Gilford, NH—New England’s premier multi-day music festival and family retreat, SoulFest, aims to do more than turn up the music. Head to Gunstock Mountain Resort in the beautiful White Mountains of New Hampshire July 29-August 1 to have the ultimate combined experience of music, fun activities, workshops and discover opportunities to change your world with any one of SoulFest’s social justice and charity partners.

Amidst the music, games and fun activities, SoulFest provides first hand education through a series of workshops developed to educate and inspire all to live from the inside out as soul-connected risk taking believers in True Love. Whether it’s battling slave trades and trafficking rings in the US and around the globe with the Not For Sale Campaign, restoring the silenced voices of war-torn and brutalized children in Uganda with New Hampshire based Child Voice International, becoming a potential cure for blood cancer victims with Save Giovanni’s Friends, or fighting the war against depression and self-injury with To Write Love On Her Arms, SoulFest presents a wide variety of opportunities to truly love our neighbors.

While slavery may have been abolished in the US, there are still trafficking rings and trades going on right here in America.  In fact, there are more slaves in the world today then any other time in history. The Not For Sale Campaign will host the Backyard Abolitionist Academy at SoulFest which will take participants through the challenges of modern-day slavery to educate them on how to re-abolish slavery. Additionally, Child Voice International, with the help of Global Benefit, will receive the proceeds generated from the first annual SoulFest Walk 4 Water, which will be used to dig a deep water well at the SoulFest sister village in Lukodi, Uganda.  Participants will walk one mile carrying a one or two gallon jug to a local water hole, fill it and carry it back one mile.

SoulFest also supplies visitors with social justice involvement closer to home. Helping Every Soul is a community-based organization that provides mental health and substance abuse prevention, intervention and treatment services to Massachusetts' Greater North Shore and Lower Merrimack Valley residents, especially those whose needs are otherwise unmet. New Hampshire based Save Giovanni’s Friends will be at SoulFest soliciting attendees to register to save lives of those diagnosed with leukemia and other blood diseases by recruiting bone-marrow donors with a simple cheek-swab. Patrons are also encouraged to bring food items to donate as part of the “True Love” Food Drive and help take a bite out of hunger with the New Hampshire Food Bank by feeding over 7,000 people.  Other social justice and charity partners at SoulFest include To Write Love On Her Arms, The Love Alliance, Mercy Ships International and more.

SoulFest combines a passion for music with a call for social justice. Featuring over 100 world-renowned Christian artists and speakers, 5 stages and various family activities including hiking, swimming, boating, skateboarding, horseback riding and more, not to mention the incredible view of the White Mountains and Lakes Region, SoulFest provides an unparalleled life-changing True Love experience.

To preview the artist lineup, event schedule, and to purchase multi-day or single-day SoulFest tickets, visit www.thesoulfest.com. Discount and group ticket prices are available in advance by calling New Sound International at (978) 346-4577. Tickets are also available at the gate.

Gilford, NH—The mountains of New Hampshire are about to be filled once again with the one-of-a-kind energy that is SoulFest. In its twelfth annual year, SoulFest is the largest multi-day music festival of its kind in the Northeast, attracting over 13,000 attendees. This four-day music festival features world-renowned Christian music of all genres on five separate stages, guest speakers and authors from all over the globe as well as numerous other activities including extreme sports, swimming, mountain biking, horseback riding, hiking and lots of great food! As if that wasn’t enough, SoulFest takes place at Gunstock Mountain Resort, which sits atop the White Mountain range of New Hampshire and provides an idyllic haven for soul rejuvenation and celebration.

SoulFest exists to celebrate and advance the love of God and love for neighbors through an annual festival of Music, Love and Action. Encouraging all who attend to live from the inside-out as soul-connected believers in True Love, the theme for SoulFest 2009, attendees are shown opportunities to fight against social injustice, help the poor or those in need, and to “love their neighbor” right here in New England. Therefore, SoulFest serves as a platform for several regional, national, and international charities. This year’s primary charities include:

•    the Not For Sale Campaign who will be offering an Abolitionist Academy and a series of daily educational workshops
•    New Hampshire based Child Voice International, Global Benefit, Save Giovanni’s Friends and NH FoodBank
•    Helping Every Soul based north of Boston
•    National charities including To Write Love On Her Arms, Mercy Ships and The Love Alliance.

Each year brings new festival offerings and improvements. This year’s changes and special events include a performance by Christian music legend the Newsboys with prior frontman Peter Furler in his final New England performance side by side with new lead singer Michael Tait and a partnership with the Scream the Prayer Tour to bring a full-day of some of the best hard metal Christian music
to one of the festival’s stages.

Guests of SoulFest will also enjoy performances from over 100 national and regional artists and speakers, including some of the biggest acts in Christian music.  This year's headliners include:

• Casting Crowns
• Third Day
• Skillet
• Family Force 5
• Newsboys
• Haste The Day
• Norma Jean
• Fireflight
• Sanctus Real

At SoulFest you will have the opportunity to experience many genres of popular music, get involved in social justice causes and will be given the chance to transform so much about your life all in a beautiful location. To preview the artist lineup, event schedule, or to purchase multi-day or single-day SoulFest tickets in advance, visit www.thesoulfest.com. Discount and group ticket deals are available in advance by calling New Sound International at (978) 346-4577. Tickets will also be available at the gate.

(click thumbnail images to see full essays)

Dan Haseltine (Jars of Clay)	Dale Kuehne (Associate Professor of Politics at Saint Anselm College)
Greg Dyson (The Lion's Den Outreach)	Kevin Max
Rebecca St. James	Paul Colman (Newsboys)
David Batstone (Founder/President, Not For Sale Campaign)

Eternity Begins Today


I want to live from the inside out as a soul-connected risk taking follower of Jesus. With the help of God and my friends.


I pledge to live the revolution Jesus started, one day at a time...because eternity begins today:


1) With myself and Jesus: I will further develop an intimate rapport with God and feed my soul by nurturing my body, mind, and soul recreationally. intellectually, and devotionally. I will take the time to allow God to minister to my soul in silence, in prayer, in recreation, in music, and in the word.


2) With my Family: where I live, charity will flourish. With my actions and with more than just my words, I will love my family, my spouse, my kids, my brothers, my sisters, my parents, and all those I live with.


3) With my Neighbors: (the people who actually live next door to me) I will meet them, get to know them, serve them, love them, in action, with more than just words.


4) With my Community: I will participate in supporting others, using my gifts and talents to serve. Whether in a soup kitchen, homeless shelter, senior center, big brother/big sister program, prison ministry, local school, library, I will committ to at least 5 hours of volunteer service somewhere each month.


5) With my Church Fellowship: I will become more involved. I will be unselfish and kind in my relationships and be more giving of my gifts and my time.


6) With my Fellow Human Beings: I will respond to those in need, wherever they may be. I will not turn a blind eye, but with faith, I will give of my time, my talent, my resources to lift up, to encourage, to support anyone God brings across my path, regardless of race, religion, or class.


I will stand for those who cannot stand for themselves.

I will support the sanctity of life everywhere.

I will build relationships that reflect Jesus'priorities for all God's children.

I will fight against "power and principalities".

I will become more aware of, educated about, and responsive to all indignities and injustices that enslave those who are weaker and who suffer from extreme poverty.

I will not be silent or passive- because these crimes are so great an atrocity against the image of God.


7) With God's Creation: I will be more respectful, more conscience, of this beautiful place God has created. I will not waste the limited resources which have been entrusted us.

Welcome to SoulFest 08. It's the 11th annual and our 4th here at the beautiful Gunstock Mountain Resort in Gilford, New Hampshire. For those of you who are joining us for the first time, or if you've been with us before, we have great expectations that you will experience something very profound this weekend. It's our hope, intention and belief that in addition to enjoying the great music, the teaching, the fun and fellowship, your understanding of True Love will evolve to an entirely new level.

This year we are excited to have back some long time friends to perform and share their songs and stories from their sacred adventure. We're also thrilled to welcome several artists for the first time. Thank you also to all the Soul University seminar and workshop leaders. We hope you will take time to participate in these conversations. Be sure to review the schedule for times and locations. (This year, the conversations are all drawn from the SoulFest Pledge.) You'll see there are five different music performance stages and a few other venues that will be hosting our Soul University conversation series, the late night movies, unplugged late night music, Art Center and Encore performances. Last, but certainly not the least, from the parking lot and trash detail teams to the Art, security, concession, and production teams, thank you also, for working so hard and being dedicated to serving everyone. (Please thank them when you see them…. Hugs are acceptable.) Thank you all for traveling such great distances to share with us and help us surrender to Love.

To maximize your experience here this week, we ask you to take the SoulFest pledge which is located on the back cover of this program. Our theme this year is True Love. Not to be confused with the weak-in-the-knees sensation that comes from the encounter with that potential significant other. God sent Jesus to reveal His perspective towards us and to convey the way in which we should coexist, a way to live out our days here with each other. Many of us get stuck trying to earn love, discipline ourselves, become perfect, get ourselves lined up the "right" way, so that we are worthy. This is a very consuming and often hurtful and disappointing process. This drive for perfection, this self-judgment, fear of failure and guilt and pride must be addressed, must be surrendered if we're ever to grow. Our perfection is a result of what Jesus did and all the striving, self-discipline and practice will not increase God's affection towards us. There's nothing much beyond surrender that we can do to earn this Love that we're talking about here this week at SoulFest. "God didn't send Jesus into the world to condemn the world…but that we might know salvation (John 3:17)


Each day on the Revival and Inside Out stage you'll be hearing testimonies from believers who want to share with you how they were seized by the power of this great affection and became victims of True Love. Our desire is that you will consider surrendering yourself to this love. Many of us are exhausted by all the management and stress employed to become righteous. Self-discipline only gets us so far. At some point, we've got to surrender to love. Out there in public, before the never-ending jury of our peers, we have become professional actors who play the role of what hopefully passes as acceptable behavior. Hoping we don't get noticed or discovered, many of us huddle with the likeminded, in the center of the boat… Jesus addressed this when he referred to the professional religious man who prayed publicly and sinned in his closet. He said it's better to pray in your closet and sin boldly than the other way around. Why are we so afraid of being found out? Why do we put on this coat of professional Christianity? Why do we spend all this energy managing our lives this way? It's free. God's love is given freely for all men. We don't need to save up for it and we can't earn it. We need to just surrender to it. You and I are free and with this freedom comes great opportunities to experience life more abundantly than we can imagine.

Let's get past the "I'm not worthy" phase and allow our selves to become victims of God's affection for us and nothing else. Each day as we surrender our doubts, our self-hatred, our prejudices and biases to Love, we will be transformed and we will become soul-connected believers who no longer calculate our compassion and judge ourselves and one another. This will unclench the fists of our spirit and allow God's love to rule.

Throughout this program you will find essays written by some of the artists and speakers concerning their encounter with True Love. After you've read them, take some time to write your own. Throughout this week, share your encounter with True Love or your need to discover what this all means. Confess to each other a desire to let God's love transform the way you think, act and believe.

Jesus started a revolution that changed time. His words, the Gospel, if taken to heart, will profoundly change us. The religious leaders of his day knew he was dangerous. What he was saying, teaching, what he was about, ultimately undermined the religious grip of that day….and continues to undermined that grip today.

He tells us; the first shall be last and to take care of the least of these (Matthew 25: 1-46). He also tells us to Trust God to take care of all of our needs and not to be overwhelmed with fear. He commanded us to look out after anyone in need/anywhere, to love our neighbors and only then are we beginning to love God with all our hearts, minds, and souls. Jesus commanded us to take care of one another, but he never specified to only take care of the ones we liked, or the ones from certain areas or certain ethnic backgrounds. It is however, overwhelming to hear about a never-ending flood of critical need. It can be paralyzing. At SoulFest we are simply encouraging you to get in sync with your inner voice, be more responsive to it and step out of the boat defying those definitions that have kept you from living the revolution Jesus started. When you hear the call to reach out, to slow down, to give, to share, to forgive, to surrender, go for it. We all need to develop a deeper trust in God's love for us, so deep, we become involuntary with our compassion, without calculation, free, and ultimately extremely powerful as we live in the moment responding to whatever comes our way with love and respect.

As we have done every year since SoulFest began, there will be a daily benevolent offering. Your continued spirit of generosity reveals your faith and your heart. Over the years you've given thousands to support several local and international True Love efforts. This year we're excited to put our arms around the HUB ministry, The Lion's Den, Child Voice International (last year, you all helped them build a school in Uganda!!), and for the first time the folks in the big boat with the big hearts, Mercy Ships. Each of these organizations is doing fantastic work. Please take some time to get to know these four organizations and if you can, please give at least $2.00 per day.

The cover photo this year presents an opportunity for each of us to change the way we interpret the extended open hand. Look deeply and quietly into the eyes of the woman with the outstretched hand. Quiet your mind so that you only hear whispers. If something inside you says she's asking for help and she's like so many others from that endless hopeless sea, you're probably viewing this photo accurately and in the same way as most everyone else. However, what if she was saying, (what if God is saying through her) "take my hand and I will give to you a greater understanding of God's unconditional love for you. I will help free you from your struggle to believe that God will take care of you. I will help you believe that God, whose love for us all, is greater than the east is from the west, will provide all of your needs, and nothing will separate you from His love." As you begin to consider this perspective something inside will evolve. The poor and the broken, as well as each of us, are God's property. The encounter with our neighbor, the widow, the orphan, the naked, hungry and poor is our chance to breakout of the prison that we've been in and experience True Love, the revolution Jesus started.

This week you will encounter so many life-transforming opportunities to give, to stand up against injustice (NOT FOR SALE), to provide shelter, clothing, medicine and water (MERCY SHIPS and the SOULFEST AFRICAN VILLAGE). We're asking that you consider responding from this new perspective. These opportunities, the ones that resonate with you specifically, will give you another chance to grow deeper and discover God's love for you. God's love for us is unlike anything else. We're here at SoulFest this year to once again, celebrate and surrender to TRUE LOVE, to renew our commitments to God, ourselves and each other and to be inspired to grow further than we ever have before, not as professional pop-American Christians, but as risk taking believers who walk on water without even knowing it. We are Victims of God's love, seized by the power of His never-ending affection.

Open yourself up. Meet some new souls. Soak up the melodies, the lyrics, the beauty of this site and the stars in the sky at night. Renew your commitment to fight against modern slavery, support an Aids Orphan in Mozambique, consider starting a HUB of True Love in your own community, or supporting the Lion's Den in Springfield, MA. We pray you courage to take that step, take that hand, so you can discover further what True Love has for you, ageless and free.

By Fantastic Mercy and because of True Love,
Dan Russell


"YAHWEH

Take these shoes
Click clacking down some dead end street
Take these shoes
And make them fit
Take this shirt
Polyester white trash made in nowhere
Take this shirt
And make it clean, clean
Take this soul
Stranded in some skin and bones
Take this soul
And make it sing

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh
Still I'm waiting for the dawn

Take these hands
Teach them what to carry
Take these hands
Don't make a fist no
Take this mouth
So quick to criticise
Take this mouth
Give it a kiss

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh
Still I'm waiting for the dawn

Still waiting for the dawn, the sun is coming up
The sun is coming up on the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, tell me now
Why the dark before the dawn?

Take this city
A city should be shining on a hill
Take this city
If it be your will
What no man can own, no man can take
Take this heart
Take this heart
Take this heart
And make it pray"

Words by Bono with the Edge ~ Music by U2
Published by Universal Music Publishing