When the clip came across my phone this week, I almost scrolled right past it. Small-town Iowa. A city council chamber. A man steps up to the podium to give the opening invocation, and the first words out of his mouth are “Dear dark father.”
He ends with “Hail Satan.”
Wow.
Let’s be honest. My first reaction was the same as just about everybody else scrolling past it. My jaw tightened. I felt the heat rise in my chest. I wanted to share it with a few choice words of my own and go on with my day feeling righteously angry.
A lot of people felt the same way. The clip went viral and racked up over a million views.
But before we all grab our pitchforks, let’s slow down and look at what actually happened.
The town is Ottumwa, Iowa. On January 20 of this year, the city council voted 4-1 to adopt an invocation policy, Resolution No. 18-2026. For the first time in decades, Ottumwa’s meetings would open with prayer. The mayor said the goal was to start meetings “with reverence” and to bring unification to local churches. Seven residents spoke that night, most of them in favor, including two pastors from Ottumwa Baptist Temple.
I love that. I really do. A city deciding to start its business by bowing its head is a good thing.
But the policy is open to everyone, and the law requires that. Any approved resident or organization can give a voluntary invocation, whatever their faith or lack of one. The policy even says its purpose includes respecting “the diversity of both organized and unorganized religious denominations, as well as other faiths, belief systems, or the lack thereof.” Dates are first-come, first-served.
Nine days after the vote, on January 29, a former council member named Matt Dalbey put in his request. Reports describe him as a member of The Satanic Temple. His date was October 6. He stood up and opened with “Dear dark father.” At one point he said, “let us embrace the Luciferian impulse to eat of the tree of knowledge.” And he closed with “Hail Satan.”
Council member Cara Galloway, the lone no vote back in January, said she had warned during the original debate that someone from the church of Satan could give a prayer and the city would have to allow it. She called it.
But here’s the thing. This is exactly the reaction they were hoping for. By its own description, The Satanic Temple doesn’t believe in a literal Satan. It’s a largely nontheistic activist group. One of its favorite tactics is to request a spot wherever public religion shows up and use the shock to make a point about church and state.
Shock is the strategy. Outrage is the payoff. Every angry repost is another trophy on their shelf.
So let’s be real. If our response is panic, we’ve handed them exactly what they came for.
Christians have no reason to panic about the devil. He is a defeated foe. Paul tells us that at the cross Jesus “disarmed principalities and powers,” and “made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:15). The enemy got a few minutes at a podium in Iowa. Jesus already made a public spectacle of him at Calvary.
John reminds us, “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). I don’t have to be afraid of two words at a city council meeting.
And we have to remember that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood” (Ephesians 6:12). Matt Dalbey is a man made in the image of God, and he is someone Jesus died for. I can reject everything he said at that podium and still pray that the Lord gets hold of his heart. In fact, that’s my job.
Here’s a question I keep coming back to. When Ottumwa opened that calendar in January, how many dates were open? And how many churches signed up for them?
I don’t know the answer for Ottumwa. But I suspect in a lot of towns the answer would embarrass us. We cheer when prayer comes back to city hall, and then we assume somebody else will fill the slots.
So what’s the answer to a dark prayer? More prayer.
Think about Elijah on Mount Carmel in 1 Kings 18. Israel was overrun with the prophets of Baal. Elijah didn’t circulate a petition to get them banned from the mountain. He let them go first. He let them shout all day long. Then he repaired the altar of the Lord, soaked it with water, and prayed, “Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that You are the LORD God” (1 Kings 18:37). And the fire fell.
Elijah didn’t cancel Baal. He showed up and called on the living God.
Paul tells Timothy to pray “for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence” (1 Timothy 2:1-2). Notice that word. Reverence. It’s the very thing Ottumwa’s mayor was hoping for. And a city council counts as “all who are in authority.” Your mayor and your commissioners are on that list.
Here’s what encourages me. The very next name on Ottumwa’s calendar, on October 20, is Joseph Sia of St. Joseph Catholic Church of Ottumwa. “Hail Satan” got one night. Grace gets the next word.
Here in Longwood, our city commission opens its meetings with prayer. And I’m one of the pastors who gets to stand at that podium. A few times a year, I take my turn, rotating with other local pastors and ministry leaders from around our community.
I’ve pastored LifePoint here since 2003, and let me tell you, it’s a privilege every single time. I get to stand in front of the people who make decisions for my city and pray for them by name. That’s a gift I never want to take for granted.
By the way, nobody goes viral. Nobody makes headlines. But meeting after meeting, Longwood’s leaders hear their names lifted up before the living God, because local pastors and ministry leaders take turns showing up.
So when I tell you to sign up at your city hall, I’m not asking you to do anything I’m not doing myself.
So here’s my challenge. This is doable. It’s happening in Longwood right now, and your town can do it too.
Pastors, call your city clerk this week and ask if there’s an invocation calendar. Deacons and elders, put your names on it. Moms, business owners, retirees, if your town lets residents pray, sign up. Take a date. Then take another one.
And when your turn comes, pray for your town by name. Pray for your mayor by name. Pray for your council members by name. Pray for the police officers and firefighters and the crews who fix the water lines. Pray like Elijah, so that people may know the Lord is God.
Don’t just repost the outrage. Reposting is easy. Showing up costs something.
If the only voice at the podium is “Hail Satan,” some of that is on us.
That’s the whole idea behind this Substack. Silence is never neutral. When the church stays quiet, the quiet says something. It says we don’t care, or we’re scared, or we figured someone else would handle it.
An empty slot on a city invocation calendar preaches a sermon too.
Ottumwa’s calendar is open. Yours probably is too. Let’s fill it.