Country music star Granger Smith is saying goodbye to music for a life dedicated to the church. After 24 years in the industry, Smith is ready to pursue the next open door that God has for him.
In a recent video shared on Instagram and Facebook, Smith made the announcement that he is leaving country music for ministry.
“I’ve been so nervous to make this video just because of the implications of what it means for my life and my family,” Smith said. “This summer is my last ever tour. I have felt a strong desire to pursue ministry.”
While Smith is not planning to create a church, become an evangelist or start a tent revival, he is pursuing his M.A. at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary while being mentored by his pastors and elders from his local church. This time of learning for him means spending time serving in depth under his local church leadership with his family, with hopes of being commissioned someday to whatever next step God has planned for him.
For Smith, the decision to leave country music is largely about Christ’s call on his life and to follow Him at all costs.
“When I read Mark 8 in the Bible and Jesus says “if anyone would come after Me let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me”: That, that image of taking up that cross, the most gruesome form of execution…to take up that cross and follow and deny himself, that form of self-denial is something I’m just not doing,” Smith said.
Smith candidly opened up about his current heart posture as a musician and how it is contradictory to being a completed devoted disciple of Christ.
“When I get up on a stage and just need glorification and need praise, and if I don’t get it then that means my career is not doing well, and so I’d work harder for that,” Smith said. “I can’t reconcile those two things y’all…can’t go to seminary and pursue ministry and be poured in by my pastors and elders and then go out on the weekends and try to be exalting myself. I think that’s a contradiction.”
Smith continued, sharing that while he commends those who can deny themselves as performers and still earnestly follow Christ, it is something he struggles with.
Smith will continue to publicly share his faith in media through his recent faith-based film on Pureflix, “Moonrise” and with his new book releasing on August 1, “Like a River.” The book recounts his faith journey and how the Lord changed, blessed and repaired his life after tragically losing his three-year-old son in 2019. {eoa}
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Abby Trivett is a marketing copywriter and coordinator and Staff Writer intern for Charisma Media.
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