The God of Wild Places

Every pastor has two pulpits. The first is the one they stand behind on Sunday mornings, a solid piece of wood or steel where they deliver carefully crafted words to a waiting congregation. It’s a place of authority, of polished arguments and public pronouncements, built on a foundation of theology and tradition. The second pulpit is invisible, often found miles away from the church building, maybe at the edge of a riverbank with a fishing rod in hand, or deep in the woods, waiting for a deer to appear. This pulpit has no microphone, no notes, no audience. It’s a place of silence, of raw observation, and of questions that have no easy answers. For years, one pulpit can feel like the real one, the center of a life’s work. But what happens when the second, silent pulpit begins to speak louder than the first? What happens when the God found in the wild places feels more real, more present, than the one spoken of from behind the lectern?

This was the slow, unsettling realization that crept into the life of Tony Jones. As a prominent pastor and leading voice in the Christian church, his entire identity was tied to the first pulpit—the world of seminary, sermons, and theological debate. He had the language, the credentials, and the platform. Yet, a deeper, more primal calling pulled him toward the quiet woods and waters of northern Minnesota. This book is the story of that pull. It chronicles his difficult, often painful, journey away from the certainty of organized religion and into the untamed wilderness, both outside and within, as he sought to find a faith that could breathe in the open air.

Module 1: The Wilderness as the True Sanctuary

Many of us feel a spiritual pull in nature. It might be a cliché, but Jones argues it’s a profound truth. He suggests that for a growing number of people, the wilderness is replacing the church, mosque, or temple as the primary space for spiritual connection.

The author observes a fascinating cultural shift. Data shows a sharp rise in religious disaffiliation, especially among younger Americans, happening at the same time outdoor recreation is booming. Jones suggests this isn't a coincidence. People are seeking faith elsewhere. They are trading orderly pews and numbered hymns for chaotic woods and muddy sloughs. The structured, predictable environment of a church service can feel sterile. The wild, in contrast, is unpredictable and raw. It’s where you might genuinely encounter something powerful, something that requires your full attention.

This leads to a core idea: The Divine is found more authentically in nature than in man-made religious structures. Jones puts it bluntly. If given the choice between a hike and a worship service, he’d choose the hike "one hundred times out of one hundred." It's about finding a more direct, unmediated connection to the Divine. In the wild, there are no vestments, no pulpits, no programs. There is only the immediate, sensory experience of the world. It’s a return to what the theologian Paul Tillich called the "Ground of Being," the fundamental reality that underpins everything.

But what about organized religion? Jones introduces a powerful metaphor. Religion can be a "trellis," a supportive structure for early spiritual growth, but it can eventually become restrictive. When we are young or new to faith, we might need the liturgies, doctrines, and communities of a religion to give shape to our spiritual longings. The trellis helps the vine grow upward. Jones himself was a product of this system, finding comfort and competence within the church. However, as the vine grows stronger, the trellis can start to feel like a constraint. For him, during a personal crisis, the prayers and rituals felt hollow. The structure that once supported him now "held me back, hemmed me in." He had to break free from the trellis to continue growing.

So what does this mean for you? It's an invitation to examine the "trellises" in your own life. These could be professional titles, social expectations, or rigid belief systems. Are they still supporting your growth, or are they holding you back? The book suggests that stepping into the "wilderness"—whether a literal forest or simply a new, unstructured environment—can provide the space to find out.

Module 2: The Sacred Wisdom of Risk and Failure

Our modern, optimized lives are designed to eliminate risk and discomfort. We have apps for everything. We seek efficiency. We bubble-wrap our kids and our careers. But Jones argues that in doing so, we've stripped away something essential for spiritual and personal growth. The wilderness reintroduces it.

Here's the key shift in thinking. Embracing risk and discomfort is crucial for authentic self-discovery. On a harrowing boat trip, lost in a storm on a vast lake, Jones felt a paradoxical sense of peace. Why? Because he was forced to surrender control. He realized his worrying was futile; his fate was in the hands of his experienced guide. In that moment of letting go, a deep, internal peace surfaced. This is a recurring theme. True peace is a calm center found amidst chaos. The wilderness provides the chaos. It forces you to confront your own limitations.

This brings us to a related, and perhaps even more challenging, idea. Failure is a feature of a meaningful life. In our careers, failure is something to be avoided, analyzed in a post-mortem, and engineered away. In the wild, failure is constant and expected. Jones spent a decade trying to hunt a turkey and failed every time. On an elk hunt, the success rate was a mere 13%. He didn't get an elk. But he didn't see the trip as a failure. He learned about elk, he learned about his friend, and he learned about himself.

The wilderness teaches a different perspective. A toppled tree is a testament to its failure to withstand a storm, but it's also now a nurse log for new life. A predator fails on most of its hunts. In nature, failure is simply part of the regenerative cycle. This reframes everything. Instead of seeing our own failures as shameful, we can see them as part of a natural process of trial, error, and growth. The author argues his biggest failure—his divorce—was both his "shame and his salvation" because accepting it was the only way to move forward.

And here’s the thing. This acceptance doesn't come from intellectualizing. It comes from doing. It's in the missed shot, the wrong turn on the trail, the capsized canoe. These small, non-lethal failures in the wild build a kind of resilience. They teach you that you can survive mistakes. They recalibrate your relationship with success, making it less about a perfect outcome and more about the richness of the experience.