The faith250 Podcast

Historian Ed Ayers, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Humanities and former president of the University of Richmond, joins Becca Messman and faith250 clergy colleagues to discuss his book American Visions and the decades before the Civil War, when religious faith shaped nearly every major controversy in the young nation. Drawing on his years leading Richmond’s commemoration of the Civil War and Emancipation, Ayers explains why faith communities, with trust built over years, are among the places best equipped to face hard history. He describes history as a field of questions rather than settled answers, separates challenging people from offending them, and closes with the hope he finds in the past: events have rarely turned out the way people expected, and the possibility of progress is always there for ordinary people to draw on through small acts of citizenship.

Show Notes

• 5:24 Why the years before the Civil War
• 10:34 Faith communities and hard history
• 19:50 History as inquiry, not memorization
• 44:48 Challenging versus offending
• 49:16 Where the hope lies

To learn more about faith250 and how your congregation can be a part of it, check out http://faith250.org.

This podcast was produced by Wesley's Revival, the production ministry of Studio Wesley.

What does it mean to move from relevance to significance? In this conversation, Rabbi Michael Holzman sits down with Rich Harwood to explore one of the deepest tensions facing faith leaders and community organizers today. Harwood, who has worked in hundreds of communities across the country over four decades, argues that when leaders focus primarily on their own organization's relevance, they risk turning inward at the very moment their communities need them most. The conversation moves from that diagnosis to something more hopeful: the idea that aspirations for community life are not gone, just buried, and that the simple act of asking what matters to people is enough to begin unearthing them. Along the way, Holzman and Harwood explore the spiritual dimensions of voting, the role decency plays in renewing public trust, and why sitting together over America's founding texts keeps unlocking something that neither marches nor elections can reach.

Show Notes

• 4:11 - Rich Harwood introduced
• 10:32 - What it means to move forward
• 17:23 - Engendering belief in communities
• 46:05 - Decency and dignity in public life
• 54:02 - The spirituality of voting

Rich Harwood is the founder and president of the Harwood Institute, which has spent 35+ years working with communities, organizations, and individuals to bridge divides and strengthen civic culture. Learn more at http://theharwoodinstitute.org.

To learn more about faith250 and how your congregation can be a part of it, check out http://faith250.org.

This podcast was produced by Wesley's Revival, the production ministry of Studio Wesley.

Rabbi Michael Holzman sits down with Reverend Bill Lamar and Rev. Dr. Vernon Walton for one of faith250's most candid conversations yet. The three clergy wrestle with what it means to love or refuse to love a country that has never fully delivered on its promises. This episode refuses easy answers and makes space for the discomfort that honest reckoning requires.

Timestamps

• 4:42 What does patriotism mean for Black clergy?
• 9:35 The AME Church as a positive project, not a reaction
• 21:53 Jubilee, citizenship in heaven, and building justice now
• 46:58 Glimmers of hope: has America ever surprised you?

To learn more about faith250 and how your congregation can be a part of it, check out http://faith250.org.

This podcast was produced by Wesley's Revival, the production ministry of Studio Wesley.

Rabbi Michael Holzman was joined by Ibrahim Anli of the Pacifica Institute, Nina Fernando of the Shoulder to Shoulder Campaign, and Rizwan Jaka of the Adams Center for a live multifaith reflection on the 25th anniversary of September 11, a day that reshaped how Americans see themselves, their neighbors, and their country. Drawing on their own experiences of that morning and its long aftermath, the panelists explored the grief and national trauma that followed the attacks, the devastating rise in Islamophobia, and the quiet counterstory of interfaith relationships. Together they reflected on what it means to move from a society held together by contracts and laws alone toward one grounded in genuine human relationships, and how communities of faith are uniquely positioned to do that work.

To learn more about faith250 and how your congregation can be a part of it, check out http://faith250.org.

This podcast was produced by Wesley's Revival, the production ministry of Studio Wesley.

Rabbi Holzman and Derrick Scott III take stock of faith250's first year growing from 10 to 46 clusters of 289 congregations. They reflect on what surprised them and what they've learned. The conversation closes with a look ahead and a call to any clergy listening to know that this work is ongoing, urgent, and wide open.

Show Notes

• 2:18 — 46 clusters, 289 congregations
• 9:49 — Three lessons from the field
• 27:53 — From despair to conviction
• 23:20 — What clergy should know right now

To learn more about faith250 and how your congregation can be a part of it, check out http://faith250.org.

This podcast was produced by Wesley's Revival, the production ministry of Studio Wesley.

Rabbi Michael Holzman sits down with Rich Harwood, founder of the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, to explore what civic culture actually means and why rebuilding it starts smaller than most people think. Rich has spent four decades working in communities across all 50 states and 40 countries. In this conversation, they discuss the unique role faith leaders can play in that work, why starting within your sphere of influence is not a compromise but a strategy, and how ideas spread like a positive contagion when you begin with the willing. Rich also shares four practical mantras for anyone ready to get started.

Show Notes

• 0:49 — Defining civic culture
• 10:05 — The ripple effect in Reading, PA
• 15:00 — When faith divides instead of unites
• 27:55 — Building trust for hard conversations
• 38:03 — Four mantras for getting started

You can also watch this interview on our Youtube Page.

To learn more about faith250 and how your congregation can be a part of it, check out http://faith250.org.

This podcast was produced by Wesley's Revival, the production ministry of Studio Wesley.

What does love have to do with civic life? In this conversation, Rabbi Michael Holzman sat down with Bishop Tom Berlin, a United Methodist bishop and author, for a wide-ranging dialogue on love, barnacles, and the spiritual foundations of citizenship. Drawing on nearly a decade of friendship, they trace how trust gets built across faith traditions, what the Wesleyan small-group tradition has to teach about civic accountability, and why congregations are the laboratories where people learn to be neighbors. From a 2017 interfaith coalition meeting in Northern Virginia to the well at Samaria, Rabbi Holzman and Bishop Berlin explore what it actually takes to scrape off the barnacles that slow us down as citizens, and why people of faith have a particular stake in getting that work right. This conversation took place during a live faith250 Perspectives Webinar in June 2026.

Show Notes

• 1:38 — How a decade of friendship began
• 9:08 — The barnacles metaphor: bias we can't see
• 15:33 — Jesus, the Samaritans, and two days of hospitality
• 28:23 — The Wesleyan roots of civic accountability
• 43:39 — Where to start building cross-tradition friendship

To learn more about faith250 and how your congregation can be a part of it, check out http://faith250.org.

This podcast was produced by Wesley's Revival, the production ministry of Studio Wesley.

Rabbi Michael Holzman, Rev. Dr. Vernon Walton, and Rev. Dr. Latricia Scriven discuss the famous speech delivered by Frederick Douglass in Rochester in 1852 . They explore what drives Douglass's pain, where his hope comes from, and why his indictment of America is ultimately an act of love. This conversation is candid, theological, and at times personal.

• 0:00 — Introducing the speech and the speakers
• 9:58 — Douglass's pain, and why he still cares
• 15:44 — The African American well of hope and forgiveness
• 35:08 — The difference between convincing and conviction

To learn more about faith250 and how your congregation can be a part of it, check out http://faith250.org.

This podcast was produced by Wesley's Revival, the production ministry of Studio Wesley.

In this first episode of the faith250 podcast, Rabbi Michael Holzman sits down with Amy Harmon, Communications Director of the Oakton Stake of the LDS Church, and Rev. Daniel Cho, associate Pastor at Floris United Methodist Church, for a text study of the Declaration of Independence. This is the same kind of conversation faith250 clusters are having in neighborhoods across America. The three faith leaders wrestle with hard questions: What does it mean to hold a truth together? Did the founders actually believe in universal human equality,? What do we hope for America in the next 250 years? This is exactly the kind of multifaith, text-grounded dialogue that faith250 was built for. To learn how your congregation can be part of it, visit http://faith250.org.

This podcast was produced by Wesley's Revival,. the production ministry of Studio Wesley.

Rabbi Michael Holzman, founder of faith250, shares the vision for our movement.

Learn more at http://faith250.org.

This podcast was produced by the team at Wesley's Revival, the production ministry of Studio Wesley.