Rob Shepherd recently hosted a holiday potluck but with a new spin: soup.
A pastor in Virginia even made a name for his festival.
“It was great meeting our little group at church,” Shepherd told Fox News Digital in an interview. “We meet every week for a Bible study, and this was our Christmas party as a group.”
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Normally, he said, the group does a potluck, but this year they were open to new ideas.
“My wife, who is a teacher, dismissed the idea of everyone bringing soup to share,” recalls Shepherd, who is the lead pastor at Next Level Church in Yorktown, Virginia.
Virginia pastor Rob Shepherd said his wife, Monica, left, came up with the idea for their annual holiday church group soup party. (Rob Shepherd)
The idea was a winner. But the next issue was about how guests would enjoy soup at a potluck party.
That led to another great idea to cook up.
“My wife shared the idea of bringing muffin tins with cups of soup to make it easier to sample different soups,” said Shepherd. “There are six couples in our group – so we had five different soups, and one couple brought dessert.”
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Muffin tins proved a smart idea for serving a selection of soups: tomato, vegetables, broccoli cheese, sausage tortellini and chicken tortilla.
“Everything was delicious, but my favorite was the broccoli cheese soup,” said Shepherd.
Shepherd is so happy with this pot that he decided to go public with the idea on social media.
Muffin tins were used to hold cups of soup during the holiday potluck. (Rob Shepherd)
“There can be a lot of bad things on the internet and one of my goals is to provide good content,” he said.
Shepherd said he continued with TikTok in 2020 “because I have a lot of time on my hands.”
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“I post games, recipes and family fun,” Shepherd said.
And his soup post was hot.
“I didn’t expect it to go as viral as it did. There are 3 million views on TikTok and 3.9 million on Instagram,” Shepherd told Fox News Digital last week.
Before posting the video on Instagram, she had 1,500 followers. After the video, it jumped to 15,000 followers.
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“I’m impressed with the response,” he said.
Rob Shepherd’s holiday soup party with his church team featured five options – tomato, vegetable, broccoli cheese, sausage tortellini and chicken tortilla. (Rob Shepherd)
There were thousands of comments on the post, but Shepherd cited two of his favorites.
“Cheap, easy and fun way to bring the family together, I’m down,” wrote @kodarodriguez97.
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“This is my dream. Soup is my favorite food. I need new friends,” wrote @BRXJ.
Not only is Shepherd thrilled that her soup kitchen theme has been well received, she’s also surprised by the reach of her post.
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“I’m constantly getting messages from friends who were sent the soup video by their friends, and they’re so excited to let their friends know that they know me in real life,” Shepherd said.
“It was all fun.”
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