Church Video Ideas: Easter Ideas and Resources

Orginally published on Wednesday, March 07, 2007 at 6:02 AM
by Greg Atkinson

Wouldn’t you know it – here we are just one month away from Easter. If you’re worried about finding enough media resources to help support your services, fear not – there are a ton! I’ll mention some larger Easter media stores in this article, as well as some favorites. I want to take a few moments to share with you some ideas on how to use the many resources available to you.

As a culture and in increasingly in our times of corporate worship, image is the language we speak in. For me, two main images come to mind: The Cross and The Tomb. When I think of planning worship services or events for this time of year, I see these images come to life in our musicals, Passion Plays, concerts and services such as Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday or Good Friday (whichever your church does) and Easter Sunday morning. (If your church does a sunrise service, I’ll pray for you!)

As you know, visuals can be used by God to make a lasting impression on your visitors and congregation. From children waving palm branches, to a live reenactment of the Last Supper, to a Living Cross, Passion Plays and other fine dramatic presentations, to pictures, animations and videos on the screen – they all tell the Gospel story in a fresh and vibrant way.

I encourage you to try some variety this year. If your church always does a musical or a Passion Play with live actors, try incorporating media WITH the live drama. I did this 7 years ago when I directed my first Passion Play in South Carolina.

We had a large cast of actors/extras, Jesus, Roman Guards, the Disciples, etc., but we also utilized our screen to have the characters interact with people on the screen. What if your “live Jesus” stood before a “pre-recorded” Pilate on the video screen and interacted with him? Take the principle and run with it.

When it was time for our scourging scene, we had Jesus taken off stage by some aggressive guards…the next thing the people see is the disciples tying Christ up to a post outside (which had been pre-recorded – like when David Letterman runs off stage and it looks like he’s going outside). Now think about this in terms of logistics: we had Jesus taken off stage by the guards, while the people were watching Christ whipped on the screen (which is VERY difficult to pull off live – we took full advantage of the magic of video), our “live Jesus” was backstage getting the fake blood put on him and changing in to his ripped up costume. Just as the video of the scourging ended, the congregation jumped as they heard a Roman soldier yell “Move!” and turned to see the live and now bloody Jesus, coming down the isle with the cross.

Take the thought of live drama interacting with video and dream away! What if all kinds of random images were flashing by on the screen while the “live Jesus” was hanging on the cross? By “live Jesus”, I mean actor. This year at my church, we’re writing a drama based on the Centurion that said, “Surely this was the Son of God”. We are going to try to show the audience “flashbacks” – pictures of what he sees in his head when he remembers the day.

If you’re in a contemporary church and use lots of media, why not bring some live elements into your service? What about a cross on the stage? What about a cross tilted and laying on its side? (It doesn’t have to stand straight up) Four years ago, Fellowship Church, here in Dallas, had live actors on many crosses all across their stage. This year, at my church, we’re building 3 crosses to be backlit behind a scrim in the middle of the stage.

I enjoy creating and showing video testimonies each Easter. Let your people, through the magic of video, share how they came to know Christ. This is especially powerful on Easter due to the number of visitors you’ll have. Think about the blind man that Christ healed in John 9. He wasn’t able to debate the skeptics, he simply said, “All I know is once I was blind. Now I see.” Your story is powerful and causes people to stop and listen.

Here are a few specifics ideas of how to use media this Easter season:

•Play The Work of the People’s “Rescue Me” before taking communion (also would be great at a Maundy Thursday or Good Friday service).

•Try to be as creative, experimental and multi-sensory as you can when using Digital Glass’s “Stations” in a corporate worship setting. I’m not going to tell you how.

•Take Igniter’s video “Sunday’s Coming” and use this to kick off your Easter Sunday morning service. Coming out of the video, you could go into “Crown Him with Many Crowns” (Public Domain hymn), “My Redeemer Lives” (Reuben Morgan), “All the Earth Will Sing Your Praises” (Paul Baloche) and/or “Inside Out” (United Live).

•Here’s something that I’ve done and had other friends do – each time was powerful: Play “That’s My King!”, then go right into Billy Foote’s song, “Sing to the King” OR if you did that last year, play the video and go into “Indescribable”, as sung by Chris Tomlin.

•Use the new “Easter Quotes” video from Floodgate Productions as people are walking in pre-service.

•For tons of great media resources, including several new products that just came out, check out the Easter stores at SermonSpice and WorshipHouse Media.

Remember that all I’ve mentioned here are simply ideas and tools to be used to communicate the story of Easter. The message, not the tools, is paramount. The resurrection of Christ is what we celebrate. Happy Easter!

©2007 – Greg Atkinson (www.churchvideoideas.com)

Used by permission from author. All rights reserved by author.

Greg Atkinson lives in Dallas with his wife and their three small children. Greg served previously as the Director of WorshipHouse Media, after having served as a worship pastor for 11 years. Greg is now the Technical Arts Director at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship and continues to consult, teach and write about worship, media and creative communication. You can connect with him through his daily blog, Church Video Ideas, his podcast, Creative Synergy, or his email: . 

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