When the Nation Stops: Deep Roots in Cultural Storms
By W.J de Kock, ThD
Educational Consultant to Partners in Ministry
Professor of Practical Theology at Palmer Theological Seminary of Eastern University
8 minute read
The nation stops on the first Tuesday in November. Not for reverence, not for mourning, but for horses—three minutes and twenty seconds of thundering hooves, silks, and betting slips while offices gather around televisions and pubs fill with punters clutching form guides. Melbourne Cup Day is Australia's grand pause, "the race that stops a nation,"[i] as the marketing reminds us annually.[ii] It's spectacle and tradition wrapped in fascinators and champagne, a cultural moment so embedded that even the non-gamblers know the drill: pick a horse, wear something fancy, and pretend the stakes matter.
For ministry leaders, Melbourne Cup Day poses an annual question sharper than a stiletto on Flemington turf: what does it mean to stay grounded when everything else gets swept up in spectacle? How do you engage cultural moments without losing spiritual centre? And when the nation collectively pauses for something that has nothing to do with the kingdom, where do the kingdom people stand?
The answer, oddly enough, is in the trees.
Not the festival decorations or the fashionable potted specimens that grace corporate marquees, but the old river red gums that have weathered a century of storms along Australian creeks. These veterans don't survive because of what's visible above ground—their strength is underground, in root systems that stretch wide and deep, anchoring them through droughts, floods, and cyclones that snap younger, shallower plantings like matchsticks.[iii]
The Psalmist understood this arboreal wisdom: "That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers."[iv] The image isn't accidental. In the ancient Near East, where water was life and shade was salvation, a tree by streams represented the person who stays rooted in sustaining truth while the cultural winds howl around them. Not isolated from the weather, but anchored through it.[v]
Here's what the old trees teach: deep roots aren't about withdrawal.
They're about engagement with what actually sustains. A river red gum doesn't survive by avoiding storms—it survives by growing roots deep enough and wide enough that when the storm hits, it bends without breaking. The shallow-rooted trees topple. The deep-rooted ones dance.
Ministry in Australia requires this kind of rooted flexibility, especially during cultural moments like Melbourne Cup Day. The temptation runs in two directions, both unhelpful. The first temptation is to pretend the cultural moment doesn't exist—to ignore the race, dismiss the fascination, and position the church as the righteous remnant that doesn't participate in such frivolity. This approach might feel spiritually superior, but it mostly ensures irrelevance. The nation stops, but the church keeps plodding along as if nothing's happening, wondering why people don't take them seriously.
The second temptation is to get swept up entirely—to make Melbourne Cup Day a church event complete with betting pools, fashion parades, and baptism-by-champagne. This feels like engagement, like being relevant and accessible, but it's rootless mimicry. The church becomes indistinguishable from the pub down the road, except with slightly better coffee and marginally less swearing.
The third way—the river red gum way—is to engage the cultural moment while staying rooted in sustaining streams. This looks different in different contexts, but it always involves the same core principles: participating without being defined by participation, creating space for community without losing spiritual centre, and offering alternatives that honour people's real lives without demanding they choose between their culture and their faith.
The key is root depth.
Churches that weather cultural storms—whether it's Melbourne Cup Day, Australia Day controversies, or any other moment when national identity and Christian faith create tension—do so because their leaders have cultivated root systems that go deeper than weekly attendance numbers or cultural approval.
What does deep rooting look like practically? It starts with regular immersion in streams that sustain—not just personal devotional habits (though those matter), but communal practices that anchor the whole body. Worship that prioritises encounter over entertainment. Preaching that forms imagination, not just information. Small groups that practice real confession and real forgiveness, not just polite Bible study. Service projects that emerge from kingdom values, not just community goodwill.
Deep roots also require honest engagement with Australian soil. The tree that thrives isn't the imported species that ignores local conditions—it's the one that adapts to the particular challenges of this landscape: the spiritual dryness, the cultural skepticism, the post-Christian pragmatism, the weird blend of laconic humour and genuine kindness that defines Australian identity. Churches that pretend they're growing in European soil or American soil inevitably struggle. The ones that honour the actual conditions—that learn to flourish as indigenous expressions of global faith—develop the kind of root systems that can handle whatever comes.
Storms, ironically, often strengthen trees when the conditions are right.Consistent wind patterns cause trees to develop extra structural muscle, initiating changes in their development to compensate for external loading. But this only works when the soil is healthy and the roots can grow deep enough to anchor the tree.[vi] In ministry terms, cultural challenges can strengthen rather than destroy faith communities—but only when the underlying soil is healthy and the roots have access to sustaining streams.
This is why discernment matters more than policy. There's no universal rule for how churches should engage Melbourne Cup Day or any other cultural moment. The question isn't "what should churches do about the Cup?" The question is "what are your roots drawing from, and how does that shape your response to this particular cultural moment in your particular context?"
The difference isn't the strategy; it's the root system.
As November approaches and the marketing machinery revs up for another year of racing carnival excitement, ministry leaders face the same question the trees face before storm season: are your roots deep enough? Have you been drawing from sustaining streams, or have you been surviving on shallow topsoil that looks good but lacks depth? When the cultural winds blow—and they will, Melbourne Cup is just one example—will you bend without breaking, or will you topple?
The beauty of the Psalm 1 promise is that deep roots produce visible fruit. The tree by streams doesn't just survive storms—it "yields its fruit in season" and "whose leaf does not wither." That's the paradox: the community most rooted in eternal streams often engages temporal moments most effectively. They can participate without being consumed, critique without being cruel, offer alternatives without being arrogant. They bend in the cultural winds because their roots go deeper than cultural approval.⁷
So here's the gentle provocation as the nation prepares to stop for horses: what are you rooted in? Not what do you say you believe, but the relationship that actually sustains you when the storms hit? What streams are you drawing from day after day, week after week, in the unsexy rhythms that no one notices until crisis comes and some trees topple while others stand?
Strong gardens aren't isolated from their neighbourhoods—they contribute to local ecosystems while staying rooted in good soil. The church that weathers cultural storms isn't the one that retreats into religious isolation. It's the one that engages the neighbourhood, honours the landscape, participates in the local rhythms—all while drawing from streams deeper than Melbourne Cup marketing can reach.
When the nation stops on November 4th, may the church bend gracefully, roots deep, leaves green, offering shade to whoever needs it—whether they're wearing fascinators or flannelette.
[i] https://www.vrc.com.au/race-days-and-events/2025-2026/lexus-melbourne-cup-day/
[ii] "Melbourne Cup," Wikipedia, accessed 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne_Cup.
[iii] "Storms Make Trees Take Deeper Roots," Candy Cecarden, March 13, 2023, https://candycecarden.com/storms-make-trees-take-deeper-roots/. Also, ”Root Health 101: Spotting and Preventing Underground Issues," O'Brien's Tree Care, January 30, 2025, https://obrienstreecare.com.au/spotting-and-preventing-underground-issues/.
[iv] Psalm 1:3, NIV.
[v] Got Questions, “What Does It Mean to Be Like a Tree Planted by the Water?” December 8, 2024, https://www.gotquestions.org/like-a-tree-planted-by-the-water.html.
[vi] PMC, “Root Systems Research for Bioinspired Resilient Design,” April 25, 2021, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8107439/.