Each year at Christmas and Easter, Highway Video comes out with a seasonal offering/DVD. This year’s Easter has a Good Friday Vibe video on it, called, shock of shocks, Good Friday, which is perfect for incorporating into a Good Friday service that captures the dark tones of that dramatic day. It’s definitely got that classic Highway feel to it.
Also new from Highway this year is a video called, Our Hero Lives, which is perfect for opening the entire Easter service with drama and energy. The driving point of the film is that truly great men have lived and have advanced great causes, such as freedom, peace, and justice, but Christ is greater than all these great men. Not only did Christ, like other great heroes, work for freedom, peace, and justice, but Christ Jesus IS freedom, is peace, and is justice… freedom from the bondage of sin, eternal peace with Almighty God, and eternal payment for the just wages of sin. Moreover, unlike other heroes who were assassinated for their cause, Christ is fully God, resurrected from the dead, and living today. Our Hero lives! I believe this is the best video I’ve seen from Highway in quite a while. When taken together, these two videos are a great accompaniment for the entire Easter season.
Another interesting tidbit, if you’re interested: Highway made Our Hero Lives so that it could be used as a companion to their video Cradle to the Cross (Christmas 06) all year round. Cradle to the Cross is the full gospel message in 3 minutes and 11 seconds and tells the story of why Jesus came to earth. Our Hero Lives tells the story of who he is (great God, risen Lord) and what he did (atoned for our sin, lives today). Their hope is that churches will see that they can use both of these videos through out the year to powerfully connect the gospel message dots for unbelievers in a fresh way.
PERSONAL:
I’m having a great time getting to know those involved in the Technical Arts Ministry at my new church. Two days ago I had lunch with our main lighting tech. Yesterday I had lunch with an up-and-coming filmmaker, who is one of our team’s main volunteers and will probably take over my job one day (which is cool). Both guys are college students and are extremely bright, with a great future ahead of them. Also yesterday afternoon, I went to visit one of our main video producers/directors. He invited me to his office to get the tour of their amazing studio and office, where they create videos for TV and the web. It was quite impressive.
Get this: Besides the above mentioned video director that produces and edits professionally, there are a few other guys who work for production companies, including a guy that does work for NFL films (I’m jealous that he gets to go to the Super Bowl). Now here’s where I’m blown away – besides these professionals in the corporate world, other church media professionals and producers attend my church (for example: Trent Armstrong of Igniter Media Group, Craig Lillard of Visual Reality and SermonVideos.com and Marty Mosley of BlueFishTV). What a group of talented and amazingly gifted artists to work with! I’m still in shock.