May be there will be figs this year

Luke 13:1-9
Repent or perish! I have heard that preached before. I’ve even seen people wearing T-shirts with it on. The thing is I’m not sure Jesus meant the same thing as the T-shirt wearers.

Temptations of desert bread

The first temptation of Jesus is pictured in this image, part of this week’s lectionary reading from Luke 4:1-13.

Transfiguration

What do you do when you are confronted with the weight of the total otherness of God (His glory)? Build a tent of course! Well that is what Peter suggested they do. It is a response to the divine that we often emulate because doing stuff seems to come more naturally than simply being. This week’s lectionary reading in Luke 9:28-43 inspired this latest image…

Video Sermon Illustration 3: Bond is back

Bond is back in the cinemas with the new film Casino Royale. When the last bond film came out at Christmas, To Die Another Day, I put together this video clip and used to illustrate the mission of Jesus (Luke 4). This is a few years old, but it is still presentable…

Video Sermon Illustration 2: Widow’s Offering

Mark 12:41-44
This week’s lectionary has Jesus sitting opposite the temple treasury, observing people dropping money into the offering box. A poor widow steps up, a victim of the temple system and gives all she has.

Here’s a short animation (10 seconds) for looping or illustration purposes. Feel free to use.

Video Sermon Illustration 1: Changes

Martínez Lara’s "Changes" is an amusing animated short about the desire for change and being willing to step out and be different. Could come in handy for a semon one day, perhaps something along the lines of:

God is kind,… In kindness he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change. (Romans 2:3)

There are many good quality animations and short films around on the internet. Check out Aninmiwatch or the BBC’s Film Network.

Is your theology black and white?

Is your theology black and white? Over at reverendfun, this week’s cartoon illustrates a common problem and the turth that the appreciation of other angles brings so much colour and depth to your world and your understanding of God.

(Copyright Gospel Communications International, Inc – www.reverendfun.com)

Forget all those worship/sermon video sites…

There are a growing number of sites providing video for sermon illustration and worship. The one I have used and actually parted with money on is SermonSpice.com. There are plenty of others too, but it constantly puzzles me why so many resources in the Christian world, price smaller, poorer congregations out of participation. Open Source has revolutionised the secular world of software development. To me it is a concept that is very gospel-like, hence the name of this blog. And yet in the Christian world, and particularly the Christian technology world, we have been very reluctant to embrace this kingdom concept. Just think of all the different projection software products you can buy – all of them are over-priced and most of them do not come close to modern software and user-interface standards. Thankfully there are one or two open source projects. But shouldn’t the default pattern for Christian software be open source? Yes people need to survive and feed the family, which is why you should hit the "donate" button when you see one!

Anyway I’m ranting now, perhaps I’ll reflect more on this idea later.  I’d be interested to know what you think. I started this morning wanting to show you this…

I just stumbled across the BBC’s Motion Gallery. featured on Greg Atkinson’s blog. 500 million feet of film, 400,000 hours of video,  covering 8 million subject categories – all searchable and downloadable in Windows Media or QuickTime format.

You have to see this, to beleive it. This is a huge collection of short video clips that have been catalogued by the BBC and made available for film makers. Try it out -  your sermons will never be the same again!

I visited the search page and typed in the keyword  "Jesus" and found hundreds of clips like this one. Then I hit the Ideas page to find clips related to hundreds of concepts & ideas. For example, click on "Age" and you find clips like the one below. Then there is the showreel page which are longer videos they have put together.

I’m waiting on a response from the BBC regarding typical costs to download fully licensed versions, and on useage in churches but for now you just have to put up with the watermarked versions.

Of course youTube and Google Video are other growing sources of free sermon illustrations (but watch out for the garbbage!).