When we began discussing the need for multi-faith, congregation-based, local celebrations of America’s 250^th, we had no idea what kind of response we would receive. The initial conversations were with a handful of local clergy friends, and Reform rabbinic colleagues around the country. When we launched on July 4^th, 2025, we hoped to attract maybe 10 clusters, or 25 if we were wildly successful. As I write this we have 41 clusters including 261 congregations around the country.

While we are still collecting feedback, and it is too soon to draw conclusions from this experience, we have learned a few definite lessons. First, local clergy find deep spiritual meaning in connecting with the colleagues in fellowship. Second, studying our nation’s shared “sacred” texts has a unique power to strengthen relationships between clergy and between members of various congregations. Third, Americans are ambivalent about the meaning of this historic birthday, and anxious about the nation’s future.

None of these lessons will change after July 4^th, which means we have an opportunity to continue healing our nation’s civic health beyond this summer. For those of you running congregations, and working on your program calendars for 2026-2027, now is the time to think about how to incorporate this inspiring work into your community’s spiritual life. To help, here are some tools that can jump start your preparations.

• Check this 9-minute video about faith250 which serves as an easy introduction for staff, colleagues, and lay people. Forward it to potential partners in your congregation and neighborhood as you propose a faith250 cluster.

• Take a look at our fall 2026 programmatic timeline which centers Thanksgiving as a time for shared civic reflection.

• Attend one of our info sessions this summer to learn about the program, meet colleagues, and ask questions. We, the people running faith250, are ordinary neighborhood clergy just like you. Register here for July 2 @4:00PM EDT, or here for July 23 @4:00PM EDT.

• Start your learning: our website contains step by step resources to guide you through our three components—clergy relationship building, congregational gathering, and hosting a public civic ritual. All of this is a methodology designed to help you and your neighbors express hopes, anxieties, inspiration, struggles, and collective commitment to the project of American democracy.

The work of healing our civic life is not a summer project; it is a calling. We’re convinced that clergy and their congregations are uniquely positioned to answer that call. This is the perfect time to bring this work to your community. Now is the time to gather people, open a text, and together ask hard questions about the future of our democracy. together. I hope you will join us.

Many in our congregations feel uncertain, even hopeless, about what is happening in our country right now. In this time of extreme polarization and political disruption, they are looking for moral clarity, and honestly, sometimes it's hard to know what to offer. faith250 starts from the premise that faith communities have a significant role to play in restoring civic culture, and that sacred text study, which is practiced in our own traditions, is a powerful tool for doing it.

The program brings multifaith clusters of congregations together to study what we call American Scriptures: the Declaration of Independence, Frederick Douglass's "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?," Emma Lazarus's "The New Colossus," and "America the Beautiful.” These texts, among many others which have been core to the founding and development of our country, articulate the values and ideals that can inform how people of faith respond to this particular moment in our shared history. The program has three components: clergy relationship-building and text study; clergy-led multifaith events for their congregations to gather; and a local public civic ritual. faith250 provides the resources and guidance so that local faith leaders can create something meaningful for their congregations and the broader community.

Thanksgiving is one of the most natural occasions in the US calendar for a public civic ritual, and we've put together a practical guide to help clergy work through the full faith250 process with a Thanksgiving public civic ritual as the destination. The guide walks you through forming your cluster and initial engagement with the texts alongside neighboring clergy through the summer, building congregational gatherings in the fall, and bringing your community together for a public event during the Thanksgiving season. Two flexible timelines are offered — one that overlaps the clergy and congregational phases, and one that sequences them — so you can choose the approach that fits your community. Planning for music, promotion, and the civic ritual itself are all addressed.

If you've been looking for a structured way to engage your community in civic life this year, one that's grounded in relationship and rooted in text study, this guide is your starting point. You can find it now at faith250.org. We would love to have your congregation be part of what is happening in communities across the country.

This guest post is by Chandra DeNap Whetstine, COO, One America Movement.

I suspect that most Americans did not wake up on the morning of January 1st thinking, “Wow, it’s going to be a big year! It’s America’s Semiquincentennial!” Most Americans probably don’t even know what to call the 250th anniversary of our independence. To be honest, I sure didn’t until I looked it up.

While you might not have woken up on January 1st thinking about this major milestone for our country, I bet you did wake up thinking about something in your life that is impacted by the current state of our nation. Whether it is hope or dread around immigration, the economy, military action, or so many other hot-button issues, how we shape our common life together is on most of our minds right now. And for so many of us, that common life appears to be coming apart at the seams.

We are increasingly mistrustful of our fellow citizens and institutions. We argue with strangers online about politics, calling them ignorant or arrogant, deplorables or snowflakes. We cut ties with friends or family over the very same hot-button issues that we woke up thinking about this New Year. And instead of our self-righteousness making us happier, more productive, or more content, we are increasingly isolated, depressed, and afraid.

Is this what the founders of our country had in mind?

When they set down on paper the words which would forever sever their connection to England, when they risked their lives for liberty, were they looking forward to a future where their descendants would snipe at each other online? Or worse yet, in real life? I doubt it.

The founders of our country had their fair share of disagreements, and the process toward independence was slow and fraught. When Thomas Jefferson submitted the draft of the Declaration of Independence for review by the full Continental Congress, it was hotly debated, and much of the document was removed, including a section about the ills of slavery.1 Despite being a largely homogenous group of European, land-owning men, the founders of our country still had much to disagree over. They argued about systems of government, the economy, taxes, and, of course, slavery. And yet…and yet, they were able to find enough common ground that they could launch the American Experiment.

The final sentence of the Declaration of Independence reads, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”2 Two things strike me about this final sentence. First, not only did these men agree to the declaration, but they also pledged themselves to one another in support of it. They didn’t pledge themselves to the declaration but instead to the fellows who penned their names to it. They recognized that they were bound to one another even amid difference. And second, they knew none of this could work without the protection of God, the One who is greater than any human endeavor.

Perhaps this sentence can be our guiding principle in these divided times. As our country enters our semiquincentennial, can we, too, pledge ourselves to one another even amid our differences? Can people of faith make that pledge knowing that the balance of successful peacemaking in America rests in the hands of God?

At the One America Movement, we believe the crisis of toxic polarization in our country is, at its heart, a spiritual crisis. When polarization convinces us that people across our divides are evil, that they have to be stopped at all costs, it harms us from the inside out. Our faith traditions teach us to love our neighbors and welcome strangers, to care for one another and recognize the fundamental human dignity in everyone we meet. But we can’t do that when we are beguiled by polarized politics.

That’s why initiatives like faith250 are so important. Our faith must guide us to transcend our partisan divides. When we come together across our differences to discuss the very nature of what it means to be American, we can trust the wisdom of our faith traditions to help us stay in those difficult conversations. And as we build new relationships across those divides, we can reweave the fraying fabric of our shared common life.

America is difficult and messy, and it certainly isn’t perfect. It wasn’t in 1776 and it isn’t in 2026. But as we pass this major milestone for our country, it is worthwhile to reflect on how far we’ve come and what holds us together. By celebrating our 250th anniversary alongside those who are racially, religiously and politically different, we affirm that while we find much to disagree about, we know this American Experiment will not thrive if we allow polarization to tear us apart.

In this moment when so much about our politics is fraught and broken, it isn’t enough to just pledge our allegiance to a flag or swear an oath to the constitution. We must let our faith guide us to see the value and dignity of every person, even those we disagree with. Only then can we, like the founders so long ago, pledge to one another our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

Imagine rooms full of people from multiple faiths enjoying respectful dialogue, food and fellowship leading up to this coming July 4; gatherings to consider the meaning and blessing of our country’s founding. We can create this together: a once-in-a-generation opportunity for neighbors to meet neighbors, a chance to regain unity through conversation about some of America’s most inspiring words.

In a time of rising political violence and threats to the institutions of American democracy, this moment is urgent. The moral thread holding our democracy together is wearing thin. We are losing sight of our shared values. What if, through our multi-faith networks of local congregations, we spark a movement to counter the division, contempt, and toxicity that threaten to tear the country apart, and instead make this year something unifying . . . a massive community celebration, a conversation about the values that sustain this country?

We can shore up the bonds between citizens because we houses of worship are one of the few places where neighbors, friends, citizens, and newcomers can regularly meet face to face; where we study text and seek truth together; and where our varied faith traditions each remind us to see the Divine in every human being.

The Program

faith250 invites faith leaders and communities across the country to form clusters of congregations to act as sacred spaces for listening to one another, clarifying our shared civic values, and celebrating our hopes for America. The approach is to work in three components: (1) clergy relationship-building through small group study of some of America’s sacred texts: “The Declaration of Independence,” Emma Lazarus’s “The New Colossus,” “America the Beautiful,” and Frederick Douglass’s address, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”'; (2) multi-congregation fellowship by breaking bread and discussing these same texts in larger clergy-led gatherings; and (3) public civic rituals designed by each local community, flooding the zone with hope around July 4^th next summer.

Local clusters can find start-up materials on this site:

• A Program Description and Suggested Timeline

• Robust facilitation guidance for clergy conversations and congregational gatherings

• A sample “Covenant for Conversation” that can be used or adapted to create a positive environment for dialogue

• Easily modifiable study handouts for the four texts, including ideas for larger group gatherings

• Guidance for creating your public civic ritual

• A Resource Library that will include ritual planning materials for next summer

Every community is different. We encourage local clusters to approach the 250^th in their own way and tell us what you come up with. We are using substack so we can build a community, pool ideas, and share future resources, so please subscribe. To learn more or ask any questions, please write cathyross@faith250.org or click the button below.

How to Get Involved