If you’re in the North Carolina neighborhood this week, you might want to stop in and check out the Wild Goose Festival. Festival organizers describe it thusly:

The Wild Goose is a Celtic metaphor for the Holy Spirit. We are followers of Jesus creating a festival of justice, spirituality, music and the arts. The festival is rooted in the Christian tradition and therefore open to all regardless of belief, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, denomination or religious affiliation.

Michelle Shocked, David Wilcox, and T-Bone Burnett are among the musicians to perform, and speakers include many highlighted in this very blog: Brian McLaren, Jim Wallis, and Shane Claiborne. The festival is a whopping ten years in the making.

I’ll leave you with two quotes from today’s USA Today story. The first is from festival organizer Gareth Higgins:

“We gather to learn what Jesus came to teach us, which is not how to be a Christian, but how to be human.”

The second is from Ken Silva, a Southern Baptist blogger of New Hampshire-based Apprising Ministries:

“The wise Christian will have nothing to do with these neo-Gnostic fools who’ve unbuckled themselves from the Word of God and have embarked upon their Wild Goose Chase of subjective experience.”

Tags: Brian McLaren, David Wilcox, Gareth Higgins, Jim Wallis, Ken Silva, Michelle Shocked, Shane Claiborne, T-Bone Burnett, Wild Goose, Wild Goose Festival