Are You Part Of Something Bigger?

In the past couple of weeks, we in Oklahoma have been subjected to more snow in one short amount of time than I can ever remember. The city of Jay actually received twenty-five inches of the fluffy, white stuff in like twelve hours. If there were mountains in Oklahoma, you might have mistaken it for Colorado.

They have called it "the blizzard of 2011", and I for one am glad that we are suppose to see temps in the high 40's today. Mainly for selfish reasons, as I have been hiking up my forty-five degree angled 1/10 of a mile driveway now for close to two weeks. I did manage to walk the entire length last night without weezing, so I guess that's something.

On the day of the first major storm that dumped anywhere from twelve to twenty inches of snow, I was sitting in my house playing around on Facebook, when I stumbled upon a video that someone had uploaded to their account. In it, several people were running outside in their swim suits and making snow angels. (Afterwards I learned that they belonged to a church in the area that had challenged all of their members to do this.) One bald man about my age did it, and as I laughed watching him flail around in the snow, it hit me. I would challenge some of my friends to do the same thing.

I brought my family around me and had them watch the video, and we all had a big laugh, but it got kind of quiet when I told them that I was going to do it too, and challenge some of my buddies to do the same. After a few minutes of convincing them, I sent a challenge out to five of the men that I go to church with to don their swim trunks and video themselves making a snow angel, then I went and put my trunks on.

As I went out into my garage, it was snowing furiously and it was brutally cold. I had both my son and daughter video tape it so that I was sure to get this on the first take and not have to do it again. Well, I ran out and jumped into the snow and rolled over, making an incredibly fast snow angel, to see my craziness click here, then ran back into the house and straight into the waiting shower.

After showering, we uploaded my video and within an hour the hilarity ensued. As we watched Facebook, more and more videos began popping up. People we knew, and people that we didn't know but who were friends of friends begin to take the challenge, some of which I never would have believed were jumping in the snow, laughing, screaming and crying out in shock at the cold. On the next day one of my friends posted a video on YouTube of many of the people taking the challenge and put it to music. You can see that one here.

I think that the most interesting thing that I learned during this time is that people love to be a part of something bigger than themselves. It seemed as if, once the ball got rolling that more and more people wanted to do this crazy stunt, not so much because they wanted to go get in the snow in their swim suits, but because they wanted to be a part of something that was going on that they could say they had been a part of.

If all we ever do is live in the smaller story of our own lives, we never really grow outside of that selfish, one sided type of life. Being a part of something so much bigger gives our lives meaning, and a sense that we matter in a bigger way. I wish the Body of Christ could figure this out and start to live this way. Jesus said to go and make disciples, but a lot of times the biggest concern we have is that we get to sit in the same place we've always sat during church. Oh, and don't let anyone sit in "your" seat or there will be hell to pay.

So let me ask you, are you part of something bigger than yourself? If you answer yes, then good for you, keep after it. If no, then start looking for a way to become a part, even if you have to start it. I will say, that I challenged five men from my church to do this crazy thing, four of which accepted and put their videos on Facebook, but at last count there were well over 100 videos of people doing this thing. Many of these people don't even know each other, but if you put them all into a room together, the laughter and joy you would find there would be pretty amazing.

Get 'em up folks, let's go out and whip something for the Kingdom today!