Newsmaker: Curt Snead, REF

2020 is hard, but God is much greater!

Hello Reconcile the City supporters and praying friends! I’m glad you have taken the time to read this and see how God has been doing some of His Kingdom work here in Columbia SC!

Pictured above is me riding with one of my officers and friend Trevor Heustess. Trevor is one of our many officers that are also veterans of military service. I wanted to take this opportunity to say Happy Veteran’s Day to all our veterans, particularly those who continue to serve our communities as Police Officers and other first responders!                               

Recently, Chief Holbrook asked me to join him in his video message that he records and sends out to the entire police department. He asked in light of all the hardships and trials that the department has faced this year if I’d be willing to offer a word of encouragement and prayer for our police department. I was glad to do it and the Lord led me to these verses in Psalm 73.

In this Psalm Asaph turns his eyes away from the difficulty and trouble that he sees around him. The wicked were prospering and the righteous were suffering. Asaph was angry, even angry with the Lord’s ways, but in all of that he still chose to change his gaze away from the troubles and to seek God in worship and prayer. It was there that Asaph saw the evil around him in its proper perspective. The evil that loomed so large over his nation and his life became so small in the face of God’s goodness and promises to crush evil and deliver His people.

You can see the Chief’s message here. https://gopro.com/v/WyXEOOX1DmR1K

You’ll hear in the video about a recent tragedy that one of our officers and his family faced. The Anderson family lost their young son to an accidental shooting incident. I was called in to meet the officer and his family at the hospital that night and assisted some with the funeral. The grief was so hard to see and hear and I didn’t feel I had any words to make it better. All I could do was be present and try to convey the love and hope of God in the face of it all. But, in the midst of all that pain, there truly was love and hope. Police officers can sure rally around and love on a brother and sister in need. So many of our officers did much to just be there and support their friend and his family. This incident was truly one of the saddest for me as Chaplain so far, but it was also one that made me proud. I’m so proud to be a part of such an amazing and caring group of people. I’m also proud to be their Chaplain and to step in and help in any way I can.

As I’ve thought about these things, I continue to be amazed how God has given us this opportunity to be His light, help, love, and influence in such a vital and pivotal organization in our city. We live in a time where many in the church are lamenting the decline of the influence of the church in our culture, but I’m encouraged that God is still at work placing His people, and the truth and healing of His Word into some of the most vital places in our culture. I’m glad He has been gracious to include our ministry and our city in that kind of work.

Personally, the Snead’s also had some milestones. Ruthie turned 11 in September, Jacob turned 21 and Spencer turned 18. Lanaea and I also celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary! For all of the hardship that 2020 has brought, we still have much to be thankful for. We’re praising God for His faithfulness to us still!

Prayer requests

Please pray for the Anderson family as they continue to grieve for the loss of their son.

Pray for more opportunities like these to share the love and hope of Jesus in our hurting police department and in the brokenness of our world.

Pray for the future of this ministry. Ask that God would continue to give us favor with men and that favor would grow and multiply to the glory of Christ.

Pray for my group of Christian officers that I meet with regularly. Jordan, James, Matt and myself meet for coffee every other week to talk about the unique challenges of policing as Christians. These men have quickly become my friends and they are such a blessing to me.

Pray also for a possible new Bible study that we could be starting after the first of the year. There is interest for a study among some at headquarters and I have reconnected with a retired Captain who would like to help lead the study. The Lord is working in this and we are trying to keep up and follow! 

Thanks so much for your faithful prayers. God sees fit to use them in ways that we could never fully understand.

Lastly, I was honored to preach at Cornerstone Pres on Oct. 25th. If your interested you can watch that here. https://youtu.be/xXSqSoCNFHo . I start speaking at around the 36 minute point of the video.

I wanted to make a special appeal to you all as we enter in to the last two months of the year. Would you please keep us in mind for your end of year giving? Giving has been a little down this year because of financial uncertainty so please, if God has blessed you, and you find this ministry a blessing to our community, please keep us in mind as you give to the work of God’s Kingdom.

Please remember that we can only commit to this work the way we do because of the faithful prayers and generous gifts of God’s people, and that faithfulness on your part is bearing fruit in our city! Do you know other individuals, churches or businesses who may be interested in supporting this work? Please tell them about us! 

Daily Devotional 11-16-20

Daily Devotional 11-16-20

New Treasure from the Old Mine

The church is walking a tightrope. We commonly say we are in the world but we are not to be of the world. Jesus Christ put it this way, “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19). The world is the system of values and the way of life contrary to God. God’s values are given in the Bible. They are summarized in the Ten Commandments.

The world and the Bible are at odds these days. Here are some examples. Pro-life, anti-abortion, advocates stand on the commandment, you shall not murder. They are on a collision course with pro-abortion adherents taking a freedom of choice stance. On one hand, it is a federal crime to block entrances to abortion clinics. On the other hand, homosexuals have disrupted church services and attacked pastors’ homes with impunity. In the meantime, school boards prohibit prayer in the classroom and at commencement exercises. Yet mandatory sex education programs include free condom distribution. The world and the church collide and the church is viewed as a narrow, bigoted, and outmoded institution.

This is why Jesus Christ exhorted His followers, “Every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a head of a household, who brings forth out of his treasure things new and old” (Matthew 5:52). The church must not lose its moorings. The old standards of right and wrong remain. The gospel of the grace of God through the death and resurrection of Christ also remains. These things must be set before a lost and hurting world. However, the message can be packaged in new, refreshing, and challenging ways demanded by our present circumstances. To help you understand this better, click here and listen to the message, “New Treasure from the Old Mine.”

From: http://dennyprutow.com/daily-devotions/

Daily Devotional 11-13-20

Daily Devotional 11-13-20

The Church’s Special Privilege

Jesus has sent His Church into the world on the same errand upon which He Himself came, and this mission includes intercession. What if I say that the Church is the world’s priest? Creation is dumb, but the Church finds a mouth for it. It is the Church’s high privilege to pray with acceptance. The door of grace is always open for her petitions, and they never return empty-handed. The curtain was torn for her; the blood was sprinkled upon the altar for her; God constantly invites her to bring her requests. Will she refuse the privilege that angels might envy? Is she not the bride of Christ? Can she not approach her King at any hour? Will she allow the precious privilege to be unused?

The Church always needs to pray. There are always some among her who are declining or falling into open sin. There are lambs to be prayed for, that they may be carried in Christ’s bosom; the strong, lest they grow presumptuous; and the weak, lest they become despairing. If we kept up prayer-meetings twenty-four hours a day all the days in the year, we might never be without a special subject for supplication.

Is there ever a time when no one is sick or poor or afflicted or wavering? Is there ever a time when we do not seek the conversion of relatives, the reclaiming of backsliders, or the salvation of the lost? With congregations constantly gathering, with ministers always preaching, with millions of sinners lying dead in trespasses and sins—in a country over which the darkness of religious formalism is certainly descending—in a world full of idols, cruelties, devils—if the Church does not pray, how will she excuse her neglect of the commission of her loving Lord? Let the Church be constant in supplication; let every private believer give himself to the ministry of prayer.

From: https://www.truthforlife.org/resources/daily-devotionals/latest/?gclid=CjwKCAjwnK36BRBVEiwAsMT8WCR8UteIwaWlAyP4o9ZIuAWio8l7qmAM1nDcB3pFiYr-jOUNkgMsShoC68IQAvD_BwE

Daily Devotional 11-12-20

Daily Devotional 11-12-20

Rethinking Social Justice

Social-justice causes are the piety of our time. But should they be the heart of the church’s mission?

There are at least seven obstacles that prevent the reduction of the gospel to politics. [This is an adaptation listing a few of the seven obstacles outlined by Mark Mattes in his book, Law and Gospel in Action.]

We Don’t Live in Biblical Times

First, the political context of today’s endeavors to achieve social equity is simply not the same as that of the biblical prophets. Ancient Israel assumed that religion and politics or church and state were one. In fact, for the Hebrews, cult and kingship often worked in tandem. Prophets of yore ever sought that both cult and culture would be loyal to the covenant and not be consumed by either idolatry or inequity.

But how does that concern, important as it is, translate into modern, pluralistic America, where it is not always clear whose justice and which rationality should prevail? One would need a more complex argument than a biblically grounded “preferential option for the poor” to do that. Many contemporary activists who are so vocal in rejecting biblicistic fundamentalism’s apparent loyalty to American consumerism in fact simply proof-text their own economic convictions from Scripture. Even more ironic, they often live a comfortable suburban lifestyle, fed by the very consumerism they abhor.

Contrary to the assumptions of many liberal Christian ethicists, there is little analogy between the theocracy that existed in ancient Israel, in which the role of a prophet as a spokesperson for God was an established institution within both the cult and the state, and our current democracy, which advances a separation between church and state. Obviously, ancient Israel had no such separation between divine matters and a secular, nonsectarian government. No doubt, there are modern-day prophets (such as Martin Luther King Jr.) who, even if they do not speak through inspiration as did ancient, biblical prophets, eloquently advocate for the oppressed in the face of racism and majority privilege. But thinkers such as King must assume the residue of a legacy of Christian history, culture, and presence in America in order to make their case. Such a Christian cultural legacy, however, is less and less privileged or viable today—certainly not in secular public universities and occasionally not even in the church.

The Problem with Ideology

Second, the alliance of the church with various secular ideologies undercuts the most basic tenets of the Christian doctrine of humanity. Christians can never affirm, following John Locke, that we are “self-owners,” any more than they can affirm Karl Marx’s materialism. Far from self-ownership, Christians belong to Jesus Christ, their Lord who has redeemed them and in whose life they are hidden. Undoubtedly, Christian ethicists, when it is possible, should seek common ground with non-Christians in the quest for a more equitable society. But Christians involved in that quest must be willing to critique secular ideologies, not merely translate the biblical message into contemporary ethical idioms.

Who Would Have Thought It So Complicated?

Third, while it is true that there are many victims of “systemic distortions” in our society, it is also true that economic privilege and disenfranchisement are more complex than many assume. For example, some who are poor contribute to their poverty by not taking advantage of educational opportunities, literacy programs, and the like, which could help them raise themselves out of poverty. The old question asks, “Do you give someone a fish or teach them how to fish?” The correct answer is actually “Both.” But many social justice advocates emphasize only the first, giving someone a fish. The Bible says that poverty is often due not only to systemic exploitation but also, on occasion, to sloth. Remember Proverbs 6:6—“Go to the ant, you sluggard.” In other words, the Bible presents a more multifaceted, less simplistic perspective on poverty and victimization than those of many social justice advocates. It acknowledges that poverty is sometimes due to exploitation but other times due to a self-defeating mind-set.

There are certainly systemic racist underpinnings that create and sustain poverty. But at the same time, people’s individual decisions also chain them to someone else’s racist script. Deplorably, racism and poverty truncate the lives of many. But when we turn people into the objects of these horrible states, we rob them of their humanity and their own power to meet these challenges. Indeed, the powerless can equally become victimizers when they themselves gain power. The best way to alleviate poverty is to focus on rebuilding family units in impoverished communities, which helps keep people from sliding into poverty. In truth, there is more than one kind of poverty; spiritual poverty, for instance, is that with which the church, as the church, is particularly equipped to deal. Economic poverty, in contrast, is something that both Christians and non-Christians must seek to ameliorate in the world and through worldly means.

Utopia Means “Nowhere”

Next, ironically, mainline Protestant justice advocates, again very much like the Christian right they despise, seem to take scriptural passages that speak of a future utopia quite literally. They envision an ideal future, much like the fundamentalist view of the millennium (Rev. 20), where wolves dwell peacefully with lambs (Isa. 11:6). Historic Christianity has generally spiritualized such texts, seeing them as referring to heaven or the inner tranquility that believers can have with God through Christ. But for modern religious progressives, utopia is just on the horizon—if we would simply all conform to a progressive social agenda. This stance lacks a robust view of original sin, making our social justice advocates more disciples of Erasmus than Luther. What is more likely is that humans will muddle through the future just as they have muddled through the past. It is good to recall that the word utopia means “nowhere.” It does not exist this side of the eschaton.

Pitting People against One Another

Finally, the quest for justice pits people against one another and has a hard time unpitting them, since the injustices seem to remain entrenched or systemic. The system does not seem to change much for the better, even when various minorities are given power within it. The quest for justice as currently articulated is far less biblical than its advocates make it out to be. Instead, it is an outgrowth of autonomy where individuals are perceived as self-owners and have the right to develop their full potential however they configure it. Instead of buying into the alleged entitlements of the privileged self, a more biblical approach would honor the creatureliness of all humans, intertwined with that of all other creatures, along with a stewardship that seeks for ethical agents to offer their gifts for the sake of the well-being of the common good.

We should instead seek to be good stewards of our current situation and so recover as much human potential and well-being for the creation as possible. The claims of justice often pit people against one another and all too often lead to ethical stalemates. But scriptural ethics are not limited to the quest for justice, which at best can be had only in snippets in this sin-drenched world.

Instead, inspired by the original human calling in Genesis to be good caretakers of God’s garden, we can seek for the best stewardship of the resources with which God has endowed in all humans and this planet. Focusing on the stewardship of human life in all its phases, along with sustainable practices enhancing the well-being of creation, may prove to be a better focus than that of justice, which all too often is framed through the lens of Enlightenment ideals far removed from the Bible. Indeed, we should no longer be tied to Enlightenment ideals of autonomy, which all too many current views of justice idealize. Instead, we should endeavor to unfold and express the “varieties of gifts” (1 Cor. 12:4) with which God has endowed people, all the while honoring the environment as the home that God has provided for us.

The Nature of the Gospel

Certainly, Christians should seek to uphold victims and care for the environment. What is in dispute is the nature of the Christian gospel and the church. Currently, social justice has become the gospel for many mainline Protestants. But that hardly offers truly good news, especially to the poor. Marx was wrong to see the gospel as a narcotic, the “opiate of the people.” It is just the opposite. The gospel empowers the poor and helps them move forward and remain hopeful in spite of social disadvantages. God has never abandoned the poor but instead has often used them as His vessels to make this world a better place.

After all, Mary—who received the promise from the angel Gabriel and so was empowered for her role as the God-bearer—was poor. So was her son Jesus Christ. We, too, need to reclaim the gospel as promise precisely for the downtrodden and for all, especially in these troubled times. The church most makes a difference in the world when it behaves as the church, providing an alternative to the world, allowing people to live in but not of the world—and not as the bureaucracy policing other bureaucracies.

In a word, the church offers the most when it deals with ultimate matters, matters of faith, and not the penultimate matters of politics…The church is most genuinely the church when it proclaims judgment and grace, law and gospel, God’s commands and God’s promises. Let’s let that be our primary focus. Politics must not be understood as a means of salvation but instead be honored as a venue for service. In this way, the church will live and embrace the fullness of response to God’s word and not limit itself to one humanly defined vision.

From: https://www.1517.org/articles/rethinking-social-justice

Daily Devotional 11-11-20

Daily Devotional 11-11-20

Salt for a Troubled World

People who are honorable and dependable are sometimes said to be ‘the salt of the earth’. The expression comes from Jesus’ teaching in his Sermon on the Mount, where he said to his followers: “You are the salt of the earth”. What does he mean?

People in Jesus’ day, as we do today, used salt for seasoning food, to bring out its flavor. It was also used as a preservative. In the days of no refrigeration it was rubbed into fresh meat to prevent it from rotting. Jesus is saying that his followers are to act as a preservative — to slow down the world’s decay.

What does he mean? Jesus has in mind the radical lifestyle that he has just spoken about in his eight Beatitudes. There he sets out who are the truly blessed, people who would inherit God’s eternal kingdom. He teaches that God blesses everyone who understands their spiritual poverty before him; who weep for their failure to honor him and for a world that turns its back on him; people who, instead of engaging in the power play and deceptions of the world, walk the tougher path of humility and service, truth and peace. Jesus’ Beatitudes were radical, awakening us to the depths of our human need.

Indeed, it was because Jesus knew humanity without God would always tend to spiral away from truth and goodness, that he called on his followers to be the salt of the earth. He expects everyone who has turned to him to live in a way that slows down the rot of self-interest and greed, of injustice and the unchecked power-play of society elites.

Consider this. Back in 2009 Woody Allen produced the movie, Whatever Works. It captures the mood of values today. Starting with the presupposition that life now is all there is, we’re told that there is no God and no final accounting. Part of life’s challenge is to do whatever works to find the fleeting moments of love and joy. The moral subjectivism that pervades the movie seems plausible, realistic and tolerant. There’s no guilt, only disappointments along life’s way.

But how satisfying is this? I often meet people who want what they call the real thing: a loving, satisfying, committed, long-term relationship. They also hope that there will be a day when this world’s wrongs are brought to account.

Today’s world which says that everyone should be tolerant, makes tolerance the one value that determines all other values. The irony is that we need something to define tolerance, otherwise we won’t know whether we are being tolerant or not.

And there is something else here that today’s world ignores: all of us are flawed. We are bent on looking after Number One first. When we read the four recognized and reliable accounts of Jesus’ public life, we discover that his primary purpose was to address the heart of the human tragedy. In doing that, he was not interested in spiritual band-aids. Rather, he was committed to the major surgery that was required to deal once and for all with humanity’s fatal flaw. This is why he volunteered to die on the cross.

For men and women to stand against the dehumanising elements around them, they need good and godly examples pointing them to Jesus and to the kingdom of God. But this will only happen when Jesus’ followers don’t become insipid themselves. That’s why he goes on to warn against salt losing its saltiness.

“You are the salt of the earth, he says, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet” (Matthew 5:13).

Strictly speaking, salt can’t lose its saltiness. Chemists tell us that NaCl is a stable compound. However in the ancient world, salt was generally obtained from salt marshes and contained many impurities. The actual salt could be leeched out, leaving a substance that tasted salty but in fact was worthless. There’s an interesting play on Jesus’ words here. Salt in Aramaic is tabel. And there’s a word very close to it, tapel which means fool. ‘Watch out,’ Jesus warns, ‘that you don’t become insipid, wishy-washy fools’.

Let me ask, how do other people see you? Do you claim to be a believer but your life remains unchanged? Is your life-style directed by the culture or by the Bible? Are you just as unforgiving, just as greedy, just as selfish as everyone around you? ‘If you call yourself a follower of mine,’ Jesus says, ‘let your life be transformed by my words, for you are the salt of the earth’.

And there is something else. In his Letter to the Colossians Paul the Apostle writes: Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time… Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone (Colossians 4:5-6).

We’re to cultivate conversations that are kind and gracious but seasoned with salt. Salt here is a metaphor for sparkling conversations that trigger questions about life. Have you considered ways to use news items, opinion columns, and films to spark conversations about the God of good news? After all, it is God’s gospel alone that truly changes hearts and minds for good.

You are the salt of the earth.

From: https://anglicanconnection.com/salt-for-a-troubled-world/

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