that verb isn’t about ordinary seeing. No, it is the kind of seeing that dawns on you, a seeing that leads you to grasp hold of something and let it move you to action. That’s action in a world where we expect so little from each other – so little action, so little character, and virtually no unique contribution to the greater good – except of course from our public figures. Should they fall short of some puritanical expectation, they are crucified, (fortunately not literally any more), as though such a sacrifice might make things right with the world. That’s instead of living out the Divine expectation for our lives.

My Lent preaching has focused on the Tabernacle – the tent in the wilderness where the Israelites came to see, (theorein I would imagine), God. We saw, (theorein), offerings that drew the people into a coherent whole, new life drawn out of the basin, the lampstand that sheds light on something beyond ourselves, and in the midst of it all, we saw, (theorein), the image of God as though the boundary between sacred and created order was ephemeral, fluid, inviting us into life in the presence of God. “And the logos became flesh and tabernacled among us,” John says, so that boundary is forever obscured for all to see, (theorein), . . . and we sacrificed him as though such a sacrifice might make things right with the world.

Well, God rejected our sacrifice on Easter morning. God raised Jesus from the dead and this new vision of humanity, called Mary’s name, inviting her to live her life, her unique life oriented toward the God of all creation. We expect so little from each other, so much more is possible. The boundary between sacred and created order is fluid; the Word of God is alive within and around us. Can you see, (theorein), it?

Sam Alexander is Pastor of First Presbyterian Church of San Rafael, CA and an adjunct professor at San Francisco Theological Seminary. He blogs at www.gracecomesfirst.net and starts a new blog at Patheos next month called Christianity for the Spiritual But Not Religious.