We just put up a new freebie for November. It’s our very popular Crosses on Blue Worship Background. Get it here.

We’re also really excited to be offering our entire library for 50% off for the rest of the year! Come by and get videos for all your holiday needs for 50% their normal price. We’ll be running this sale through December 31st. Click here to check it out.

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.

There’s still time to sign up and get our free Mother’s Day Media pack. Click here to go to the homepage and sign up. Once you’ve signed up, you will be emailed a link to download the free Mother’s Day media. If you’d like to see what you’ll get, click here to see our FREE MEDIA page.

We’ve also got a great Mother’s Day Sermon Illustration and Countdown available on the Seasonal Tab of our website. For Mom: A Breakfast Story is our best selling video ever, so we must have done something right with that one. Here’s a comment we received about For Mom:

Well done! Way to give Moms a good laugh and recall good memories at the same time.
Michael Yaeger
Temple Baptist Church

We’ve also got a great Mother’s Day Countdown where real women share their answers to the question: What’s the worst Mother’s Day gift you could get? Hint: Don’t buy her a Dieting Cookbook!

Here’s wishing you all a very Happy Mother’s Day.

I wanted post an update on what’s happening around eleven72. First, we’re hard at work getting our April round of free still backgrounds and free worship backgrounds ready to post and send out with our next newsletter. Look for that newsletter early next week. If you’re not in the know, we give away free stills, backgrounds and other stuff every month to our email subscribers. To sign up, go to our homepage and you’ll find the information in the lower right hand part of the page. If you sign up now, you can still get last months free stuff and then the new stuff when the newsletter goes out next week.

The National Day of Prayer is coming up May 3rd. If you’ve got plans to do a Prayer focused service the weekend before (April 28th-29th), we’ve got some resources that would work great for you.

Check out our Prayer Volume 1, a bundle of prayer related media pieces that include two Sermon Illustrations, a Countdown, five Still Backgrounds and two moving Worship Backgrounds. This has been a very popular volume for us, in particular, people have really responded well to the Prayer Illustration, which features thoughtful and inspirational quotes on Prayer, as well as original photography by esteemed photographer Joel Salcido. You can get a great deal by purchasing the entire volume, or you can order ala carte and get whatever you need.

Next up, in May, Mother’s Day falls on May 13th. We’re currently working on some new Mother’s Day resources which I’ll post about in the next few days. In the mean time, check out our wildly popular Sermon Illustration, For Mom: A Breakfast Story, which is a really honest, funny and heart warming look at some kids who are trying to make Mom’s day extra special. While you’re looking, don’t miss our even more popular Mother’s Day Countdown, which is based on an actual survey we took asking Moms the question, what’s the worst Mother’s Day gift you have either received or can think of (hint: getting her a scale is a really bad idea). The answers we got are hilarious. These two videos have been the most popular seasonal videos we’ve ever produced. Check them out.

Finally up in May is Memorial Day on May 28th. For those of you having Memorial Day services on May 27th, we’re working on a brand new Sermon Illustration just for you. It’s going to be a powerful piece that highlights the history of Memorial Day and ties that rich history into our remembering those who have fallen today. I’ll be sure to post about that video when it’s finished and available. Another great video we have that would work well on Memorial Day is Let Freedom Ring, a thoughtful collection of quotes and scripture that highlights the God centered values and principles our nation was founded on Let Freedom Ring is available as an Illustration and as a Countdown.

If you’re looking for media to plug into your Palm Sunday service this weekend, we’ve got a Palm Sunday Countdown and a Palm Sunday Worship Background that would work great. Count down to the service and then use our background for worship to continue the Palm Sunday theme. You can find both these videos, along with a ton of other Easter resources on our Seasonal page.

And don’t forget, if you sign up for our email list on the homepage, you’ll be emailed a link to download our free Easter Resource Pack. You’ll get our Crosses on Hill Background, Praising Man Background, Jesus on the Cross Still and Jesus on the Hill Still. You can’t beat free Power Point Backgrounds and free loopable backgrounds. And they’re for Easter! Check it all out on our Free Media page. We give away stuff like this every month. So sign up already :).

End of plug.