Steven Snook's path to Christian ministry isn't like most. His story begins not in seminary school, but in federal prison.
It wasn't just one bad mistake that Steven Snook said landed him a 19-year sentence in federal prison. It was a lifetime of them.
Snook said he was a career criminal serving out his third prison sentence, about three years of which were in solitary confinement. He continued running his drug trafficking operation from prison. That led to his brother getting into a serious car crash during a high-speed police chase.
And that's when Snook says he turned to religion for the first time.
"I didn't know how to pray, but I told the Lord, if you save my brother's life, I will give you every breath for the rest of my life. And something happened, brother, and I'm telling you, something happened, and it was dramatic," he said.
Snook says he didn't grow up religious. He describes his Central Illinois upbringing as "chaotic" and "berserk." His parents, he says, were like wolves — alcoholics who sometimes fired guns in the house.
After his brother was injured in the crash, Snook took up reading the Bible and fasted for a week and a half. When he came out, he found out his brother was going to live, and says he was a changed man.
When he was released from prison a little over two years ago, Snook says he didn't know how to send an email, let alone set up a social media account. But he did have a vision for a business creating framed wall displays of Bible verses. He connected with the former director of the Peoria NEXT Innovation Center at Bradley University while still living in a halfway house.
"And he helped me, and he taught me how to read a text and an email, and I developed this product," Snook said. "But eventually, it was never about that business. It was about God putting me in a position to learn the things that I needed to learn, to develop, to catch up to speed with society."
Snook has since sold the business and given away his remaining stock of frames. He says he and his wife are now focused on ministry work primarily in places like prisons, drug rehabilitation centers, and homeless encampments.
He says his approach to preaching isn't like just going to church for a social experience.
"We want folks to have an encounter with God, so that when they walk away from that prayer, they say, 'Man, I had an encounter with Jesus.' And then we say, 'Okay, this is how this transformation takes place, going forward.' It's not over right there. It continues to go forward. And this is how it takes place," he said.
The idea to write a book about his life story began while still serving out his prison sentence. Detainees were only allotted a limited amount of paper and writing utensils. But he says he got a little help from others.
"Incredibly, pens started showing up at my cell. People would just walk by and drop them off. Paper would just...nobody knew that God had put this on my heart to write this," he said. "I started to write the manuscript, okay, from my very first memory of life, I sent it out five pages at a time."
Snook mailed those pages out to a friend in Florida. When he was released from prison, he contacted that friend and found out he'd actually kept the writings. They were assembled into Snook's first book, Extraordinary Solitude: Prison, Razor Blades and Jesus. But Snook says it's not just an autobiography.
"My life story is in there, okay, but it also is an instruction manual for anybody that has struggled with addiction, with mental health issues, somebody that maybe has been incarcerated or just more spiritually hungry," Snook says.
A portion of the proceeds from every book goes back into purchasing more books for free distribution, but Snook says it's not really about the money for him.
"We just tell people, if you can't buy one, if you can't afford one, we'll just give you one," he says.
When asked what he would tell the version of himself from 25 years ago, Snook says it's a difficult question to answer.
"I believe that all things work out for good. I would certainly not want to hurt anyone that I've heard in my life, because when you are a drug trafficker, you're hurting a lot of people. And I would certainly pray that away, you know, and not do that," he says. "But how would I have gotten to where I am now without having gone through what I went through? I don't believe it's possible."
But he believes he was chosen by God for ministry work for a reason.
"He found Gideon in a hole. He found Joseph in prison. He found me in prison. This is where he likes to work from sometimes," Snook says. "He will take somebody there, and then he will elevate them to that next spot where he wants to place them, but only after they've went through that experience of solitude with God."
Snook's book is available through his website and on Amazon. An audiobook version is available through Audible.
