The Woods Calm You. The Church Keeps You.
Granger Smith
4 min read ⭑
Here’s a common statement I hear: “I don’t need a church building to be near to God. I feel closer to God in the woods.”
I understand this idea. There’s nothing like being out in nature. Sitting in a tree stand on a cool, crisp morning. Standing on a snowy peak in the Rockies under a clear bluebird sky. Watching a light fog rise off a glassy pond in June, hearing the soft hum of crickets as a fishing line slices the air and a plastic worm plunks onto the surface. Creation declares the glory of God! And we should be clear — God really is everywhere. By his Spirit, he dwells in his people, and we can meet him on a mountaintop, in a deer stand or in a quiet living room. King David himself wrote, “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?” (Ps. 139:7, ESV). So, yes, you can pray in the woods and know he hears you. And often the Bible tells us that Jesus himself retreated into the wilderness to be alone with the Father. Silence and solitude are good and necessary spiritual disciplines for every believer. But that’s not what this statement is really getting at.
The issue isn’t getting alone with God. We all need that. The problem is when you start to believe that’s enough, as if time by yourself can replace gathering with God’s people. It can’t. The trees might take your breath away, but they’ll never preach the gospel to you. The birds might sing pretty, but they won’t pray over you when life gets heavy. The woods can calm you down, but they’ll never call you back when you’re drifting or pick you up when you fall. God gave us the local church for that. For me, the problem wasn’t the music, or the touring, or the miles on the road. None of those were the real issue. The problem was my heart.
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The Bible tells us that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick” (Jer. 17:9, ESV). Left to ourselves, we’ll almost always drift toward comfort, convenience and self-protection. We convince ourselves we’re doing just fine spiritually, even when we’re miles off course. That’s why the idea of “me and God alone” can sound so appealing. It feels freeing, even spiritual. But, in reality, what our deceitful hearts are really resisting is accountability. If I stay by myself, nobody has to know what I’m really struggling with. Nobody will confront me if I start slipping. Nobody will challenge me when I’m wrong or spur me on when I’m lazy. Being alone with God can look holy on the outside, but often it’s just a clever way to avoid being sharpened by others. What our human desire wants is a god on our own terms. That’s why God gave us the church to protect us from believing our own lies. We need brothers and sisters to help us see what we can’t see on our own.
I used to believe the toxic idea that “I don’t need a church to tell me I’m a Christian.” But the truth is … I did. You see, we can say with our mouths that we follow Christ, but we need other believers to walk alongside us and affirm that profession as we live it out. Saving faith isn’t just a label we wear like a dog tag; it’s a gift from God that always results in a faithful life lived out. We’ve already discussed how real faith shows up in action, and part of that action is linking arms with other Christians, worshipping, serving, repenting and persevering together. That’s part of the beauty of the church. Other believers can see the fruit of our lives and attest that our walk with Christ is genuine. The church is the tool the Lord uses to affirm that your faith is genuine, because your brothers and sisters in Christ are the witnesses to the fruit of God’s Spirit in your life. When someone is faithfully pressing on, the church bears witness to it.
“As Christians, we need the church, and the church needs us.”
Think about baptism. That moment isn’t just a private decision between you and God; it’s a public declaration before the family of God. Or the Lord’s Supper: We don’t take it alone; we take it together, reminding one another that we’re clinging to the same Cross and the same Savior. Without the local church, you lose that constant reminder, that affirming voice saying, “Yes, we see the grace of God in you. Keep going.”
This also means the church isn’t just an add-on to the Christian life. It’s not the side dish on the plate. It’s the very foundation we walk on. Yet a lot of us still carry that American individualist mindset that tempts us to go it alone. You might even read this and think, All right, I’ll start making church attendance a habit. But it’s more than just showing up at 10 a.m. on Sundays. If that’s our goal, we can slip into a consumer mindset: “Serve me, entertain me, feed me, and, if I like it, maybe I’ll come back.” But that’s not how family works. Listen, you won’t love every song. You won’t be moved to tears by every sermon. You won’t click with every single person in the room, and some relationships may even stretch you. But isn’t that true of any family? Growth doesn’t happen in comfort. It happens in commitment.
Now, I’m not saying you should put up with an unhealthy church forever. Scripture says we’re to “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Eph. 4:15, ESV). A healthy church that preaches expositionally (which means preaching Scripture line by line so that the point of the original author is the point of the sermon) helps you do that, and if your church isn’t, that’s a different discussion for another time. But here’s my point: As Christians, we need the church, and the church needs us.
Granger Smith is a highly sought-after speaker, actor, author and host of the nationally syndicated iHeartRadio show After MidNite with Granger Smith. In 2017, he launched the Granger Smith Podcast, where he discusses faith, family, music and the outdoors while spreading messages of integrity, honor, truth and restoration grounded in a Christian worldview. Granger’s social media following exceeds 12 million, with more than 1 billion online video views.
Taken from “Poison in the Well” by Granger Smith. Copyright © 2026. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson.
