A couple of weeks ago I shared the initiative of City on a Hill, who use video to present the Bible readings at their services. You can read more about this here.
The response was overwhelmingly positive, but one Twitterer remarked along the lines of “Seems like a lot of effort. What’s the benefit?”. Dave May from City on a Hill responds, with some background to the ‘why’ behind these videos.
Our western-culture is consumed by ‘media’.
We are hit by ‘messages’ from ‘media’ every day. How do we stand out as ‘the message’ amongst many?
Our western-culture is becoming visual learners. As the Church, we need to make God our culture and let Him influence our western culture. We need to embrace ‘media’ as a God given gift and to use it to speak the language of our western-culture – just as the 1st century Church were oral learners, today we are becoming visual learners. Needless to say, we must continue to cultivate reading and face to face communication but this does not mean we are to neglect using ‘media’ as a form of communicating the gospel message. We know Jesus is the ultimate ‘mediator’ between us and God (1 Tim 2:5). So, as the Church we must strive to use ‘media’ to ‘mediate’ the gospel message.What better way to do this than by using scripture?
1 Timothy 4:13 says, we are to read scripture aloud for teaching and for encouragement. So, on a weekly basis at City on a Hill we produce a Bible reading video. We have found them to be extremely fruitful for our Church community and hope they will be of some benefit to others as well for the following reasons.
1. Memorizing Scripture
Our Church have benefited immensely from these videos by helping them to remember scripture. It is a proven fact that we remember pictures more than words. We aren’t going to ‘enact out’ scripture or ‘distract’ people from what is being said. Rather, these videos help people engage with scripture and encourage them to listen to, read and remember the words in these videos.
2. Valuing Scripture
In the same way a good, clear and passionate Bible reader reads aloud scripture in Church, we too aim to produce creative and quality videos to help people engage with the words in scripture. Our Church values scripture, we want to achieve for excellence by putting effort into these videos to show that Christians highly value the word of God. At City on a Hill, we strive to do this in all aspects of our Sunday gathering sas we; preach from scripture, worship and sing from scripture, pray from scripture, and listen to, read and watch scripture in these videos.
3. Greater Impact
In John 14:12 Jesus says that his followers will do greater works than he. Why? Because as the body of Christ we have the potential to impact and influence a larger amount of people than just one man. We need to be a voice in the world, continuing the spread of the gospel (Acts 1:8).We can impact more people online than just at our Church gatherings. These Bible reading videos encourage people to share scripture amongst their friends and family throughout the week – reaching more people with the message of the gospel.
4. Resources
We want to make these Bible reading videos resources for other Churches. We are blessed with a talented media team at City on a Hill, who are passionate about serving Jesus with their gifts and skills. So we hope to make these videos available for other Churches to use at their Church gatherings.
5. Worship
Lastly, our God is a creative God and thus, being made in his image, we are creative beings. These videos allow people to worship God expressively and creatively using their gifts and skills to the glory of God. These videos might not be relevant for all Churches i.e. more traditional congregations. However, we must embrace ‘media’ and utilize it forthe good of our Church and to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31). The more ‘multi-media’ we use, the further impact we can have in ‘making Jesus known’.
I appreciate Dave taking the time to share this with us.
What do you think? Is this something your church might try?
