Faith250 Pot Luck Celebration at Burke Lake Park, July 1.
In July of last year, the clergy of Burke and Springfield wondered aloud what we might do in July 2026. We were ready to trade the normal clergy banter of congregational programming to take on something formative and bold: the promise of America. We decided to strengthen the spiritual muscles required for democracy to flourish. Clergy discussed founding documents of our country, The Declaration of Independence, The New Colossus (the poem by Emma Lazarus on the Statue of Liberty), the hymn America the Beautiful, and What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? By Frederick Douglass.
Then, we widened the table. We brought all of our congregations together four times, nearly 20 congregations in total, with about 180 people attending each time, and those conversations took on new life and new depth, as people sat with their actual neighbors in real time and heard their hopes for this country.
All of this has been building toward one desire: to mark this milestone in our democracy with honesty, with hope, and with each other.
We will do that together on July 1 from 6:00-8:00pm at Burke Lake Park, Shelter A. We will gather for a pot luck celebrating the 250th Anniversary of our country as an Interfaith community. We invite you to bring food to share and ask that you label what it is and, if you are bringing something homemade and willing, bring some copies of the recipe to share. We do have a shelter, but encourage you to bring lawn chairs if you so desire. Please RSVP here.