Pastor Ralph Rebandt in Oakland Hills, MI recently started creating short videos on “Inspirational Real Life Stories.” As we write, he has done 3 episodes. Ralph says that these videos are not intended to be theologically deep, but like the parables to reach people who may not have otherwise thought about spiritual things.
The videos are about 3 minutes long. Like last week’s example, Ralph just uses a smartphone–no extra equipment. It takes him about 45 minutes to plan the video and another hour to shoot it, including retakes and mistakes. Then he uploads to Facebook. There have been bumps and imperfections along the way, but they haven’t stopped Ralph from getting videos done and posted and he learns as he goes. He says the congregation has been very supportive and the videos have gotten more views than expected. One of the main goals is to get the name of the church out in the community, and Ralph says that is happening.
What caught our eye is that Ralph is talking about the Wright Brothers, a Detroit Tigers baseball player, and similar cultural figures to bring spiritual realities to light. You can see progress in the videos both in how he is shooting and editing the videos and his communication style and effectiveness. But he didn’t wait until it was perfect to get going. We like his line at the end of the video….”we’re already neighbors, we’d love to be family….” That’s a good line. Here is the most recent video. This one was for Easter and wasn’t about a cultural figure but mentioned both his mom and David Hume! Here he’s dressed for Easter, but in others you’ll even find him in Detroit Tigers regalia. If you check out other videos and ones forthcoming they will be about specific cultural figures. Enjoy, and again maybe be inspired.
