A lighthearted challenge issued by a western North Carolina pastor turned into a statewide movement of comedy and connection following this past weekend’s historic winter storm.
Bobby Rogers, lead pastor of Dellwood Baptist Church in Waynesville, said he was looking for a creative way to notify his congregation that services would be canceled Sunday, Feb. 1, due to snow.
“I just wanted to let our church know we weren’t going to have services, and I needed them to help spread the news,” Rogers said. “So I thought, ‘Well, I’ll do something to catch their attention.’ Thus the ‘Snow Angel Challenge’ was birthed, sort of in the moment.”
After announcing the worship service cancellation in a video posted to Dellwood Baptist Church’s Facebook page on Jan. 31, Rogers challenged his two associate pastors — Shawn Porter and J.D. Grant — to post videos of themselves making snow angels.
“Pastor Shawn and Pastor J.D., show me your snow angel,” Rogers said before dropping into the snow to make a snow angel by sweeping his arms and legs out and back.
Porter and Grant accepted, and the snow angel challenge was born. Before making his snow angel, Grant, a longtime pastor and an instructor and retired administrator at Fruitland Baptist Bible College, said in his video, “Dellwood, I’m not an angel, but I’ll accept the challenge from Pastor Bobby. I can wallow in the snow.”
Dellwood Baptist members soon began challenging one another to participate by tagging each other on Facebook. Participation quickly grew, with Rogers estimating that about 100 church members — representing about one-third of the congregation’s average worship attendance — had posted videos by mid-afternoon on Sunday.
Participants ranged from infants to senior adults and included both individuals and entire families, with some adding creative flair. One deacon ripped his shirt off in the frigid temperatures. Another dressed up like Elvis. Another made a snow angel wearing a suit and tie. One family filmed an aerial video to the tune of the Vanilla Ice song “Ice Ice Baby.”
The challenge soon traveled beyond Waynesville, located in the North Carolina mountains, where it started and where it is accustomed to winter weather.
“It snowballed from there,” Rogers said, pun intended. “From Waynesville to Wilmington.”
The rare and powerful winter storm that swept across North Carolina over the weekend brought snowfall to all 100 counties, producing record or near-record accumulations in parts of the state. The storm disrupted travel, forced cancellation of church services and other events, and left many communities — particularly those in eastern and southeastern North Carolina — blanketed by snow amounts rarely seen in those regions.
Those factors helped fuel the spread of the challenge.
In coastal Brunswick County, Anthony Clemmons helped promote the challenge among fellow pastors there.
“Bobby and I are friends on Facebook,” said Clemmons, pastor of Mount Olive Baptist Church in Bolivia. “When I saw it, I thought it would be a fun thing to do here in Brunswick County. I figured one or two would do it, but it’s just gone crazy.”
Similar to the trend in Waynesville, Brunswick County pastors began posting their videos to Facebook and challenging others both inside and outside of the county to participate.
J. Allen Murray, pastor of Mount Pisgah Baptist Church in Supply and current president of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, was among those who took part.
“Biblical angels probably don’t look like snow angels,” Murray joked in his video.
Murray, a native of nearby Wilmington, said the storm was unlike anything he could remember.
“This is the most snow I’ve ever seen in southeastern North Carolina in my life, though we had more the year I was born,” Murray said. “I don’t recall ever seeing more than 4 inches in the past. It isn’t uncommon to not get any snow at all in a winter, and if we do, it’s usually a dusting.”
Murray said he measured between 10 and 11 inches of snow with drifts up to 38 inches at the church parsonage.
“The wind moved it all over the place,” Murray said.
Murray said he joined the challenge after being called out by Clemmons.
“I think it’s all in good fun, and people need to know pastors aren’t all suits and ties,” Murray said. “We like to have fun and joke around just like anyone else.”
Clemmons said the challenge struck a chord with both congregations and pastors.
“The beauty of it is some of our congregations are snowed in, they pull this up and they see their pastor doing this crazy thing,” Clemmons said. “It makes us relatable to our congregation.”
He also noted how the challenge strengthened relationships among pastors.
“There’s not only the connection between the pastor and the congregation, but also between the pastors,” Clemmons said. “Here we are coming together for something out of the ordinary, and it’s bonding us together.”
Back in Waynesville, Rogers said the response to his whimsical challenge that went viral has been overwhelming. He said he’s tried to share as many “Snow Angel Challenge” videos as he can through either Dellwood Baptist’s Facebook page or his personal Facebook page, but admits he’s had a hard time keeping up.
“This just blew my mind,” Rogers said. “Pastors are fun people, and church folks are fun people. That’s part of what I was hoping to communicate — let’s have some fun and enjoy ourselves.”
— Chad Austin is managing editor of the Biblical Recorder.