Welcome to Family Policy Matters, a weekly podcast and radio show produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Hi, I'm John Rust and president of NC Family, and each week on Family Policy Matters, we welcome experts and policy leaders to discuss topics that impact faith and family here in North Carolina. Our prayer is that this program will help encourage and equip you to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state, and nation. And now here's the host of Family Policy Matters, Tracy DeVett Griggs. Welcome to Family Policy Matters.
What happens to a society when the institutions that once formed us stop having any influence? That's the question behind an essay written by Dr. Thomas West, once a North Carolina resident with two degrees from our local Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary here in Wake Forest. Dr. West writes about leaving the South, serving in London, England, and eventually returning to the U.S.
to help revitalize a 205-year-old church in Nashville, Tennessee. His experiences living and working in London gave him a unique perspective. Dr. Thomas West, thanks for joining us today for Family Policy Matters. Thanks, Tracy.
Happy to be with you. All right, so before we get into it, we talk about institutions.
So just give us that layman's definition. What do people mean when they talk about institutions? An institution is a formative structure. It's an organization designed to form and shape people. There's organizational institutions like a university.
There's churches, there's hospitals, there's businesses. They're formative organizations. The family, the marriage, professions, they're all interpersonal, societal ways of being structured and connected. But at its most basic level, an institution is a formative structure.
Okay, good. Thank you for that. Because sometimes I'm not sure people realize that families are included in that list.
Now, you talk about how you had to leave the South before you could learn to love it rightly.
So what did London teach you about the strengths and, of course, weaknesses of the culture that you came home to? What led us to London, you know, reading the book of Acts, Jeremiah 29, seek the good, seek the welfare and the prosperity of the city.
So my wife Elizabeth took our two kids. We moved over to London, England, supported by many churches right around the North Carolina area to plant a church called Redeemer Queens Park in a place where almost no one goes to church. And London didn't just make me a missionary to England. London made me a missionary, period. Full stop, five years on, you start looking back across the Atlantic and you start to see American culture with fresh eyes, a mission field that has a lot of religious routines.
And that's part of what led me to pastoring Nashville First Baptist Church 206 years on a downtown church that's experiencing real renewal. We're learning to bloom where the Lord has planted us, a different city, but seeking that same thing we've always been about: planting gardens and seeking the welfare of the place. You know, we've heard so much about how much religion there is not in London and England. When you looked back across the pond, what did you see specifically? You know, in London, we were evangelizing unbelief.
So this hard path soil, at least you know where you stand, but you come home. To America, and you realize you're evangelizing something trickier than unbelief. You're evangelizing familiarity. Jesus describes this for us in Matthew 13: a seed that springs up fast in shallow soil that's choked out by thorns and cares and riches of life. I think that's the great danger of the American South: not rejection, but the crowding out of the gospel, right?
So, faith gets a seat at the table, but so does football, and politics, and comfort, and the calendar. And the thorns don't necessarily argue with the wheat, they just outgrow it.
So, my perspective on evangelism has changed. In London, I answered the question: is it true? Here, I have to awaken the question first because it's not really is it true, it's what difference does it make, or what benefits does it make? It's interesting, isn't it? You know, familiarity can also.
Almost inoculate you. It can be just enough a dead religion to immunize you against the living Christ. London taught me to stop assuming that the gospel and to start announcing it everywhere, including in the local church.
So I'm assuming you are talking about Christians who are in church. These aren't just Christians who have maybe stopped going to church. This leads to an attitude, as you suggest, of a basket robbins of church, where people just kind of choose a comfortable place. Church over saturation leads to kind of a market mentality of church. I'll speak for Nashville, though.
I have the most fond memories of Wake Forest and Raleigh, North Carolina, where we were for 10 years before moving across. I you know, Nashville may be the most competitive religious market in America. Church on every corner, everyone trying to improve its experience. And, you know, the saturation or the market almost forms us before we ever ask what we're being sold. It's like we're trained into this question of what can the place do for me, not what can I offer to the place.
Now, hear me, I'm no enemy of the market to find servant, but it's a terrible catechist. The gospel doesn't begin with what the church can do for you, it begins with what Christ has done from you. And the whole grammar of grace rests on this: receiving before we ever achieve or have something to offer, right?
So, when churches compete on experiences, you know, our worship could become a product that we evaluate like a product. The pew becomes a seat at a show. The customer is always right, which is exactly what a sinner doesn't need to hear.
So, Paul says the church is a body, it's not a brand, Christ is the head. These different body parts, we're in no position to say, I have no need of you. We say, you belong to me and I belong to you. Customers get served when you think about this. If church is a baskin-robin sort of experience, but disciples get formed.
I do think the 31 flavors will keep you tasting forever, but only a family table can really feed you and give you what you need. You're listening to Family Policy Matters, a weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. This is just one of the many ways NC Family works to educate and inform citizens about issues that impact faith and family here in North Carolina. Our vision is to create a state and nation where God is honored, religious freedom flourishes, families thrive, and life is cherished. For more information about NC Family and how you can partner with us in pursuit of this vision, visit our website at ncfamily.org and be sure to sign up to receive our email updates, action alerts, and Family North Carolina magazine.
You can also follow us on social media at NC Family Policy. That's at NC Family Policy. But we're seeing this in families as well. It almost is a cultural idea, isn't it? There seems to be an epidemic of our younger generations like cutting off their whole family because maybe they didn't feel built up the way they thought they should.
So that's another institution, right? We talked earlier, the church is an institution. Of course, our family is a very important institution. Does this matter? Yeah, absolutely.
You know, a consumer mentality, though, says, I'm here as long as it works for me. You know, I'll show up as long as the food is prepared well, comes out hot and on time. A covenant relationship, not a consumer relationship, but a covenant relationship says, I'm yours, especially when everything isn't going well. Tim Keller drew a line for us that was really helpful. Tim Keller drew a line.
He would talk about how a consumer relationship lasts as long as the benefits, but a covenant relationship holds even when the benefits go on pause or fail. We see this in the Bible. We think about Ruth binding. Herself to a bitter, grieving mother-in-law. Your people shall be my people.
That's covenant love. And it's the soil where the one-anothers in the New Testament church can actually grow. You can bear one another's burdens. You can't bear one another's burdens from a distance. You have to be close enough to be burdened by someone else, right?
So I'll own the church's part of this. I'm not responsible for all of it, but I can take some ownership. You know, think about it. We have marketed the church like a product for over a generation. We shouldn't be surprised if we're just learning the lesson that we taught right now.
But it does show up in a family unit, how we form people in the local church. I'm afraid it shows up over there too. Many conservatives are rightly concerned about declining marriage rates, family breakdown, declining trust, loneliness, weakening of civic institutions, as we've been discussing. But many of them look to government to make some changes or blame the government. What are some ways that these institutions, families, churches, Especially can make differences that the government just cannot make.
Let's start at home. Like, what can a mom and dad do about this? You know, smaller than the South, I really do think it starts at a table with the family gathered around. Deuteronomy chapter six, it doesn't teach that spiritual formation is necessarily a program that must be led by a professional. The words shall be on your heart.
You shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the way.
Now, walk along the way, I just interpret the carpool line every time I read that. Moses is describing the kitchen.
So, parents, think about it. We open up our Bible, we pray with our kids where we are, we sing badly and we sing to God gladly and together. And God loves this. Think about it: Joshua planted the flag for every household: as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
So, your children can survive your imperfections, but what they won't be able to handle is the pretending and the faking it.
So, I'd say, moms and dads, let them see you repent. Let them see you love the Lord. Let them walk in on you praying and contending with God. Let them listen to you worship God on your own. A child who watches the gospel at work on its parents, well, they're likely to grow up believing it.
More is caught than taught. And I would just say, parents, make sure they're catching you living the life of grace. Wow, that's a good word. I know that when my kids were young, I got up early before they got up to make sure I could get everything done. And they didn't see me enough.
So I love that word.
Now, this essay that I love, by the way, you end with an urgency that we strengthen what remains.
Now, if you were speaking directly to North Carolina, lawmakers say, parents, business leaders, just ordinary citizens, let's cast a wide net here. What kind of strengthening do you think needs to happen? Church history hands us the playbook. Think about the 1700s in England, okay? 1700s in England.
Everyone was baptized to a man, they were christened, they were churched, they were catechized, and they were cold to the prospect of the warm heart of Jesus Christ. God raised up a Whitfield and a Wesley to preach conversion to the converted out in the fields. People owned Bibles, though they never really loved the Lord. I think this is somewhat of our assignment today. Let me articulate three practices.
First, I think we have to preach conversion from inside the church. I think you almost have to assume the gospel for no one and continually remind people who believe the gospel of the gospel.
So we spoke about this a few minutes ago. Every Sunday, I preach to the baptized as if Christ must be received because he must. Must. Second, and this is what I've done some writing on with the Gospel Way Catechism with my friend Trevin Wax. We must catechize the church.
We stop pretending that people know the faith and we teach the faith to people. I'm into some of that old school question, answer, Bible verses, and commentary way of going about it. We wrote a book on it called The Gospel Way Catechism. It's to be worked out in the church and in the home, old school and on purpose. That's a lot of what I think we need right now.
And third, open your table, getting back to good Christian hospitality. Re-evangelization travels over meals, not fancy marketing campaigns.
So Paul told Timothy that some hold the appearance of godliness, but deny its power.
So form is what often gets inherited. Power is what we're praying down.
So we do what Jesus told the church in Sardis there in Revelation. Wake up, strengthen what remains. I think those three different modes are what we should be working on right now.
Well, what a great word to close on. And thank you very much. If people would like to read more about the kinds of things that they're hearing today from you, do you have a place that we can go and look? Thank you very much. Yes, I write every week on Substack.
It's called West Words. West Words, really aimed at trying to renew the soul in the cynical age. You could just search Westwords. And for the parents, we've been talking to Trevin Wax and I just released the Gospel Weight Catechism for Kids this week. It's built for the dinner table, available wherever books are sold.
And if you're ever in Nashville, just drop in. We'd love to see you and meet you at Nashville First Baptist Church. All right, sounds good.
Well, we have been speaking today with Dr. Thomas West. Thank you so much for joining us today on family policy matters. Thank you for listening to Family Policy Matters. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and leave us a review.
To learn more about NC Family and the work we do to promote and preserve faith and family in North Carolina, visit our website at ncfamily.org. That's ncfamily.org. And check us out on social media at NC Family Policy. Thanks and may God bless you and your family.
