Wild Goose Festival

The North Carolina Council of Churches is thrilled to co-sponsor the Wild Goose Festival this June, at Shakori Hills Farm, just outside of Pittsboro, NC.  The festival celebrates uncommon ground in justice, spirituality, and the arts. It will offer a remarkable lineup of musicians, artists, speakers, performers and events over the course of four days, from June 23 through June 26.

While the festival is deeply rooted in the Christian tradition, it defies the norm for Christian festivals in the United States in that it has a strong emphasis on social justice and inclusivity. As the festival web site says, “The festival is rooted in the Christian tradition and therefore open to all regardless of belief, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, denomination or religious affiliation.”

With three large stages running, the music line-up includes Michelle Shocked, The Lee Boys, T-Bone Burnett, David Wilcox, Derek Webb, Over the Rhine, Ashley Cleveland, Billy Jonas, Tom Prasada-Rao, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Agents of Future, Andy Gullahorn, and me, David LaMotte, among many more.

Speakers include many of the most prominent progressive theologians and activists living, including Jim Wallis, Richard Rohr, Phyllis Tickle, Vincent Harding, Brian McLaren, John Dear, Shane Claiborne, James Forbes, Lynne Hybels, Alexie Torres-Fleming, Bart Campolo, Nancy Sehested, Richard Twiss, Margot Starbuck, Ched Myers, Nadia Bolz-Weber, and Tim Tyson, among others.

Embracing its desire to be a place not only to hear, but to be heard, there will be time slots available on the Coffee Barn stage, art projects in which to participate and opportunities to discuss and plug into various forms of social justice work. There will also be children’s activities and entertainment. In short, it’s going to be a lot of fun, and will also be deeply nourishing.

The festival organizers would love to come to North Carolina churches in order to offer a one to two-minute invitation to the festival as part of church services, show a short video or speak to a Sunday school class. If you would like to have someone from Wild Goose come to your church, please get in touch with Jacob Kuntz (jacobjkuntz(at)gmail(dot)com) in order to schedule something. We also welcome your involvement as volunteers or just as attenders and participants, of course.  A limited number of tickets will be sold for this first-time event, and prices are lower the earlier they are bought, so you may want to get yours now.

For more information, please check out the Wild Goose Festival web site.

See you there!

David LaMotte
Program Associate for Peace, NCCC