Revival in the Land – Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

June 8, 2011 By wildgoosefestival 10 Comments

I made my first trip to the Greenbelt Festival in the UK last summer. After years of hearing about how there’s nothing like it in the US, I arrived at the Cheltenham Racecourse where some 20,000 people had set up camp, shop, seminar, pub and church for a four-day weekend. After getting  fish and chips from a food vendor (I was in England, after all), I ran into my American friend, Stanley Hauerwas – also there for his first time. “Did you know anything like this existed?” I asked him. “No,” he said. “I feel like I’m living in the 19th century.”

I am a product of revivalism in the American South. The camp meetings had come and gone by the time I was born, but they were the catalyst that gave rise to the Baptist and Methodist churches that surrounded me with Jesus. I grew up going to revival meetings at church every fall, expecting somebody to catch the Spirit and get born again. We knew something wasn’t right with the world, and we knew that only Jesus had the power to change us.

Lots of folks are critical of revivalist spirituality these days. It over-emphasized emotion, some say. It was susceptible to political manipulation and market appropriation in a capitalist society, others say. To some it is the epitome of hypocrisy; to others, it implies ignorance. I’ve listened closely to all of these criticisms, and I’m sympathetic to many of them. But I’m also still glad to be a product of 19th century revivalism. What it more, I’m glad that its spirit is stirring again—and not only in the UK.

An interesting mix of folks from across the theological and political spectrum have been plotting a festival in the tradition of Greenbelt here on American soil. It is to be an arts festival, they say, that is attentive to beauty, but equally concerned with the proclamation of good news and the practice of justice in our world today. It’s not a space to be owned by any of America’s fragmented church traditions, but rather a place of hospitality where all are welcome and where, God willing, some who’ve been strangers (or estranged, even) might become friends. They’re calling it the Wild Goose Festival. I’m excited to see what comes of it.

When I was at Greenbelt, which is soon approaching its 40th year, I wandered into a coffee tent with a friend and met a dear woman who told me she’s been baking cakes and making coffee at Greenbelt since its very first year. I asked how she came to be part of the festival, and she said it started on her farm. It was a gathering of friends who went home to tell other friends and kept coming back to celebrate the life that God had made possible in a beautiful interruption. You can’t make that sort of thing happen, but I trust that the Spirit is always eager to break into our lives and start something that brings a little more of heaven here on earth. I think that’s what happened when the revivals rolled through North Carolina in the 1800’s, and I pray that’s what will happen again when the first Wild Goose Festival gathers next summer.

(Originally posted on Duke’s Call & Response blog)

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, an author and speaker, is co-complier of the new Common Prayer: Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals (Zondervan).

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Naked Emperors, Undead Christians, & Seedling Signs

May 13, 2011 By wildgoosefestival 14 Comments

What does it take to build an authentic and substantial social and spiritual movement in the 21st century? We love it when friends “get” what we’re about, and want to work with us to accomplish precisely this. The Mennonite Weekly Review published a piece about the Wild Goose Festival and our connection with the Greenbelt Festival in the UK. Here are some highlights from the article, by Vic Thiessen, former Director of the London Mennonite Centre, now re-located to Winnipeg and working with the Mennonite Church in Canada, and, we’re happy to say, deeply involved in the film program for Wild Goose:

The Greenbelt Christian Arts Festival has been a draw for Anabaptists in the U.K. for decades.

Now it’s crossing the ocean.

The festival has been going on in England since 1974, presently drawing more than 20,000 people each year. It is one of the most exciting things happening anywhere in the Christian world. Now, plans are under way for a version of the family-friendly event to come to North America as the Wild Goose Festival.

‘One of the most exciting things happening anywhere in the Christian world.’ To the unacquainted, this might sounds like cheap hyperbole, yet another self-aggrandizing soundbite in an over-hyped world. And yet, for those of us from North America who make regular pilgrimages to Greenbelt – like Vic – it’s simply our experience. Something powerful happens when like-hearted people seeking to embody love and justice while exploring creative spirituality get together to celebrate and display the wisdom path of Jesus in unprecedented ways. We definitely owe Greenbelt for this inspiration, as well as the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition, among others, as Vic continues:

Wild Goose’s draft mission statement focuses on inclusion and on the development of a radical community of grace, joy and peace that will seek to change lives and bring God’s healing and hope to the world. If this sounds familiar, it should: Some of these ideas and language are used in the “Vision: Healing and Hope” statement adopted by Mennonite Church Canada and Mennonite Church USA.

It’s true. While the Wild Goose “Flock” comes from a wide range of denominational backgrounds, our ethos and guiding spirit have been profoundly influenced by Anabaptists, Quakers, and other Radical Reformation communities (as well as their antecedents, like the early Celtic Church) who carry a torch for God’s upside-down Kingdom. Though more established, top-heavy, and temporally powerful institutional churches tried to marginalize their testimony of peace, simplicity, and the nearness of God’s presence, their light could not be put out. Further, we’re witnessing a beautiful reunion in this post-Christendom world, as many of the formerly persecuting denominations have formally apologized, making moves toward reconciliation and adopting the very ethos they once rejected. The late philosopher Richard Rorty once wrote that “My sense of the holy is bound up with the hope that some day my remote descendants will live in a global civilization in which love is pretty much the only law.” Surely such an atmosphere makes this seem nearer? We hope.

We were enthralled with the Anabaptist feel of the music, dramas and talks, many of which provided Christian perspectives on peace and justice issues. In a country where only a small percentage of people attend church regularly, it was astounding and thrilling to see this huge crowd, averaging around 30 years old, gathered to hear about what it means to follow Jesus today.

Some of us are not quite sure what “Anabaptist music” sounds like, but we concur with the author that it’s astounding: Across Europe where outward, institutional Christianity appears to be dying – indeed, where the body seems to have been cold for a long time – Greenbelt is a seedling sign of life, a counter-indicator of resurrection. In the U.S. and across North America our situation is somewhat different: Signs of religiosity are still everywhere, from megachurches to the halls of political power. And yet, increasingly, many of us are feeling that the emperor of American Civil Religion has no clothes. Where European Christianity has been declared dead on arrival, much of the form of North American Christianity resembles Vampire Christianity – walking around, undead, and – as Dallas Willard once remarked – wanting Jesus only for his blood.

Because of the Dark Night of the Living Dead our faith is presently going through on ourcontinent, our numerical aims for Wild Goose 2011 are far more modest: We’re hoping to gather a large handful of the Flock in June, and we plan to intentionally cap our attendance numbers to allow for the most participative, generative experimental gathering. It did, after all, take decades for Greenbelt to reach its present critical mass; here in North America, there are far glossier, glitzier, and glamorous religious goods and services that can be consumed. We won’t appeal to everyone and that’s okay. Because we know, just like our friends across the pond, that

Many…are longing for a Christianity with integrity that addresses issues like war, poverty and the environment. Like many in the Emerging Church movement, which has close ties to Greenbelt, British Christians are looking for Anabaptist-style theology and finding it at Greenbelt.

The Wild Goose Flock is comprised of “emerging” Christians to be sure, and also “missional,” “organic,” and “fresh expressions” and – to be quite honest – church dropouts. Further, we’re Catholic, we’re mainline Protestant, we’re evangelical. We’re Pentecostal and charismatic; we’re First Nations followers of the Way; we’re spiritual, but not religious. We’re Mennonite and we certainly hope we’re a Society of Friends.

Greenbelt’s mission is to ‘re-imagine the church as an infectious global conspiracy, working for God’s peace, healing and friendship in previously unimagined ways.’ Greenbelt’s coming to North America is an opportunity for Mennonites here to get involved with what is anticipated to become a high-profile event on the cutting edge of Christian faith. It may have a significant impact on the way Christianity is perceived in North America. Now is the time to get on board.

Only time and our shared experience will tell if the Wild Goose Festival is the “second coming of Greenbelt.” But we fully concur: This is an unprecedented opportunity for people of faith, hope, love and goodwill to alight together, chasing after the Goose. What we’ve sown in tears of sorrow over the state of North American Christianity, we may just reap in joy of new beginnings. We’ll be taking flight together as we make temporary migration to Shakori Hills, North Carolina, in just a few short weeks – June 23-26, 2011. Will you join us?

Please stay in touch – via this blog, Facebook, and Twitter @WildGooseFest. And remember, this is the final weekend to get Advance Rate tickets; rates go up Monday. Get your tickets here.

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Why People of Color Should Be At the Wild Goose Festival – Melvin Bray

May 11, 2011 By wildgoosefestival 4 Comments

Why People of Color Should Be At the Wild Goose Festival
by Melvin ‘The Token Space-holder’ Bray

My appeal is simple.  People of color must involve themselves with the Wild Goose Festival otherwise the color balance in all the photos will be off!

Yes, seriously, I believe that in due season the Wild Goose will change the landscape of faith imagination in America, even as the Greenbelt Festival has done so in the UK over the last 30 years.  There was a time in the not so distant past when people of color were conveniently excluded from “mainstream” undertakings such as this. Out of habitual exclusion arose identity movements and addendum politics―our refusal to be forever ignored.  The problem is that after years of African-American, Asian-American, First Nation and other “hyphenated” studies that have taken those disposed into a deeper appreciation of diversity, we’re loathe to admit that our efforts have not distributed the treasures of a pluralistic heritage nearly as broadly as proponents had hoped.  With deep gratitude for the gifts of “The Struggle” in all its wonderfully myriad expressions (without which we would not be at the borders of New Possibility) as people of color, we presently find ourselves on the brink of a most fortunate opportunity that escapes the apprehension of many.  There is now appetite, yea even longing, for a telling of a holistic American faith story in which our stories are integral, not addendum, not prop.

If I’ve framed a good enough shot, you should have that silly grin on your face that people have when reminded by a true picture of an oft-referenced but misappropriated dream.  I believed we have actually arrived at the moment  the social experiment of integration anticipated but America wasn’t quite ready to embody 40-some-odd years ago.

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However, I realize things could just as easily devolve into yet another forty years of (even self-imposed) desert-dwelling marginalization.  Martin Luther King, Jr., may have shamed America into confessing the sins of inequality but with the election of President Obama there has been plenty of talk of what “real Americans” lost in the exchange.  The realist in me recognizes that there is just as much potential in this moment for regression as there is for breakthrough.  And the cynic in me can only shake his head for what, listening to Glenns and Sarahs, often seems the likely choice.  Yet we―people of faith and color, love, goodwill and every combination of the same―have a precedented opportunity to tip likelihood decidedly toward a story of American faith, justice and the arts that makes room for everyone.  It won’t include everyone, sadly.  Many will self-select out.  But that is very different from not being invited.  So I personally invite you.

Now I know the idea of running around in the woods with random people, most of whom may not look like you (thus seeming to have little in common), doesn’t strike everyone as the best visual of a good time.  For black folk, by example, camping doesn’t just mock the homeless, it can feel a little too close to the Kunta Kente experience than we want to be.  Still the best photos generally involve a little discomfort (at least that’s what the guy at Glamor Shots once told me), and if that includes making some (a minority, I’m sure) of the beige folks in event snapshots a little self-conscious by our showing up in droves, so be it.  Besides, if you don’t come, I’m gonna be real identifiable in group pics.  But I’ll keep holding this space until I see you.

Melvin Bray is a devoted husband, committed father, learner, teacher, writer, storyteller, lover of people, connoisseur of creativity, seeker of justice, and believer in possibilities. As founder of Kid Cultivators, he lives, loves, and dreams with friends in Atlanta, Georgia. We’re sure Melvin would want you to know that this weekend is the final weekend to get Advance Rate tickets to the Wild Goose Festival. Prices go up this Monday, May 16th.

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