WASHINGTON (BP)–A brief, written message Heath Shuler’s mother gave him before he entered high school made an impression on him that remains to this day.
“She gave me a note,” the first-term, Democratic congressman from North Carolina recalled, “and on this note it says, ‘Heath, make each and every decision as if I am standing beside you. For when I am not, Jesus Christ always is.’
“[I]n the back of my mind, that always has weighed in,” Shuler told Baptist Press.
Today, another message weighs on his mind.
“Now my note to myself reads, ‘Heath, make each and every decision as if Navy, Island and Nikol are standing beside [you], for when they are not there, Jesus always is,'” he said. “And obviously the ultimate is your relationship with Christ.”
Shuler is a member of Biltmore Baptist Church in Arden, N.C., which is just south of Asheville. He worships in that Southern Baptist church regularly with his wife Nikol, son Navy, 6, and daughter Island, 3.
He shared about his Christian faith in a March interview with Baptist Press. Here is a portion of the edited transcript from that interview.
BAPTIST PRESS: Congressman, share with me about your conversion to Christ.
SHULER: I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve gone all over the United States and given my testimony. I grew up at Victory Baptist Church in Bryson City, N.C…. It was really my parents and my grandmother, seeing how they conduct their lives, seeing how their walk and their relationship with Jesus is and that commitment that they have. [A]t a youth revival I went to, I accepted Christ when I was 10 years old. And one of the most special things about that, my grandmother –- she had seven children — … just as God writes your name down in His book, she would write your name down in her Bible when you’d accepted Christ, when you were saved. So it was a very special time for me to be able to watch my grandmother and obviously knowing that God had written my name down in His book.
BAPTIST PRESS: What do you do now to maintain a healthy spiritual life, especially now that you’re up here?
SHULER: My family and I, we’re members at Biltmore Baptist Church. So on Sundays we have our time [there]. When I left Tennessee and moved back home, [I was] trying to find a church that fit us as a family, to make sure that my children enjoy going to church and that they have fun and that’s what they enjoy. And the church at Biltmore, the family there, just absolutely make it enjoyable for our children, and they do arts, and they do crafts, and they do everything from scavenger hunts, and they’re actually involved in a lot of hands-on. It’s a large church. I guess it’s the largest church in the western part of North Carolina. So it’s a good atmosphere…. You know, you kindle those relationships. So having that on Sunday with the family is very important. But probably the greatest thing that we have here in Washington is … on Tuesday nights my colleagues and I, we get together and we have Bible study at actually a house that we live in. I guess that it’s the only bipartisan house on the Hill, and we fellowship. It’s Democrats, Republicans; it’s House members; it’s senators. And we just get together, and we fellowship and learn more about [one another], support one another, pray for one another. It is the greatest time that I have when I’m here … and then Thursday morning is the prayer breakfast; it’s the congressional prayer breakfast. It’s an incredible time to go and to listen to other members come in and give their testimony…. They come in and give their testimony and talk about their relationship and their walk with Christ. And you get to know the person not as what you see, whether it be on the news or how you see them on the House floor, but you really get to know them, more of an intimate, personal relationship, because they talk about their family and their faith. And on Thursday mornings, we call it the best hour of the week. But I feel like the two hours that I spend for dinner on Tuesday nights and that best hour of the week on Thursday -– [they are] bipartisan…. Actually both of them are part of the National Prayer Breakfast. I’m the treasurer now, but I will be elected as the chairman of the National Prayer Breakfast … if I am re-elected [to Congress].
BAPTIST PRESS: Looking back over these, I guess, 14 months you’ve been in the House, any specific example that pops out in your mind of how your faith has really impacted what you’ve done?
SHULER: I think one of the very first votes was [on] embryonic stem cell [funding]…. Was it a tough decision? No, it was, “That’s life, that’s a child, that’s an unborn child.”
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Tom Strode is Washington bureau chief for Baptist Press.
