Former country singer-turned-Christian minister Granger Smith says his new book, Poison in the Well: 11 Toxic Beliefs That Kept Me from the Living Water of Jesus, is aimed at people who call themselves Christians but have never learned to follow Jesus.
“I feel like I’m convincing someone they’re not a Christian so they can become one because that’s what I needed,” Smith said during a Sept. 7 episode of the “Becoming Something with Jonathan Pokluda” podcast.
The book, released Sept. 8 by Thomas Nelson, examines the comfortable assumptions and half-truths that can leave people spiritually stagnant while they believe everything is fine. Smith’s official description calls it a wake-up call for people stuck in “surface-level Christianity,” while Publishers Weekly says the book explores 11 falsehoods that can block an authentic relationship with Christ.
“And so my Christianity was in a 10-minute block in the hour of my miracle morning. And it was reading a devotional. So that was like my, you know, check in the box of Christianity,” Smith told Pokluda.
His description was not a dismissal of devotionals but an admission that he had mistaken religious routine for a surrendered life.
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That distinction became urgent after Smith’s 3-year-old son, River, died in a 2019 drowning accident. Smith has written about that loss in Like a River, but he told Pokluda that the grief also exposed how little his old habits could carry him when his world collapsed.
During the podcast, Smith described surviving a suicidal crisis after River’s death and said he cried out to Jesus in the middle of it. He later began asking who Jesus really was, then returned home determined to read the Bible with his wife, Amber, beginning with Matthew. Smith’s account is testimony, not a substitute for professional mental-health care, but it explains why he now speaks so urgently about the difference between claiming faith and following Christ.
Smith’s path from country music to ministry gives the book’s warning another layer. His official biography says he spent 24 years as an award-winning, platinum-selling country artist before stepping away from the spotlight to pursue ministry, and Fox News reported that he left music in 2023 to focus on ministry at his local church outside Austin, Texas.
In the interview, Smith said an altar call can be a meaningful first step, but it should not become a substitute for discipleship. He urged churches to help people read Scripture, join a healthy local church and grow toward spiritual maturity instead of leaving them to treat one emotional moment as the whole Christian life.
“I want people to see through my story that I was living a life thinking I was earning something from God instead of loving God for what He has done,” Smith told Fox News. He wrote Poison in the Well while trying to avoid two ditches: legalism on one side and cheap grace on the other.
That is the book’s invitation: not to panic over every weakness, but to examine whether a person’s habits, loves and priorities line up with what he says he believes. Smith’s own answer has involved Scripture, church community, ministry and a willingness to let Christ correct the faith he once treated as a box to check.
Anyone in the United States experiencing emotional distress or suicidal thoughts can call or text 988 for free, confidential support, or use the 988 Lifeline’s chat service.
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