Hey! If you’re someone I met at Wild Goose and are checking out the Bar Chaplain blog for the first time, please know that most posts are about 1/3 this length. I have a lot of thoughts after 2018’s Wild Goose Festival, so here goes…

I got back from Wild Goose Sunday afternoon. I still have a lot of camping gear to clean, and I’m not totally sure what this rash is, but I’m feeling both excited and reflective after this year’s festival. My previous Wild Goose Festival (WGF) was all about discovery— learning how many others are active in bar ministry, experiencing different styles of community, seeing how interconnected Progressive Christianity really is, and so on. Having made connections with incredible colleagues I never realized I had, I came home inspired last year and jumped straight to work on revamping the blog, starting up a Brew Theology group with Thomas and Jessi, and looking for new ways to serve in Jacksonville. This year was a bit different though. While the experience was very positive over all, I’m leaving WGF with some pretty big questions:

Since I can’t just get rid of my privilege, how can I use it for good?
As a straight, white, cisgender, protestant male from a traditional, upper-middle class, East Memphis family, I haven’t experienced much (maybe any) discrimination in my life, so there’s a lot about WGF I know I can’t fully understand. For many LGBTQ attendees, WGF is the safest place imaginable, and I know a handful of friends for whom the festival has been a crucial part of their faith journeys. Rainbow flags fly from booths and campsites, t-shirts sport slogans like “The Future Is Queer,” and speakers represent an array of sexualities. For people who have felt continually assailed or ignored by American Evangelicalism, the festival is a place of affirmation. Knowing other attendees were having such radically different experiences, I found myself continually wondering how I could best be an ally in this space (not to mention when I got home).

Some of my best and most enlightening conversations at WGF have taken place at our campsite. Centrally located with massive flags and Christmas lights, our campsite attracts quite a few people, and I get to learn from a wide range of perspectives as a result. I imagine not everyone shares this experience though, as the majority of campers are scattered back through the woods, and many attendees even stay offsite in hotels and Airbnbs. Acknowledging this need, the WGF directors took steps to make conversation a more central aspect of this year’s program. One tent was set aside as the “Conversation Hall,” featuring a set of round tables where various presenters would sit and facilitate discussions with around 5-12 people at a time. While not a perfect simulation of those deep campsite chats, the Conversation Hall is certainly a step in the right direction. After all, there are few better ways to learn and grow than by sitting and listening to others’ experiences.

Who is helping hurting healers?Throughout the festival, I encountered so many people carrying deep spiritual wounds and needing spaces to talk. Thankfully, many were utilizing counseling, spiritual direction, and community support back home, but I was also amazed by the number of times I heard someone begin a sentence with, “I haven’t shared this with anyone yet, but…” The festival offers a spiritual direction service, but one of my friends observed that their signup sheet was completely full by the end of the first night. One pastor even described spending almost the entirety of last year’s festival providing spiritual care to other attendees. There is such a need for pastoral care in this space!

I’m already planning next year’s Bar Chaplain talk to focus on self-care. (Yeah, I know: “Physician, heal thyself,” but hey, some of the best sermons are the ones we need to hear ourselves!) I would also love to see the festival expand their spiritual direction and chaplaincy services, and assuming I’m able to attend next year, I hope to help out on that front.

Are cliques just an inevitable part of life?
While I’ve never felt personally spurned by anyone at WGF, I have observed the festival being somewhat cliquey, and it was far more prevalent this year. While the majority of festival attendees are fairly easy-going folks, there’s also some rivalry between ministries, a little toxic celebrity stuff, and more than a few cliques. Here’s the thing though: I don’t think you can fix this stuff. Humans inevitably seek out “people like us,” so any large enough gathering will always feature cliques and such. I think the issue WGF faces is how to ensure these social dynamics don’t turn toxic. After all, healthy rivalries can be fun, and celebrities are quickly humanized once you get to know each other, but about those cliques…

As I learned in youth ministry, there’s a difference between a “closed clique” (what you see in so many high school movies) and an “open clique” (where a group of friends hang out together but always leave room for new people to join in). Our campsite would be a solid example of an open clique: while the same friends hung out there, newcomers were always welcome. Open cliques like these require a lot of comfort on the part of their members, and not every group is lucky enough to have people like Cody Burton and Tim and Jan Kerr to set that welcoming tone. The cliques may be something we just have to put up with, but perhaps we can gently encourage people to make sure their cliques stay open.

Where is Progressive Christianity headed?
The biggest question from Wild Goose is one that had little to do with the festival itself. With White Evangelicalism so entangled in the Trump presidency, that branch of Christianity is likely heading for a major collapse within the next decade, so what will the country’s religious landscape look like moving forward? It’s possible Progressive Christianity will rise up as a more sensible voice, but this movement has its flaws too. We’ve still got our jargon, our doctrinal litmus tests, our reactionary tweeters, and our political opportunists. We’re also divided on a number of big issues. But perhaps most concerning, so much of Progressive Christianity is defined by the injuries we sustained growing up within Evangelicalism. As such, can Progressive Christianity really have a substance of its own, and what would that substance look like?

The most hopeful people I encountered at WGF were the local pastors and community leaders who just wanted to love their neighbors without all the social media grandstanding or partisan manipulation— the ones for whom power and influence might be byproducts of their work but never goals. The beauty of Wild Goose is that you get a few thousand such Progressive leaders in one place every year to listen and learn from one another and then send them back out to their communities to serve. Maybe this movement doesn’t need power–hungry demagogues or mega-denominations so we can bully congress. Maybe all we need to make a difference is compassion and hard work and one another’s support.
If Progressive Christianity stays with the grassroots,
if it doesn’t buy into the Evangelical myth of political power as the path to salvation,
if it continues to serve local communities with an eye toward remedying larger social ills,
maybe it can be something different and something great.
Only time will tell though.

None of these questions have easy answers, and all will require ongoing conversation and reflection, but in general, the festival has me feeling optimistic. Is the event perfect? No, but it’s still a helpful forum and an affirming space for so many people who need it. Are there some kinks to work out? Obviously. Any gathering of people (especially a gathering this size) will have its conflicts. Does the future look a little brighter after spending three days with some of the most hopeful hearts out there? Of course, and while the festival may not be to everyone’s tastes, it’s still an event I look forward to each year.
See you next year, friends!

Seriously though, should I be concerned about this rash?