Country singer Granger Smith stunned fans when he announced he would be retiring from music to pursue ministry, with the musician telling CBN Digital how he plans to serve the Lord. "I'm just so excited about it," he said. "I have so much joy just even thinking about it."
Smith said he's already begun speaking before audiences about his Christian faith. While he once traversed the nation and world sharing his music, he now plans to travel with a very different message. "I'm used to air travel, I'm used to hotels," he said. "But I have a different message to give, and it's a life-giving message. It's one beggar — me — telling another beggar where I found bread."
Smith said he wants to share his journey of faith, explaining how he was once hurting and in a "really bad place," but how he found hope in Jesus. "I don't know what the future looks like five years down the road, ten years down the road," Smith said. "But, right now, immediately, it's writing books, it's taking speaking engagements, Lord-willing, when the right ones come around, it's attending seminary, and it's going to church on Sunday mornings with my family, and sitting under teachings of my pastor."
Smith also discussed his recent memoir, "Like a River: Finding the Faith and Strength to Move Forward after Loss and Heartache," a book chronicling how he handled grief and sorrow and found faith. Smith's family made headlines in 2019 when the singer's 3-year-old son, River, died in a drowning accident. It's a topic at the heart of his book. Watch Smith discuss his plans, his son, and how he found faith.
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Welcome to "The Newsmakers Podcast," a show where we go behind the headlines each day to bring you interviews with pastors, entertainers, politicians, and other notable figures. Based on the "Newsmakers" show on the CBN News Channel, this daily podcast featuring CBN's Billy Hallowell provides full interviews with one newsworthy person every weekday.
To the newsmakers podcast, I'm Billie Hollowell, and this is a show where we go behind the headlines every day to bring you an interview with a pastor, entertainer, politician, or other notable news figure. And this is a show, again, it's daily, but it's based on our weekly TV show, which is also called Newsmakers. You can watch it on the CBN News channel and also on our YouTube page. And on this show, every day, we dive deep. It's a little more longer form with one of the people who you will often see on our newsmaker show or across the CBN News platforms. On today's newsmakers, country star Granger Smith is leaving behind music for ministry. He talks about his faith journey, overcoming pain, and so much more. In just a moment here, he will join me and Trey Goine's Phillips for an absolutely incredible story, with no further ado, here is Granger Smith. So, Granger, you have out a new memoir. It's called Like a River. What was it like to open yourself up in such a personal way through book form? Well, that's a good question considering for so many years, I did that through song for me, three minutes at a time, but you know, writing songs, I could be much more vague. And I could have to get out of the song, could have a deeper meaning, but I don't have to really go there. I could just kind of have an analogy of the situation I'm going through, and that might be enough for me to emotionally pour myself out into a song, but still kind of keep it vague. You can't do it. That was a book. You have to go into very specific detail. In fact, the more detail, the better. That's the essence of writing a book. So it was quite an experience and a good one. It was a good experience. It was a good form of healing for me. It wasn't hard to do. Just practically it wasn't hard. It was difficult emotionally, but practically it was all in the front of my brain and was able to come out pretty easy. You know, something I think is so fascinating about your story is one, you've had to deal with a lot of grief and a lot of sorrow and navigating that as somebody who's in a public sphere, right? People are watching you and you're kind of having to go through for better or for worse. This grieving process of losing a son publicly in front of everybody, can you talk a little bit about how you navigated some of that sorrow as you continued to write music and you continued to perform because I know my propensity, I'm sure, would be just to stuff it down. Yeah, that's what I'd say with me. I had a feeling that if I could help somebody else, it's struggling by telling my story and by showing strength. If I could do that, then it's felt good because people would say, you know, I've been struggling for a long time, but to see you, to see your courage and strength, that's really helped me. And then I would think, oh, that's good, that means it's working. But that's just a facade that could only really last for so long. You can only do that for so long, although it feels good and it's part of healing to help others. I could only do that for so long before, you know, I just wanted to hide in a cave for a long time and stop being the public eye. But that was my job. That's what was paying the bills and 12 other guys' salaries. So I just had to learn how to deal with that. Yeah, you know, and I want to get into this in a little bit, you know, go a little deeper on what you're going to be doing next and sort of your move away from the music industry as you've known it and as you've done it and towards ministry. But as you were going through that journey, that healing journey, I want to kind of back up even before that, you know, where did your relationship with God start? What was it like before tragedy hit? I'm sort of curious about the roots of that relationship. Yeah, it's a complicated answer. Easy question, complicated answer. I guess you could say I've always, always considered myself a Christian. I'll just put it that way. I can't remember a time in my life as I look back on my life. I can't remember a time when I would have said I was agnostic or atheistic. I was always a creationist and was a believer in Christ. That's what I would say. But what took 40 years for me and tragic and heartache was realizing, well, what does that mean? You say you're a Christian. What is that? Just something you say because if I say I'm an American, I can't just say that I actually have to have a passport that says United States of America, like that's, that's one of the things I wouldn't say I'm an American in living France and have never even traveled to New York City. I wouldn't say that. So why would I say that as a Christian and not have a passport to prove it? So that had to figure out what is that passport? What does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to believe or trust or have faith in Jesus? What in the world does that mean? And that was really the beginning of the journey that led me to where I am now. But through that journey, I think it's crazy that I hadn't really asked that question. And then I thought that it might be okay to say I'm an American living in Paris. But this is making sense. Along that vein of not just saying you're a Christian, but actually living it out and actually declaring the promises of God that are in scripture or following after the call of God on your life. Something you write about in the book is turning to self-help products and maybe not realizing that you actually had a need for something greater and more profound, like actually dependence on the Lord. When did you notice that that was potentially an issue and how did you go about turning away from that and turning to a greater source? Yeah, it was about 2017 that I first was really introduced, full force to the self-help movement. And that happened when I broke some ribs on the stage, punctured along, was out for six weeks in recovery, stuck on Netflix, watching Tony Robbins, was like, "Oh, this really resonates with me." And then as that began to resonate, I began to search for other things like, "Man, maybe I should be eating more green vegetables." It's like there's a lot of things that start kind of stacking up. And as you feel physical and really emotional benefits from those things, because there's a lot of good things in self-help, as you feel the benefits, you go, "What more could I do? This is great. Let's just keep adding it." And what you're doing is really building a dependence on yourself. It looks kind of the whole point. Self-help, you're helping yourself. And as you add more to that, you are increasing that dependence and relying more on yourself. But, when something tragic happens, and to qualify for something tragic, we really just need to be a human, because sooner or later it will, if we love, we will experience loss because of the love. The great of the love, the great of the loss that we're going to experience. And so it took that for me to go, "Oh, there are some things in life." That self-help cannot fix or make better. And so that was the catalyst that happened in 2019 when I lost my son River. And then discovering that coming deeper into faith, how would you say, "I'm going to use the term the voice of God," right? Not everybody hears a literal voice of God, but how has your introduction to the voice of God, your interaction with God changed over these last couple of years as you've gotten deeper into relationship with Him? Yeah, it's a great question. And I think it would be a pretty simple answer is, before this happened, or before this journey began, what is the voice of God? Who is the voice of God? How do you hear the voice of God? How in the world do you know what the voice of God is? Well, now it's a very clear answer for me. It's revealed in the Bible, it's revealed in Scripture, which is written by man, inspired by God, fulfilling ancient prophecies over 40 different authors over the course of 1,500 years. In the time of eyewitnesses, written by eyewitnesses in the presence of other eyewitnesses, we have the Word of God revealed in Scripture. That just blew my mind. When I know I don't have to search for the clouds or have some kind of spiritual experience in some kind of dark desert, I could actually just set them up porch with a cup of coffee and open up the Bible and turn to any book and see who God is ever revealed on those pages. That changed my life then and it continues to change it day by day. Something that I think is so cool about your story too, Granger, is that if you look at any of your social media pages, or you watch any of your concerts, or you go to any of your shows, you're somebody who's not afraid to talk about your faith and to talk about how you've been changed and transformed by the gospel story, and you're also not really afraid to take a stand on different theological issues and really dive into those. Where does that boldness come from? Is that something that you've always had? You've always had an interest in kind of speaking out on these things? Or is that something that's developed as your relationship with the Lord has deepened? My direct answer to that, my quickest answer to that, is probably the answer that would make other people shudder, it would make other people a little weary of it, but here's my answer, the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. When I say the fear of the Lord, it's not like a Halloween scary, it's not like a man with a mask popping out from the bushes, it's not that kind of fear. It's understanding who is sovereign, who is providential, who has as the old Sunday school song says the whole world in his hands. When you trust that and you believe that, and there is a certain aspect of that that that says, if I believe in this, why would I fear what anybody else says? Why would I fear anything from man when I have the fear of the Lord spoken positively? Well, it's funny you bring that, I'm smiling because I have an 8 and an 11 year old and we were just reading that verse at breakfast yesterday and I was explaining it to them, the word fear, what it meant and how to get these kids to understand that. I think adults struggle with that concept, so I love how you sort of prefaced it, but it's so true and here you are, I mean you're stepping out again of music as you've known it in the ministry and I think a lot of people are really curious what that's going to look like, how will that manifest itself? And so what can you tell us about what is to come in your ministry life? Man, first I could say, I'm just so excited about it. I'm so excited about it and I have so much joy just even thinking about it, actually did my first message yesterday as we speak when we were recording this podcast, it was yesterday that was the first stage of the new stages, it was at Liberty University, so I went up there and spoke to the students out there in Virginia and what an incredible experience, I'm used to air travel, I'm used to a hotel, but I have a different message to give and it's a life-giving message, it's telling, it's one beggar, me telling another beggar where I found bread, it's all it is really, I'm not saying that I'm better than anyone or I have more righteous than anyone by any means, none of that is to say, look, I was really hurting, I was in a really bad place, I was in a really dark place, here's practically, here's the steps I took and look what I found, look at the treasure that I found. And so that is something, I don't know what the future looks like five years down the road, 10 years down the road, but right now, immediately, it's writing books, it's speaking engagements, Lord willing when the right ones come around, it's attending seminary and it's going to church on Sunday mornings with my family and sitting under teachings of my pastor that I haven't been able to do consistently in all the decades of touring because we're playing on a Saturday night in some city. So sitting there consistently Sunday after Sunday and learning and equipping is part of this new season I've been right now. Yeah, I think it's that story is a good reminder of just our responsibility as believers to be wise stewards of what we've been given to hold with open hands, whatever the Lord is, has given us the opportunities that he's placed in front of us and to see you walking in obedience. I think that alone is a really powerful testimony to people and something that you mentioned earlier in our conversation was about how intellectually it was an easier task to write the book, but emotionally, it was a really taxing thing to do obviously because you're kind of bearing your soul and sending this out where everybody can now have an inside look into that process of grief and sorrow and all of that. Was there something in that process that was exposed to you that may be surprised you about your own feelings or about your own perspective of the Lord? Well, as I wrote the story, I didn't exactly know where it was going or how it was unfolding, but the book's called "Like a River," and so it starts the first chapter. It starts with losing my son to drowning in my backyard when I was there with him. For a lot of times, as I was talking about writing the book and people would say, "Well, you're writing a book. What's it about?" And I would say, "Well, it's about losing my son." And they would say, "Oh, I heard about that. I'm so sorry." As I continued to write, I learned, "Oh, that's not really what this book is about. It's really not." I mean, that's how it opens and that's the callous to it. That's how the curtain opens, really. But it's about me dying and me being reborn and the new path that followed. And one of the things that opened up in that rebirth was my son Maverick, who was born. And Maverick really takes over as the star of the show. By the end of the book, you realize that River got the title and he gets the credit of the cover. And Maverick, that's the star of that book. And so it is so much more than this is a book about losing my son, which is what I used to say. You know, we asked you this and you spoke to it a little bit at the top, but as we write out to a close, as a final question, you know, when you put a book together, a lot of heart goes into that, a lot of personal sort of effort goes into it as it did in this case. What is your end goal? If you could have one feeling or thought that you could be leaving readers with when they finished the book and put it down, what would that be? Well, in the book, in chapter eight, it's the story of my rebirth. And what happened to me was, was as I was after rock bottom and searching and trying to figure out how to heal and how to find redemption myself. And I was reborn through listening to a sermon on YouTube as I was driving to my truck. The pastor was speaking out of John, chapter 14, and I kind of unfolded that whole scenario as it went down and the way that the sun was in the sky and the feeling of the steering wheel in my hands and the mile marker I was traveling past as I heard that sermon. And as I felt everything change and as my eyes were opened and my ears were opened and I felt all of that happened to me in that moment in the truck. And then I seek a goals for the book. Goals for the book would be that moment. If the Lord could use the book for someone in a moment like I had for them and maybe they remember, I remember the page I turned, I remember where I was sitting and I remember the emotional state I was in when I read the words that changed everything that opened my eyes. If, if, Lord willing that my book could be that moment in the truck for me for someone else, just one person that it's absolutely worth our whole big effort. Well, Granger, I really appreciate you taking the time, taking us through your story. And again, the book is like a river. People can go out and grab it wherever books are sold. Thanks for your time today. Thank you guys so much. I sure appreciate you. That's all for today's Newsmakers podcast. Be sure to tune in for the next episode of the show and also head over to the CBN News YouTube channel and the CBN News channel to watch Newsmakers every week. We'll see you soon. [MUSIC] [MUSIC]
