After Christmas-250th Begins

Most of us are focused on Christmas — last-minute preparations and shopping. We are looking forward to the last and greatest candle on the Advent Wreath, the Christ Candle, and the Christmas eve or morning service. Then it will all be over for another year. But a new year, unlike any we have experienced, is coming!

Usually we experience a gentle, not-disagreeable letdown when Christmas is over. The family goes home and the tree is untrimmed (when Christmas is TRULY over, of course, after the 12th Day, Epiphany!). We gear up for New Year’s Eve.

You may celebrate raucously at the stroke of midnight, or you may end the year with contemplation and resolutions. But this year, you need to gear up for the biggest and longest celebration possibly of your entire lifetime: 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the 250th birthday of America. And there will be ongoing festivities, commemorations, and reflections throughout 2026.

Moreso than America’s Bicentennial (which vaguely I remember, being so.very.young at the time!) the 250th (officially the Semiquincentennial or the Sestercentennial) will be a true juxtaposition of patriotism and Judeo-Christian heritage. Perhaps this is because we realize more than we did in 1976 the fragility of our nation’s continuance, or perhaps because we sense the fires of revival that once transformed our nation are beginning to burn once again.

Either way, there will be tributes to such landmark events as the First Great Awakening, which American Association of Evangelicals founder Kelly Kullberg declares emboldened “the spirit of liberty that fueled the American Revolution.” Kullberg continues, “That courageous generation included 56 young men who risked their lives by signing their names on Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence from a tyrannical English king and the world’s most powerful army.”

Our Founding Fathers dedicated this land to God. The Pilgrims signed The Mayflower Compact, covenanting with God that this new land would be “for the Glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.” No celebration of our 250th birthday would be complete — or authentic — without calling us back to the first love that the Founders had for establishing a “City on a Hill” that would send the gospel to the whole world. So, it is a great joy to see how seriously the United States government is taking the spiritual foundation of America in its preparations.

To plan your participation in this great year’s worth of events, check out our American Association of Evangelicals’ (AAE) ever-growing master schedule of virtual, federal, national, state, and local events to commemorate the 250th birthday of our great land. The AAE is one of the key groups helping to organize the critical spiritual component of 250th celebrations because the AAE promotes the Christ-centered gospel and biblical worldview for human flourishing, and that includes the flourishing of our nation, based on being faithful to the vision of our founding fathers.