It is often said that the free exercise and the non-establishment ideals conflict so that the goal of good public policy should be to find a fair balance between them. This is a misrepresentation of non-establishment. In practice, those two ideals are complimentary. Free exercise is safest when government is silent regarding religious beliefs and is a non-participant in religious practices. Such non-establishment helps to maintain a level marketplace for all competing religious and anti-religious beliefs and helps to ensure that citizens of all religions and none are equal before the law.
For example, government that declares we are "one nation, under God", that declares citizens subscribe to the notion "in God we trust", and that sponsors exclusively monotheistic prayer at the start government meetings also implicitly declares that all alternative beliefs, including atheism and polytheism, are less welcome or false. Citizens don't need government to pronounce their religious beliefs or to participate in their religious practices to freely exercise their religion. Non-establishment does not intefere with citizens free exercise rights to write, speak, and display "one nation, under God" and "in God we trust" and pray on their own initiative prior to government meetings. A government that makes no declarations of religious belief and that sponsors no prayer is thus completely consistent with and complimentary to free exercise.