Baby Steps with Christ

The Relationship with God I Didn’t Know I Could Have

• Leigh Trupin

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Do I need to go to church to have a relationship with God? 

In this episode of Baby Steps with Christ, host Leigh Trupin takes time to clarify something she often shares on the podcast — that building a relationship with God doesn’t have to start with church attendance, religious routines, or dependence on others.

Leigh explains that her message is not meant to criticize the church or discourage people from attending. Instead, her heart behind the podcast is to encourage people to develop their own personal relationship with God and learn to walk with Him directly.

Through her personal journey, Leigh discovered that a genuine relationship with God comes before religious structure. God can meet us anywhere — inside a church building or outside of it — and He often teaches each of us in deeply personal ways.

If you’ve ever wondered whether you must attend church, follow strict routines, or rely on others to grow spiritually, this episode offers a refreshing perspective on what it means to truly know God.

In this episode, you'll hear:

  • How personal experiences shaped Leigh’s understanding of relationship with God.
  • Why this podcast is not meant to discourage church attendance.
  • The difference between spiritual dependency and personal relationship with God.
  • Why developing your own connection with God is more important than religious performance.

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👉🔗 The Relationship with God I Didn’t Know I Could Have

Welcome back to another episode of Baby Steps with Christ. I'm your host, Leigh Trupin. This is where we learn we can develop our own relationship with God despite how it looks to others. We learn we don't need a middleman, that we have direct access to God, and we can go straight to the source.

Today I want to take time to address something I think is important to clarify. You've heard me say multiple times that you don't need to be in church, read your Bible daily, and tithe in order to have a personal relationship with God. That your relationship with God can start anywhere and continue anywhere. And I mean that. I say it often because I've lived it. My relationship with God didn't grow in church and routine. It grew through real experiences, raw moments, and a lot of hard lessons learned directly from God. But let me be clear. Just because I say that doesn't mean I'm against church. This podcast is not a place where I bash the church. It's not a place where I try to discourage anyone from going to church. And I'm not suggesting by any means that anyone leave the church. That's not what I'm saying. That's not my place to say.

What I am saying is this: things like church, Bible reading, and tithing aren't a must in order to start building a relationship with God. They might support it, but they are not the foundation. The foundation is your relationship with God, regardless of how that looks to other people. I'm saying build your relationship with God first. Then let Him lead your next steps. And if that next step is church, go. Absolutely go. But I caution you, don't become dependent on the church. Don't let your relationship with God hinge on what a pastor says or what a building provides. Keep your relationship with God first and always allow Him to lead you, regardless of what you hear in church.

I teach through my personal experiences—what I've lived, what I've wrestled with, and what God has taught me along the way. That's what this podcast is built on. It's not built on trying to tell people what they should and shouldn't do with church. It's about showing what a personal relationship with God can look like. It's about showing you that you can build your own relationship with God, even outside the walls of church, and despite what that relationship looks like to others. There's a reason I say the things that I do. For a long time, I thought I had to be in church to be a Christian, that I had to follow certain routines or be in the right environment. And if I wasn't, then I wasn't a Christian. But through my own experiences, through my journey, I learned that God can teach us anywhere. He can teach us, lead us, and transform us wherever we are, whether we're in a church building or not. Don't let outsiders label or define your relationship with God.

I've become an expert in my relationship with God. And I encourage people to build their own relationship with God and become an expert in their own relationship with God, despite how it looks to others. And here's where I think sometimes people misunderstand what I'm saying. Just because I've learned that I don't need to be in church to have a relationship with God does not mean I think no one should. I don't believe that. I'm not here to tell anyone to leave their church or stop attending. I'm not trying to create distance between people and church. I'm just sharing what I've learned personally, what I've walked through personally, and what's helped me connect with God in a deeper, more personal way. For me, that wasn't church. Church wasn't helpful. But for you, it might be. So if you're going to church and that's where you feel close to God, keep going. If your church family supports you, teaches you, and helps you grow, that's a blessing. This podcast is not meant to pull you away from that.

I'm not here to tear anything down. I'm just here to show how God met me in places outside of that structure, and how that opened my eyes to what a relationship with Him really means. And it's important to say this, because sometimes when you speak from personal experience, especially when that experience looks different from what others are used to, it can be misinterpreted. People might assume you're criticizing what they value, but that's not what I'm doing. I had to unlearn a lot of things that were more about tradition than truth. And for me, part of that process was realizing that I placed too much trust in church attendance and in people of the church. I focused solely on that, never realizing I should be building a relationship with God first and viewing those things second. And what I've come to understand is that God wants a relationship, not ritual and routine. And if you find that relationship inside a church, that's great, keep going. But if you're finding it outside of church, in your everyday life like I do, that's great too. Don't feel pressured into believing you need to do it one way or the other. It's not about choosing either/or.

So again, I want to say this as clearly as possible: this podcast is not a place where I bash the church. It's not a place for complaining about the church, and it's not a place where I try to steer people away from church. That's not my intention. My goal is simply to walk in my relationship with God despite how it looks to others. And I invite others to develop their own relationship with God one baby step at a time. And if something I share challenges the way you thought about church or God, that's OK. But my goal is not to tear it down, it's to reflect on what God is teaching me through my own experiences and to help you understand that He might be teaching you through your own experiences as well. And just because our experiences look different than what most people expect them to look like doesn't mean it's wrong. Building a relationship with God before all else is never wrong. And our experiences look different to everyone because God works in each and every one of us in a personal and unique way.

Remember, God captures our attention in a way that works for us, and how He does that for you and how it looks to outsiders should not matter. The way He captured my attention was through Satan. But that's what worked for me. That was the only way I was going to learn. So that's how He taught me. I created Baby Steps with Christ not to be a substitute for anything, but to be a space where we can be real, where we can talk about God without filters, where we can admit that we're still learning and growing. But most importantly, I created it so you can learn to develop your own relationship with God. I'm not anti-church, I'm just pro-relationship.

I hope this helped clarify where I'm coming from and where I'm not. And if this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone you may feel needs to hear it. Don't forget to grab your free guide to this week's episode. It's designed to help you take small baby steps during the week with God. You can get it on my website, babystepswithchrist.com. I'll also leave the link in the show notes. And I encourage you to please get a copy of my book, Dear New Believer, Love God. You can find it on Amazon. And I'll be back soon with another episode sharing more of my journey. Until then, keep taking baby steps with Christ. Thanks for listening. Until next time.

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