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.

A lot of people have been asking us lately, “Can we make our own countdowns?” The answer is yes and we can help. We’re excited to be able to offer you a clock that you can use to make your own countdowns. Now you can use your own Announcement Slides or video or whatever for a countdown. All you need is a little technical know-how and our clock. Check out this video tutorial on how to use our clock and what you’ll need to know before you do. Click here to purchase your own and start using it this week.

Click here to purchase this video.

We’ve got a whole lot of Mother’s Day content up on the Seasonal Tab (click here to see it now). The Sermon Illustrations and the Countdown are some of our best selling videos ever, so we’re really excited to have them all available this year at eleven72.com. And don’t miss the new Worship Backgrounds and Still Backgrounds (most of them free - read below for details).

In the why did we make it category- We’d like to think For Mom: A Breakfast Story is a great video for setting up Mother’s Day. Show the video, let everyone get a kick out of it, and then get up there and welcome everyone to the service and wish all the moms a Happy Mother’s Day (this would be a good way to lead into a special portion of your service that honors the moms). Or use it to lead into your sermon and when you come out of it, say something like, “any one have a morning like that?” or “can anyone relate?” Whether you use it to kick off your service, lead into your announcements or get your sermon started, we made it to be a realistic, yet funny/heartwarming way to introduce Mother’s Day.

For the Worst Mother’s Day Gift Ideas and Mother’s Day Countdown videos, we actually surveyed all the real moms and mom’s to be we could and came up with this video based on the real answers they gave us. We thought, who better to let us know what moms don’t want! The answers are a whole lot of fun. Use this as a stand alone video to give your congregation a laugh and lead into your sermon or announcements and/or use the countdown as a funny way to get your service started by pointing out what not to get mom for Mother’s Day.

FREE ALERT Don’t miss the new free stuff. We’re giving away 10 (yes 10, they’re somewhat similar, but still 10 freebies, that’s good stuff, right?) Mother’s Day themed Still Backgrounds and two new Worship Backgrounds. Lee did a great job on these backgrounds and I can’t wait for you to check them out. I just can’t get enough of the slomo rose petals - they’re totally mesmerizing - and the loopable Gerber Daisy Background is just really clean and awesome looking. See it for yourself by clicking here. The freebies are available to email subscribers. If you’re not yet a subscriber, click here to sign up on our homepage and we’ll email you a link to download the new content. If you are a subscriber, stand by, and you’ll get the link in our newsletter that goes out on Wednesday.

Signing off…

In my years as a Media Director at Gateway Church here in Austin, we spent a lot of time in Programming Meetings discussing the purpose of Sermon Illustration videos. That is, videos used to set up or to set up a main point in the pastor’s sermon. In broad strokes, we talked about what our videos should do for the Pastor? How much should they say? Where should they leave off?

We came up with a pretty simple metaphor that we used as a guideline. The metaphor goes something like this: You’re on a ball field playing softball. It’s a slow pitch game where you pitch to your own team. The pastor is at the plate. You’re the pitcher and the ball is the Sermon Illustration video. Your job as the pitcher (film/videomaker) is to throw up a nice slow pitch for the pastor so that he can knock that pitch out of the park.

So, let’s break that metaphor down. First, it’s a team effort. Programming and doing church on Sundays takes a team of people all working together toward a common goal. The big goal being to reach people with the life changing message of Jesus Christ. Each week, the pastor gives a message and that message is the anchor of the weekly service. Every element in the service should function to help set up that message, to set up that home run.

You are not the batter. The video is not there to hit the homerun. The pastor is the batter. The message is hopefully the homerun. What do I mean?

In the context of church, video Sermon Illustrations are not the message. Often times, when used well, they function to set up the message. In this way, they often raise questions that they don’t answer. The videos can give voice to the thoughts, fears, doubts and questions that the people in the congregation have. Following this, the pastor can come up and speak to those thoughts, fears, doubts and questions. He can provide answers from God’s Word.

Oftentimes, this means leaving things open ended in our videos. We need to leave room for the pastor’s message. When viewed alone, one might think the videos don’t give a strong enough answer, don’t resolve enough, but we have to remember that in the context of Sermon Illustrations and church, these videos are not designed or created to stand alone. And they aren’t designed to give the message. That is the pastor’s job.

Remember, throw up a nice slow pitch and you’ll be able to watch with joy as the ball sails out of the park.

Easter. Then What?

We just finished and posted our newest Sermon Illustration and we’re really excited about it! So, what’s the story? A few weeks ago, Lee and I sat down with the Teaching Pastor (Ted Beasley/Gateway) at our home church to talk about Easter. The conversation eventually got around to how a lot of people, Christians and non alike, can feel stuck and even depressed around this time of year because they aren’t sure how to apply the message of Easter to their everyday lives.

Our Easter video was born out of that conversation. Out of a desire to give voice to that feeling, to set pastors up to take the podium and teach on the Good News that what Jesus did for us isn’t just for “fire insurance.” His sacrifice was made so that we could have a relationship with God now, a relationship and a freedom in Christ that can be a very real part of our everyday lives.

Click here to check out the video. Then leave us a comment on this post and let us know what you think.