A sermon my pastor gave this past week really resonated with me in a way I thought I’d share with you all. It’s the kind of thing that anyone can relate to no matter what path you’ve chosen. There are three words that sum up how the world works and it’s important to know so that we all make the most out of life. You guessed it, service in community. So, what does that mean?

Just take a minute to think about it, what usually happens when a group of people join together for a great cause? You may never have thought of this but service in community was the primary cause for what we now know as modern thriving cities, education and commerce. In early Western civilization, after Rome fell, the standard of living had become nothing less than harsh. People were living in small farm communities where starvation ran rampant. Many died young and hungry. Part of this was from a climate that wasn’t fostering growth, the weather just wasn’t working out. The other issue was that the tools to cultivate healthy crops simply didn’t exist. There were three things that drastically changed everything.

One was the fact that the climate changed. That meant it was easier to sustain crops. The second factor was a new invention in agriculture, the heavy wheeled plow. ( I know you’re wondering if this is going anywhere. I promise it is. Stick with me. ) The plow had a heavy metal blade in the front that would deeply penetrate the soil. But there was a problem with this tool, it has to do with it’s name. It was insanely heavy. So heavy in fact that it would take about six oxen to get it going. Well, if you’re poor and hungry, you certainly don’t have six oxen on hand. You’ve either tried to eat them or you just can’t afford to have that kind of luxury. In other words, no one could fulfill the hope of being fed by themselves. That’s where the third thing comes in, community. The villagers would get together and share their oxen to pull the plow. Working as a whole meant being fed. Once they got this down, the food became plentiful and that meant they could sell it. The extra money from the sales went towards other endeavors, later leading the boom in commerce. I get that I personally am nowhere near starving and that I just said a lot to make a point but I think it’s a powerful concept we can use today. In fact, we are using it.

Many of you are a part of my Facebook group for a reason. You enjoy the community there. It’s a place where you can share struggles, seek advice and encourage one another. With just that alone, we are serving in community. But I wanted to pose the question to you, how can we further serve each other? We can certainly start on a local level by continuing to meet up and care for each other but I’m thinking even bigger.

I think it’s important as a plus size community to serve each other well. We are on the brink of big changes happening in society. We are starting to see plus size models like Ashley Graham surface in mainstream media. Fashion designers are beginning to broaden their size chart and body positive advocates are springing up left and right. How can we support each other as a plus size community beyond our inner circles? Perhaps it’s as simple as following them on social and supporting their blogs. Maybe it is sharing strides in the plus size community. There are many ways we can show love across state lines and I want to charge you to do so. Let’s serve in community and create big change while doing so.

Do you have any suggestions? I’d love to hear them in the comments.