22 Corker Christmas & Advent Videos for 2017

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22 Corker Christmas & Advent Videos for 2017

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas – and here’s an amazing amount of gospel creativity crammed into twenty videos to help you communicate the joy of Christmas. Perfect for sharing online or playing at carol events & 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) Meet The Nativity – Glen Scrivener/Speak Life

Glen Scrivener & team have gone big this year. Rather than one video we’re getting an episode a week in the run-up to Christmas as we’re introduced to four twenty-first century characters who find their place in the first century Nativity. Share away!

2) 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.

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

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

4) 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.

5) 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.

6) Light in the Darkness – Ben Moon

A special spoken word piece well worth sharing.

7) 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.

8) 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.

9) The Characters of Christmas – Go Chatter

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

10) 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.

11) 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.

12) 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.

13) 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.

14) Christmas According to Kids – Southland Christian Church

Mostest Cutest?!

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

In essence, a fun Bible overview in everyday language…

16) 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.

17) 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’.

18) 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.

19) 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.

20) 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.

21) 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.

22) 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 2016

Christmas & Advent Videos for 2015

Christmas & Advent Videos for 2014

Christmas & Advent Videos for 2013

December 9, 2017 by Robin Ham

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17 Easter Videos for 2016

Creative film pieces for the Easter season increasingly abound! Some are ideal for church meetings and services, others are ripe for sharing online. Here’s a list of 17 that might take your fancy.

1. Did Jesus Really Rise From The Dead? – Impact 360

Engaging piece looking at whether it’s all really true.

2. The Tomb Is Still Empty – Joel Mullen

In a word: cute.

3. If You Had Been Here – Glen Scrivener

Glen’s latest, poetically exploring the significance of Jesus’ resurrection from the perspective of the grieving brother of Lazarus: “Through you death is a gardener, we are the seed. And this is the path; resurrection decreed.”

4. He’s Still Risen – Igniter Media

Simple and powerful film to bring home the impact of resurrection.

5. The Easter Story in 1 Minute – Carl Laferton

Carl summarising his book in one minute.

6. Good Friday: Live! – Christians in Sport

Clever retelling of the events of Good Friday through imagined live scrolling web-based news reporting.

7. Arms Wide Open – Miriam Swaffield

Spoken-word piece underlining how the cross of Jesus reveals the rescue plan of God and calls us to respond.

8. Cannonball – Speak Life feat. Guvna B

A visual/lyrical/musical feast, from the team at Speak Life, including Guvna B on vocals. Writer Glen Scrivener has also put together a short explanation.

9. I’m Full Cos It Was Empty – Spoken Truth

Dai Woolridge doing what he does really well.

10. Egg – Dave Crofts

Clever spoken-word piece riffing off something familiar and casting our eyes to bigger things.

11. Dead Come Alive – Full of Eyes

Powerful visual story-telling.

12. Bread of Heaven – Glen Scrivener

Taking up the theme of Passover and Jesus’ body being broken for us, using a child’s voice and drawings, painting the Bible’ grand-narrative and re-setting Jesus’ death and resurrection within its bigger story.

13. What do you think Easter is all about? – UCCF

A simple two-minute video, using pictures to accompany someone probing the question as to what Easter is about, before putting forward some of the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection.

14. That’s Easter: Death to Life – St Helen’s

Short presentation featuring biblical scholars speaking on the reliability of the gospel accounts.

15 & 16. Lego Easter Story – Richard Case/BW Animations

Two takes on the same idea, one apparently a ten-year old’s school art homework project, and the other a more in-depth take.

17. How Deep The Father’s Love – Page CXVI

Page CXVI reworking a modern hymn that captures the heart of the Easter message.

Know of any other videos? Share the love and drop them in the comments below.

March 22, 2016 by Robin Ham

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Why We Need To See Our Email More Like Our Post

So, here’s a question: How do you feel about email?

Ping. “You have one new message.” And the reaction for many of us might be: Argggh!

Are you someone constantly attached to your inbox, checking it every five minutes?

Maybe you have notifications on your phone alerting you to every new email that comes in?

Or is your inbox such a great big heaving mess that you daren’t go near it, resigned to chaos and disorder.

Of course, such is the place that email has in our lives, that it’s hard to imagine how people ever operated without it. Obviously it brings with it new opportunities for communication and sharing and networking, and yet often it seems to be like a bit of a ball and chain on our lives.

So is there a way forward?

When reading Tim Challies’ brilliant Do More Better the other day (my extended review is here), I was delighted to find he’d included a bonus chapter on handling email.

Challies is on a mission. He believes “so many of us do email so badly.” To highlight the error of our ways, he imagines the way we engage with our email as if it were our actual physical letterbox:

You walk outside to check your mail and reach into your mailbox. Sure enough, you’ve got some new mail. You take out one of your letters, open it up, and begin to read it. You get about halfway through, realize it is not that interesting, stuff it back inside the envelope, and put it back in the mailbox muttering “I’ll deal with this one later.”

You open the next letter and find that it is a little bit more interesting, but you do the same thing—stuff it back into the envelope and put it back inside the mailbox. Other mail you pull out and don’t even bother reading—it just goes straight back inside the mailbox.

But it gets worse. You don’t just use your mailbox to receive and hold letters, but also to track your calendar items.

You reach in deep and pull out a handful of papers with important dates and events written on them, including a few that have come and gone without you even noticing or remem- bering.

And, of course, you also use your mailbox as a task list, so you’ve got all kinds of post-it notes in there with your to-do items scrawled all over them.

But we aren’t done yet. Even though you feel guilty and kind of sick every time you open your mailbox, you still find yourself checking your mail constantly. Fifty or sixty times a day you stop whatever else you are doing, you venture down the driveway, and reach your hand inside to see if there is anything new.

It is absurd, right? Your life would be total chaos. And yet that is exactly how most people treat their email. It is chaotic, with no rules or procedures to control it. What do you need?

You need a system.

And sure enough, your mailbox is soon crammed full of a combination of hundreds of unopened and unread letters plus hundreds of opened and read or partially read letters.

If you want to read Challies’ advice on what such a ‘system’ could look like, then read this earlier blogpost version of the chapter in his book: How To Get Things Done: Taming the Email Beast.

Yes, the notion of getting to the illusive ‘Inbox Zero’ every day might seem an impossible task for some, but why not spend a few hours having a crack at establishing a system?

Or do you feel like you’ve made progress in this area? What resources or tips have you found helpful in processing email effectively?

February 3, 2016 by Robin Ham

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22 Corker Christmas & Advent Videos for 2017