Aug 15, 2026 · 35 min · 11 segments
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…
Yeah, I mean, I'm super excited because both the numerical growth and the quality of the experience, the spiritual quality of the experience that I've heard about from people anecdotally has been both things.
And, and the, and the growth continues, you know, which is kind of going to be the topic of our conversation I know today, but, but so I'm, I'm feeling great.
Someone asked me today, how many people do you think are in those congregations on average? And we speculated, if there's 500 people in each of those congregations, we've reached roughly 145,000 people in America, which is a shockingly high number of people.
Again, what we hear anecdotally is that people are hungry for positive experiences of civic life.
And the Faith 250 model has been able to give some local pastors and rabbis and imams to give them tools that they can use to create those positive civic experiences and model those positive civic experiences.
Um, and that's really been, that was, that was our dream and we've been able to do it, uh, getting started this year and we're excited to see what comes next.
And Michael, I'd love for us to bear out just a second, like it, this is a multi-faith effort.
Um, and that is a, that's a word we use intentionally, but There are a lot of traditions inside that word for us.
Who, just top of your head, who's all represented? What traditions are all represented across those 46 clusters of congregations?
Yeah, I mean, I'm super excited because both the numerical growth and the quality of the experience, the spiritual quality of the experience that I've heard about from people anecdotally has been both things.
And, and the, and the growth continues, you know, which is kind of going to be the topic of our conversation I know today, but, but so I'm, I'm feeling great.
Someone asked me today, how many people do you think are in those congregations on average? And we speculated, if there's 500 people in each of those congregations, we've reached roughly 145,000 people in America, which is a shockingly high number of people.
Again, what we hear anecdotally is that people are hungry for positive experiences of civic life.
And the Faith 250 model has been able to give some local pastors and rabbis and imams to give them tools that they can use to create those positive civic experiences and model those positive civic experiences.
Um, and that's really been, that was, that was our dream and we've been able to do it, uh, getting started this year and we're excited to see what comes next.
And Michael, I'd love for us to bear out just a second, like it, this is a multi-faith effort.
Um, and that is a, that's a word we use intentionally, but There are a lot of traditions inside that word for us.
Who, just top of your head, who's all represented? What traditions are all represented across those 46 clusters of congregations?
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