With July 4th just days away, there’s no better time to learn how faith communities across the country are coming together around America’s founding texts. On Thursday, July 2 at 4pm ET, we’re hosting a live info session where you can hear directly about how faith250 works, ask questions, and find out how to bring a multifaith cluster to your community. Whether you’re a clergy leader exploring next steps or someone who’s been curious about the program, this is the place to start.

The session will walk through the faith250 program — clergy relationship-building and text study, clergy-led multifaith events for neighboring congregations, and a local public civic ritual for the broader community. There is still time to get started, and we’ll show you exactly how. Communities that begin this work now will have everything they need to bring people together in a meaningful way before the year is out. Share this invitation with a faith leader in your network who needs to be in this conversation.

Register here.

Zoom registration is required for this event. Contact us at info@faith250.org for more information. We hope you’ll join us!

Join us on June 23 at 4pm ET for a conversation on Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Rabbi Michael Holzman will facilitate a discussion with Rev. Vernon Walton, Rev. Latricia Scriven, and Derrick Scott III, exploring what Douglass’s words meant in his time and what they ask of us now. This text study models the kind of conversations has by faith250 clusters, opening space to listen across difference and find shared values rooted in America’s founding ideals. The event is free and registration is required.

Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/p0hLesqGSHGTRPsY4gcsGA

When faith250 began, the idea was simple: bring clergy and congregations together across faith traditions to study America's founding texts and engage honestly with what those texts ask of us as citizens today. We believed that if we started locally, something larger could grow.

It has.

We now include over 254 congregations in 39 clusters across the country. That number represents dozens of clergy who picked up the phone, reached out to a colleague, and said: let’s do this together. It represents multifaith gatherings where people who might never have spoken instead shared a meal together, read Frederick Douglass side by side and asked hard questions about what it means to be an American right now.

We’re not stopping here. Our goal is to see many more clusters of congregations doing this work in communities across America. Could we get to 250 clusters?!

If faith250 has meant something to you, share it. Forward this post. Tell a clergy colleague. The next congregation to join could be the one down the street from you.

Learn more and register your cluster at faith250.org.

What does love have to do with civics? On Wednesday, June 10 at 1:00 PM ET, Rabbi Michael Holzman will explore that question with Bishop Tom Berlin, Resident Bishop of the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church, in a live conversation as part of the faith250 Perspectives series. The discussion will also include a brief introduction to faith250 and an invitation to join the 254 congregations in 39 clusters across the country using the program to engage in multifaith dialogue during the 250th anniversary of America. This free event takes place via Zoom. Registration is required. You can register here.

If you’ve been wondering whether faith communities have a role to play in America’s civic life right now, this conversation is for you. faith250 invites faith leaders and congregations across traditions to form local clusters that become sacred spaces for listening, for wrestling with America’s founding texts, and for celebrating our shared hopes as a nation. Whether you’re ready to start a cluster or simply want to learn more, we’d love to have you join us.

At this sacred time of the Hajj, when millions of your children drink from the Zamzam Well on their way to Kaaba, help humanity taste the miracle which saved the child Ishmael, cast out by fear and ignorance and the desire that we forever remain separate from one another. O Merciful One, teach us that we can be like the living waters which bring comfort to the grieving, hope to the newly insecure, and reassurance to our neighbors.

Source of wisdom, grant us the common sense to see that those who live amongst a flood of swords and a dearth of plowshares will forever sow blood and death, and that no legal or constitutional principle should justify the cheapening of human life. And if we are so stiff-necked and bald-faced as to persist in our folly, at least let us discern that we are not powerless to act. You who Grants Knowledge, make us know how to send a text, make a call, write a card, reach out to a friend or neighbor who is hurt and afraid right now. Teach us that if we have not already forged bonds between our shuls and mosques, churches and temples, cathedrals and mandirs, gurdwara’s and masjids, synagogues and basilicas, then our bill is past due. For Cain will come again soon.

Yes, my brothers and sisters, the work is hard and the list is long, but the Master is impatient, and even if we cannot finish the task, we are not free to desist from the labor. The best time to know one another was long ago, but the second best time is now.

O Great Healer, help us recognize our ability to heal one another. Show us that we must close the distance between us, connect the places where we congregate and worship, and strengthen the relationships that bind us together. For by Your great Providence, we can now live with one another, eat together, visit in each other’s homes, and come to understand our varied ways. This is Your miracle, a radical blessing in the long history of human isolation.

And through this blessing, Eternal One, allow someone, somewhere to be Your unwitting messenger, an angel unknown even to the self, able to bring hope, to touch a soul, and to turn someone on the road from grief to grievance, from bereavement to bitterness, away from the next act of hate. And thus another miracle will be done.

Religion News Service, one of the most respected outlets covering faith in America, ran a feature story about faith250 on April 20, 2026. Reporter Yonat Shimron was on the ground for the April 12th kickoff dinner of the Chapel Hill-Pittsboro cluster, where 90 people from nine multifaith congregations gathered to begin studying the Declaration of Independence together. The piece tells the story of why people showed up. Check out the article here.

If you’ve been with us for a while, you know that Substack has been doing a lot of heavy lifting — telling our story, sharing updates, building community. It’s done that job well. But we needed a dedicated home for the practical stuff: the guides, the agendas, the facilitation tools that clergy and cluster leaders reach for when planning a meeting or pulling together a multifaith gathering. All of that now lives at faith250.org, organized under Your faith250 Events and Resources in the top menu — more user-friendly, easier to navigate, and built for the people doing the work on the ground.

This Substack is now at joinfaith250.org and will continue to tell the story of faith250: the voices of clergy, reflections from gatherings, the conversations that remind us why this work matters. Think of the website as the toolbox and Substack as the community. Both have a job to do, and we’re glad to finally have both in place. Take a few minutes to explore faith250.org and let us know what you think.

On March 20, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank published a story about faith250 and the Burke, VA cluster of congregations. His article features quotes from Rabbi Michael Holzman, Rev. Becca Messman and Ibrahim Anli. Milbank's article shows the power of gathering local multifaith congregations together to share a meal, study America's founding texts, and build the kind of cross-faith relationships that make civic renewal possible at the neighborhood level — exactly the model faith250 is replicating in communities across the country. Read and share the article [gift link].

Here’s a few of our favorite quotes:

“My belief is that you just find some opposite interventions, and you reach people and you teach them that they’re not alone, and that they can find trust in their neighbors. Now maybe it takes a little longer, maybe you need more persistence. … But I think we can de-radicalize the country, and I think we can bring people out of cynicism.” - Rabbi Michael Holzman

“So as much as there are contradictions or paradoxes within the document, there’s incredible hope found within it. And that is something that’s worth celebrating and not forgetting.” - Regan Brough

“We came as representatives of different faiths and races, as immigrants and native-born, as liberals and conservatives. We left as compatriots. I wish every American could experience that.” - Dana Milbank

We’ve been busy working on new resources for our faith250 Community. One of those new resources is our YouTube channel (@joinfaith250). There you will find three recordings worth your time:

Rabbi Michael Holzman in conversation with Rich Harwood — a candid exchange about faith, civic life, and what it looks like to build community across difference right now.

Our President’s Day Webinar — a live text study of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address with a remarkable multi-faith panel. If you missed it, this is your chance to catch up. If you were there, it’s worth a second look.

Perspectives: A Conversation with Lakota Sioux Spiritual Leaders — one of the most meaningful conversations we’ve had. Indigenous voices and sacred wisdom speaking directly on our history and this current moment in American life.

These recordings are free. They’re yours. Watch them, share them, show them to your clergy colleagues, cluster members and friends who are interested in contributing to a healthier civic discourse.

We’re adding more resources in the coming weeks! Subscribe to the channel so you don’t miss what’s coming next.

👉 youtube.com/@joinfaith250

Rabbi Michael G. Holzman
Derrick Scott III
Cathy Ross
Rev. Becca Messman
Ibrahim Anli
Ellen Goldman
Emily Hummel
Jeremy Bannett
Maddie Solomon
Rayna Lifland

Graphic Design by Dirty Napkin and Noah Simon.