One of the most increasingly popular ways of communicating the Christian message at Christmas is through video content on social media. And there’s such an amazing amount of gospel creativity out there to help us do that. These examples below are perfect for sharing online or playing at carol events & school assemblies, etc.

You can download many of these for free through Go Chatter, an online hub of bitesize videos that get people talking about Jesus. I’ve include the relevant download links below each video. You can read my interview with Go Chatter’s Digital Evangelist, Dan Rackham, here.

1) Happyland Nativity – Speak Life

Very cute – great for assemblies and the like – and with this killer line: “So come to the manger, see God become small; the true Christmas story has room for us all.”

2) Myrrh for a Baby – Ed Mayhew

Love this spoken word piece on the surprise that myrrh was given to this baby.

3) The Gift – Speak Life

Clever and witty musical number on the theme of gift-giving, which ties into an accompanying evangelistic book to give-away, The Gift, by Glen Scrivener.

4) There IS a dragon at Christmas — John Lewis/Waitrose response

Clever re-telling of the nativity to link in with this year’s Christmas advert from John Lewis.

5) The Coming — A Christmas Poem – Speak Life

R.S. Thomas’ moving poem with some beautiful videography to help us marvel at the Incarnation.

6) Instead of You – Phil Knox & EA

Phil Knox riffs on those all-too-familiar lines from cheesy Christmas classics to reflect on the heart of Christmas.

7) The Mystery of Noisy Neighbour – Bible Society

Not got your primary school Christmas assembly planned? Why not begin here? And you can find more info & resources here.

8) Mess – Dai Woolridge

Dai teams up with the Bible Society and captures the powerful truth that Jesus was born into our mess…

9) Lift Up Your Eyes – Co-Mission & FIEC

Is it a John Lewis ad… definitely not… discover a love to come home to this Christmas!

10) It’s Nearly Here – Inspire Saint James Clerkenwell

What do we need to make Christmas happen? You can contact Pete at Inspire St James Clerkenwell for branded and unbranded versions to use.

11) Christmas in 10 Words – Steph Williams

Simple and short, but brilliant.

12) Be Grateful – Forest Hill South Park Church

Ha! Clever idea… although maybe this is one for Thanksgiving more than Christmas? I suppose the point is we can make the same mistake with Christ…

13) Meet The Nativity – Glen Scrivener/Speak Life

Last year Glen Scrivener & the Speak Life produced a mini-soap: a family of four twenty-first century characters who each find their place in the first century Nativity. The standalone website for Meet the Nativity is here, where you can also find the films as four seperate episodes, as well as ‘behind the scenes’ films introducing the characters and the ‘story behind the story’.

14) Wrapping Paper – Co-Mission

The story of an old teddy bear’s Christmas wish takes us deeper into our longings for acceptance and sense of shame, and presents the wonder of the Christian gospel this Christmas. This actually picked up best online film at the Premier Digital Awards earlier in November.

15) Mary’s Song – Cath & Dai Wooldridge (Bible Society/Spoken Truth)

Cath Wooldridge performs Mary’s Magnificat from Luke’s gospel. Chord chat available here.

16) He Came Down – Glen Scrivener

A powerful film picking up on how the Christmas story is all about a God who comes all the way down to the manger, who entered into our helplessness and humanity – showing both the goodness of human life and the wonder of his grace.

17) The Greatest Journey – Bible Society & Dai Wooldridge

Clever re-telling of the Christmas journey in the style of the popular kids’ book, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.

18) Light in the Darkness – Ben Moon

A special spoken word piece well worth sharing.

19) The Holy Office – Dai Wooldridge

After all the political controversy of the last couple of years, Dai asks, “who’s really in charge?” before seeking to persuade us that the baby in the manger may have everything to do with it.

20) Christmas in Dark Places – Glen Scrivener

The haircut’s changed, but this is still one of my favourites. A video that particularly recognises that many find themselves in a dark place this Christmas season.

21) The Characters of Christmas – Go Chatter

Cute video of children re-enacting and narrating the nativity story. Solid. And there’s an accompanying book

22) The Well Good News of Christmas – Bible Society

Dai Woolridge & Emma Randall team up for the Bible Society to create this short, poetic animation exploring how the nativity story fits with the Bible’s big story. Get the accompanying book here.

23) Are You Ready for Christmas? – Go Chatter

Roger Carswell warmly narrates this graphic and asks the question, “are you ready for what God wants to give you this Christmas?” You pick up an accompanying book and free downloads of posters, invites and the high definition version of this video here.

24) Who Would Have Dreamed?

Who Would Have Dreamed? from Sovereign Grace Music’s stunning Prepare Him Room album is fast becoming one of my favourite Christmas songs. Here the song’s beautiful arrangement and lyrics are set to a thought-provoking animation of the Christmas narrative.

25) A Great Light – Moving Works

Contemporary re-telling of the promised events of Isaiah 9, ‘for to us a child is born’. More information here.

26) Christmas According to Kids – Southland Christian Church

Mostest Cutest?!

27) “Away in a What?” – Tiger Finch Creatives

In essence, a fun Bible overview in everyday language…

28) The Gift God Gave Us – Video Bible Talks

Video Bible Talks is all about creating free expositional Bible teaching that equips, resources and supports leaders with faithful Bible preaching and teaching using the medium of digital video. These aren’t super-short because they’re more designed to play in a teaching setting, but still well worth checking out and making use of.

29) Miracles can’t happen (and an exception) – Plungepool Media

Jonathan Greenaway gets under the surface of the response that God becoming human ‘just couldn’t happen’.

30) Jesus: Truth or Fairytale – Youthscape

I reckon this is particularly apt for secondary-school age. Meg Cannon particularly highlights how there’s much in the nativity story for young people to relate to, whilst asking whether it’s fact or fiction.

31) Four Kinds of Christmas – Glen Scrivener

Fabulous one-shot video from 2015, and so well thought-out. I love the way it get us to consider which of the ‘four kinds’ we are, after all everyone loves working out their ‘type’. Again, there’s an interactive website and book, which could be a great conversation starter.

32) What’s in the Box? – The Good Book Company

Clever animation designed to get people re-thinking about Christmas. Comes with accompanying book by Rice Tice & Nate Morgan-Locke.

33) The Beggar – Mike Hood

A simple, moving and refreshing piece of story-telling that gives Soren Kierkegaard’s musings on the wonder of Incarnation a contemporary feel.

34) An Unexpected Christmas

The story of Christmas told by the kids of St Paul’s Church, Auckland, New Zealand. The cute level is going up…

What did I miss? Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments below!

Want more? Have a look at the archives from previous years below:

Christmas & Advent Videos for 2018

Christmas & Advent Videos for 2017

Christmas & Advent Videos for 2016

Christmas & Advent Videos for 2015

Christmas & Advent Videos for 2014

Christmas & Advent Videos for 2013

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Preparing for Christmas with Ruth

I like to think of the Old Testament book of Ruth as ‘the story behind the Christmas story’…

If we’re half familiar with this little book, we’ll know that it culminates in the arrival of a baby, also born in Bethlehem, and who incredibly ends up being the great, great, great (add a few more!) grand-father of Jesus.

But there’s so much more to Ruth than its famous ending. So much more that will help us prepare for Christmas.

For a start, it all begins with famine.

The Cupboards Are Bare

Now, I know that’s a bit of a gear-change at this time of year.

We tend to think of Christmas as a time of feasting: platefuls of mince pies, chocolate stashed in every room of the house, marzipan-lined cake, and turkey with all the trimmings (don’t tell me it’s an overrated bird – haters gonna hate…).

And so the opening verse of Ruth can feel like a contrast: ‘…there was a famine in the land.’ (1:1)

But if we linger here, we’ll see that this prelude has an important, and even refreshing, word for us today.

The ‘land’ here refers to ‘the promised land’, Israel, a haven of blessing, provision and security that God had promised to Abraham and his descendants. It was the place into which God’s people had finally staggered during the book of Joshua, but only after forty years of wandering in the desert, a punishment for their disobedience.

So if this was meant to be a land of blessing, why on earth was there a famine?

Great question.

Warning Lights

We need to read between the lines here. We’ve already been told that Ruth is set in the time ‘when the Judges ruled’ (1:1). As a quick glance at the final verse in Judges will indicate (21:25), this was short-hand for God’s people being on a downward spiral of disobedience and idolatry.

But we also need to know that in the Old Testament, a famine represented something very specific.

When God outlined the nature of his covenant relationship with his people, he gave them the Old Testament law to set out what that relationship looked like. Within the law were clear consequences if God’s people disobeyed him and turned after false gods. Crucially for us here, one of these consequences was famine (take a look at Deuteronomy 28:15-29 to see this explicitly).

In other words, God’s people experiencing national widespread hunger was like a warning light flashing on the dashboard. It was a visible sign alerting God’s people to the reality that all was not well with their relationship with God.

And like all warning lights, it was meant to evoke a response…

Meet the Family?

Now, as we’re introduced to the initial characters, it’s notable that the very first thing we’re told about this family is not their names or characters or occupations, but rather where they’re from and where they go. In other words, we’re told their response to the famine. And we’re meant to see it’s not a particularly wise response.

Bethlehem was a small town within Judah, the promised land. In fact its name literally meant ‘house of bread’. But Moab on the other hand was one of the enemies of God’s people. We might rush past these place names as if they were irrelevant details, but the very first readers of Ruth would have raised their eyebrows at this family’s choice of destination: ‘You’re going where?! Moab?!’

And just to emphasise their decision, the narrator repeats it in verse 3, sandwiching it around the family’s names: ‘They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.’ (1:3)

Of course, we might think, ‘But aren’t they just doing what any reasonable people would have done in the face of famine?’

But, remember, this wasn’t any normal famine. It was a God-given warning light indicating that Israel needed to turn back to him in confession and repentance. It certainly wasn’t an invitation to flee further away.

Denial Strategies

But isn’t that what we do? When faced with the cold reality of our brokenness and corruption, it’s all too easy to turn away. To escape, rather than face the truth.

The narrator doesn’t dwell for long on the folly of this one family’s decision, although as we’ll see if we read to 1:5, it hardly leads to life-giving blessing. Given the context of Judges, you could say that Elimelek and Naomi’s move was just one lived-out example of a whole nation’s systemic denial of their real problem: a broken relationship with God and their desperate need for forgiveness.

All this might not seem very ‘Christmassy’, but that’s exactly why Christians have traditionally valued the period of Advent.

Remember, Christmas was the twelve days of celebration that began on December 25^th – hence the song! In contrast, Advent is about preparing for Christmas by facing up to the darkness. The darkness of a broken world and the desperate news that without Jesus all cannot be well with our relationship with God.

Escaping Advent

Of course, we don’t need to be legalistic about this. Marking Advent isn’t in the Bible. But it is biblical to face reality and see our personal and corporate need for a Saviour.

So what if the way that our culture rushes past Advent, or at least is so eager to bring Christmas in early, is symptomatic of trying to escape the reality of our brokenness? We turn away, rather than face the truth.

Tish Harrison Warren speaks of this ‘unhealthy escapism’, where we ‘run at breathless pace from sugar-laced celebration to celebration’:

“We suffer from a collective consumerist mania that demands we remain optimistic, shiny, happy and having fun, fun, fun.

But life isn’t a Disney Cruise. The tyranny of relentless mandatory celebration leaves us exhausted and often, ironically, feeling emptier. Many of us suffer from “holiday blues,” and I wonder whether this phenomenon is made worse by the incessant demand for cheer — the collective lie that through enough work and positivity, we can perfect our lives and our world.”

Look Hard at the Cracks

But who can do that for long? In a world that aches with sin, pretending everything is ‘endless cheer’ is both deceptive and exhausting.

As Warren puts it, instead we need the opportunity to ‘look long and hard at what is cracked and fractured in our world and in our lives.’

Things aren’t the way they’re supposed to be. The very fact that there was a famine in the ‘house of bread’ should have been a clear wake-up call to this truth.

And so Advent presents us with a choice: will we face up to that reality, or will we try and escape past it?

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Why not take some time to reflect upon the ways you feel the world’s brokenness today. Acknowledge that things aren’t as they should be. This might be at a global, national and personal level.

Confess your own sin as part of this – are there ways in which you’re seeking to ‘escape’ from this truth? 

Give thanks that the Bible faces the reality of an aching world head-on, rather than pretending ‘all is fine’. How could this inspire conversations you have today? 

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This post was adapted from a daily email Bible reflection for Advent from the book of Ruth, ‘Finding Hope under Bethlehem Skies’. You can sign up for these here. Each reflection will also include links to previous reflections.