Rules for using video in your ministry

Nov 16, 2012 by

Guest Author: Cory Heimann

The Catholic Church is in a time of awakening. We see it throughout the Church. In the good and the bad. From the hundreds of ministries popping up to meet the needs of the New Evangelization to the heat of the HHS mandate, this giant is waking up and the age of the cafeteria Catholic is waning.

This is particularly exciting to me working within the Church on various media projects. As the Popes and Bishops have long been calling for, now, more than ever, the larger Church is starting to realize the need to use video and other forms of media to evangelize. I do however, think there’s a couple of things that I commonly see us missing as we dip our feet (or cannonball right in) to the depths of this new venture for the Church. Without further ado, here are my 4 rules to competently use video in your ministry.

1) Stop talking about yourself

Every day I have the opportunity to talk to incredibly gifted Catholics about using video in their ministry. Generally, I find most people are coming to me looking to have a promotional video put together to explain what their ministry does and how it does it. There is nothing wrong with this, I’ve done plenty of promotional videos and I’m sure there’s more to come in the near future. It’s a great way for those visiting your website to quickly engage them and effectively share what you’re all about. But that’s all it does, it sits on your website and waits for a visitor that’s curious enough to press play. This is where we in ministry stop. I think it’s time to start thinking a little grander. Video can do so much more, it can move, motivate, and truly change hearts. What if we stopped thinking about what can make us a bigger and more popular ministry, and started thinking more about how can we truly share the truth of the Gospel in a way that people are going to want to change their lives and share with others to do the same.

We could all use a little less chatter about ourselves and more lifting up of Christ and His work.

2) Dust off the mission statement

This goes right along with point one. People spend weeks, maybe years, laboring to nail down exactly the mission of their ministry and then never go back to it. The first thing that I always ask when someone is explaining their ministry is to see their mission statement. That gives us the ability to take a step back and ask if what we are working on is really going to further that mission. This mission statement should be an intentional statement of your purpose and everything should be guided by that declaration. To summarize points one and two, we’re in dire need to use media not to share what we do, but to do what we do.

3) Get creative

Much of the content I work on is either intended for, or ends up being seen by an online audience. We often criticize our current world for having short attention spans, which may be somewhat valid, but the truth of the matter is there is way too much content on the online continent to expect anyone to take in something they’re not interested in. With video we have the opportunity to really engage the senses. To do so creatively will always tickle an individuals sharing bone (between the phalanges bone and the like button). And if the Church is made to be missionary we need to be finding creative ways to share and evangelize.

4) Could it be more subtle?

Now while the ministries have started to understand the need to use media we’ve often lost the power of subtlety. Do not get me wrong on this point, there is a dire need for bold Saints to be raised up in every community. But Saints don’t take the easy way out. Paul says to be all things to all people. This takes a significant amount of creativity (point 3). As a ministry we really need to reflect on who we’re reaching out to (point 2), and figure out how to effectively speak to those hearts. The easy way out is to just write, “Jesus” in different fonts in iMovie, after all there is no name above His name and there is no words greater than that word. Depending on your audience (namely the human race) that may not be the best way to evangelize. A deeply moving story can be ignored by no one. And a subtle evangelization working through a powerfully moving story will always do more work for the Kingdom than an overly preachy piece that can quickly be written off.

Photo by Luke Roberts. Used with Creative Commons License.