Excerpt from A Well-Trained Wife by Tia Levings, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Dad sipped his coffee in his recliner. "That place is huge," he muttered.

First Baptist in the mid-eighties was majestic. Mom said they owned the largest pipe organ in the South, and the walls behind the choir and orchestra held pipes like tin soldiers. A replica of a mountain waterfall cascaded down fake rocks and real plants between the pipes. I'd never seen a church with a waterfall before.

"They have two services too," Mom said. "The building seats over thirty-five hundred people. Two choirs, two orchestras. I'd love to sing in a choir like that." She beamed. In Michigan, she'd directed the choir and sang solos. I knew she missed music.

The pastor paced and waved his hands. "You need to get plugged in to a good church," he urged. "Children need to be raised in a good Christian family. Their eternity depends on it!!"

It was as if this man reached through the screen to speak directly to our family. He leaned over the podium, begging. "Brothers and sisters, we need the hearts of your young people. Adolescents still have a pliable mind. We must get ahold of children while they're still young."

I didn't want an old man in a suit to get ahold of me. But "adolescence" was a big word that meant dangerous territory. In adolescence, kids either went right, or they went wrong—against what God wanted. I rolled my eyes. I still played with dolls, hated dresses, and wanted to move back home to the trees. Nothing wrong with that.

But I could tell First Baptist was the cool place to be. Mom wanted this for her new life—singing onstage, pretty clothes, friendly faces. At First Baptist, the women didn't have to roll up their sleeves and work like men on farms. Men wore suits, women wore perfume, children smiled and walked in line. First Baptist was as opposite from where we came from as possible, and I'm sure she found that reassuring. The fatal finger from the sky tipped the dominoes ever so slightly. It was just enough to trigger a visit for a "New Members Tour," an orientation session designed to help visitors find their bearings.

The following Sunday afternoon, we crossed one of seven bridges over the sapphire ribbon of the St. Johns River to get to "the big church downtown." Instead of trees, Jacksonville had billboards. All over town, little frames around license plates read FOLLOW ME TO FIRST BAPTIST, so we did.

A short man polished like a game show host greeted us. "Howdy there, folks. My name is Tom. I'm a deacon here at First Baptist and your guide for the afternoon. It's a big place—we cover eleven city blocks! And we're built for expansion. But don't worry a bit. If you get lost either on the campus or in life, First Baptist hands out maps!" He winked and Monica shuffled behind me. Neither one of us wanted his attention. "You must be here for our children's ministry," he said to our parents. "We have the very best youth program in all of Jacksonville. Some say in the entire country."

Tom passed out brochures to our tour group. Four other families walked with us through the halls. "Dr. Vines sure can preach a good sermon, can't he?" Tom said. "Really knows how to reel 'em in."

The tour progressed through a series of restored retail and office buildings converted to Sunday School rooms. "These were built when people drove downtown to shop, in those big cars they had in the 1950s. That was before the suburbs. Over here's our library and bookstore. Those are the Sunday School buildings—every age level gets their own floor."

Our group walked past nurseries full of glistening brass baby cribs. "Folks, kids here meet their spouses at church, raise their families here, and graduate to our senior citizens building. You can attend cradle to grave, six days a week, and never have to leave."

Tom strutted like a turkey in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, I thought. He told us the history of the church, and how the stone-and-stained-glass Hobson Auditorium was built after the Great Fire. The "sister churches" in the inner city—the Bethel Baptist temples and the Holy Congregations and the Fellowships of the Shekinah Glory of God—came through segregation. "As Dr. Lindsay says," Tom told us, "everyone is just happier with their own kind."

Excerpted from A Well-Trained Wife by Tia Levings. Copyright © 2024 by Tia Levings. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.