videos for teaching and worship
It’s been said that movies are our modern-day parables. Multi-sensory multi-media presentations like movie clips and artistic videos can engage an audience so very compellingly. With the Internet being used more as a distribution channel for audios (a la iTunes) and videos (a la YouTube), and broadband access more popular, now there’s a handful of websites catering to churches and ministries with videos and movie clips available for download (with varying prices) to show during church services, Bible studies, leadership training, etc.
- Grovefilms.com is newest on the block, with original films and videos by artists and producers, many with a notable creative flair. As an initiative of The Grove Center for the Arts & Media, Grovefilms.com will post films by young filmmakers for sale and share the proceeds. 10% of proceeds go to artistic grants. Very visionary to unleash more the arts in the church.
- wingclips.com – here you can buy and download movie clips from first-run films from Hollywood. This is the proper and legal way to show movie clips in a public group setting (like a church) — you’re not supposed to just buy a movie DVD and cue up a chapter to show in public without special licensing (cf. CVLI – the Christian Video Licensing International)
- bluefishtv.com – a whole mix of downloadable videos, motion backgrounds, and teaching segments from popular communicators like Erwin McManus, Doug Fields, Chris Seay, and Louie Giglio. They have a podcast feed for introducing new videos.
- highwayvideo.com – I think they had been producing DVDs with videos for illustrating and teaching, and now they offer (some?) videos for download too. Fancy Flash-driven website.
- sermonspice.com – large repository of videos, film clips, and background loops. 7,985 according to their count at the time of this writing. Even though they say it’s for sermon illustrations, you can use it for other events without violating the rules. SermonSpice.com also allows filmmakers to submit their film or video for sale.
- [update] Also, I just heard of this one – www.worshiphousemedia.com
These are the ones I’ve found so far. Add a comment if you know of others, or post a rave of your favorite service above.
Some more are listed here. In addition, I came across this site a while back.
Justin, great list you’ve found there, thanks for sharing it!!
DJ, I was going to add FaithVisuals.com (a product of Christianity Today International) and TheWorkofthePeople.com, as well as GodTube.com, which (as you may have heard) is now the #1 fastest growing website on the entire Internet — with over 4 million unique visitors in October alone!? MSNBC has the story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21582372/
GodTube is a great site. I am using animations in our worship videos to give them a more pro look to them. Here is where I am getting them from. http://www.studio1productions.com
They have several volumes just for worship, but I have also found the earth and globles work well in our presentations.
Thomas
plugging avisualplanet.com – it has some video meditations and transitional clips, along with motion backgrounds and settings of scripture and creeds, alongside their excellent jpeg resources.
We use Work of the People videos as well.
Yet another: http://www.fortyonetwenty.com/