2011 Christmas Media Guide

| By Scott McClellan | Found in Design, Video | 2 Comments

Oh my. Christmas is less than three weeks away. That can’t be right, can it? Wasn’t it Labor Day, like, yesterday? If you’re like me and busyness has been the name of the game the last few months, you might be in the market for a few Christmas media suggestions. If that’s the case, read on.

Some of the following selections have been popular among churches in years past (thanks to WorshipHouse Media for helping me research that), and some of them are brand new this year. Either way, they might be just what you’ve been looking to add to your December services.

MINI MOVIES
Let’s start with “A Social Network Christmas,” created by my skilled coworkers at Igniter Media. This video uses the framework of Facebook to tell the Christmas story, and it sorta went viral last year. In the last week alone, the video has appeared on Mashable.com and the Huffington Post, so take a look:

Another hugely popular video last year was “Christmas in a Nutshell” by the talented Dan Stevers. You can check out that one below, and be sure to check out Dan’s new Christmas vid, “Tis the Season.”

Another favorite from last year is Floodgate’s “Four Words.” Like a lot of videos from Floodgate Productions, “Four Words” has the ability to level the viewer with its straightforward beauty.

Other popular Christmas mini movies from 2010 include:

As for new mini movies this year, Centerline’s “A Christmas Prayer” seems like a great place to start:

This new one from Steelehouse Media Group, “A Very Special Christmas,” brings a smile to my face:

If you’re looking for an artful telling of the Christmas story, you can’t go wrong with Graceway Media’s “A Storybook Christmas”:

Other mini movies to check out include:

MOTIONS
It’s always nice when you use your screens to help convey the message of your songs, sermons, videos, and Scripture readings. With that in mind, here are some quality Christmas motions designed to shape the look of your upcoming services. Like the mini movies, this list will include both new and classic resources.

That’s just a start, of course. There’s a whole wide world of Christmas media resources to explore. Check out WorshipHouse’s Christmas Store as well the individual sites of each of WorshipHouse’s producers for a ton of great Christmas stuff. And if have used or are using any Christmas media that you’d like to recommend to the rest of the class, well, leave a comment so we can all check it out.

Oh, and by the way, thanks for the hard work you do during the Christmas season.

Scott McClellan is the Editor of Echo Hub and the Director of Echo Conference. 

  • Jeremy

    just wondering, do you just review the groups that pay for echo hub? i ask because the group doing Advent Conspiracy has some amazing material, and The Work of the People continue to amaze me with the depth of good stuff as well. I think these are quiet good, and i appreciate the post, but just wondered how you guys chose reviews? thanks

  • http://echohub.com/ Scott McClellan

    That’s quite an accusation, Jeremy. It bears mentioning that other than Igniter Media (our sister company), none of the entities mentioned above have a financial interest in Echo Hub — not advertising, not sales referrals, nada.

    Here’s the thing about the world of church media — there are more than 200 producers who make their resources available to churches. In terms of Christmas media, WorshipHouse currently offers about 280 mini movies for the season. We just can’t cover them all in one post.

    As a result, I do the best I can with the resources I’m aware of. I don’t have an axe to grind or a financial motivation here — I just know what I know.

    As far as Advent Conspiracy goes, I appreciate the movement and I’ve seen a video or two of theirs. Those videos seemed more promotional in nature — raising awareness — and so I didn’t think of them as Christmas media for a worship service.

    As for TWotP, I’ve been a fan of Travis and company’s work for a long time. We featured him in COLLIDE Magazine and I featured a TWotP video in last week’s Videos of the Week post.

    Finally, as I said at the end of my post: “if you have used or are using any Christmas media that you’d like to recommend to the rest of the class, well, leave a comment so we can all check it out.” Please, Jeremy, provide some links to quality resources for the betterment of everyone who happens to read this comment thread. I think that served us well on our Christmas Freebies post, and my hope is that the same dynamic would exist here.

    Thanks for reading Echo Hub.