We just finished and posted our latest Easter video, “The Cross: A Curse For Us?” We also posted some new Cross Stills that make great backgrounds for songs, Scripture slides and other text. Check out the video and let us know what you think:
We’re working on an Easter video that I’m really excited about. It’s a poem, read by this really great slam poet spoken word dude, set to some fantastic piano music, and backed up by high end HD footage of a cross. Did you get all that? Anyway, I know we’re a little late to the Easter party with this one, but I’m really pleased with it nonetheless. Here’s a still I took while shooting footage for the video (keep an eye out for some of these stills going up on the website):
Easter is a big deal. Palm Sunday. Good Friday. Resurrection Sunday. These are seismic events in God’s redemptive storyline. Add to that the fact that tons of people who aren’t regularly in church are in church on Easter and you have a situation where, as a pastor or worship leader, you feel a great deal of pressure to deliver great services that powerfully reflect the Gospel of Christ. So what do you do?Using video in your Easter services certainly won’t solve all your problems, but church videos are what I know, and so I would like to give you a few reasons why I think using video can help to alleviate some of the pressure you feel to deliver powerfully at Easter.
Video…
1. Meets people where they are. You’ve heard it before but it’s worth repeating: We live in a visual culture. Incorporating video and other forms of visual media into your service will put people at ease, so they can settle in and prepare to hear the message. For example, starting the service with a funny clip is a great way to put the congregation at ease.
2. Connects emotionally. Video operates on an emotional level and provides you with a great tool for getting the congregation emotionally prepared to hear your message. Using a Sermon Illustration video is an excellent way to set up your message. The video you choose can illustrate one of your points, demonstrate a situation where people need to hear your message or raise questions that you can then deal with in your message.
3. Gives people space to reflect. Using video is also a great way to guide the congregation into a time of reflection and also helps focus them on the things you want them to reflect on. Use it to start the service to prepare their hearts for what they will hear. Use it during a special time in the service such as Communion to guide them through what you would have them reflecting on. Use it at the end of your message to give them space to think about and respond to what they’ve heard.
In all these ways and more, video provides you with a powerful tool to help do the most important thing at Easter” connect people to the life-changing message of Christ.
We just put up a new Easter video. Check it out:
You can find it on our website HERE
That’s Breath of Heaven (or Breath of the sky) in German. We had some guys in Germany contact us. They want to use Breath of Heaven at their church for Christmas so they translated the text for us into German and we made a German language version. Pretty cool stuff. So, Breath of Heaven is one of the best selling Christmas videos in the world (currently number 4 of Sermon Spice and number 3 on Worship House) and now it’s being translated into other languages. God is good. If you know anyone who could use a German language version of Breath of Heaven, let us know :)!
I was just thinking… You know because we get complaints about the prices of our videos and it twists me up inside to think that people think we’re somehow gouging them when really we’re trying our best to serve them… Did you realize that you could buy a $20 Sermon Illustration every week. That’s purchase and show a $20 video every week for a year and only spend $1040. Wow. I never thought about that before. That’s a video every week for less than it would cost to produce just one single video on your own. Good stuff.
Connect With Us
I’ve gone and got myself all into all these networking sites. I know. I know. I’m about a decade late to the party. But still, I’d love to be your friend :). Connect with us, check out our videos, learn more about us, etc, at:
December is flying by so quickly… A lot of good things are happening for eleven72. Our Breath of Heaven video is currently the number 2 video on Worship House and the number 3 video on Sermon Spice, which is awesome. Our Peace on Earth, Just Ask, All Too Familiar and Christmas Presence videos are also selling well.
With Christmas almost here, I also wanted to point you to some of our New Years content that we’re excited about. We’ve got a lot of fun videos for New Years. Change is Possible is popular year round but great for New Years. Resolve is our most popular New Years video to date. And we have really high hopes for our latest New Years video, This Year. All of the videos can be viewed and downloaded on our site (click here). Check out This Year on YouTube and please feel free to leave comments, rate it, favorite it, love it: