Ever since a friend first emailed me a link to St. Paul Arts & Media group’s incredibly cute re-telling of the Christmas story a few years ago, it feels like it almost wouldn’t be Christmas without something front the creative folks at St. Paul’s Church in Auckland, New Zealand. Totally unfair, of course, to keep assuming these folks will come up with more creative videos every year, let alone to have them make or break my Christmas. 🙂 And yet so far they have never disappointed. This year’s effort is from St. Paul’s Arts ‘n Kids team (SPANK) and is a take on what media coverage might have been in...

I’m always intrigued by how social media is shaping the way we make and share meaning. Usually, that takes the form of thinking about how various elements of social media or the larger digital culture can help us share the good news. But from time to time it’s also fun to “look back” and imagine what our forebears would have done with social media. Last year I found “The Digital Story of the Nativity” quite fun in that regard; this year it’s “A Social Network Christmas.” Without wanting to spoil too much, I think my favorite moment was when 23 people “unfriend” Joseph for...

I often find myself stuck between two extremes in our religious culture. Either 1) take the Bible literally and thereby ignore much of what modern disciples – whether science or history or others – have taught us about the way the world works. Or 2) dismiss the Bible entirely because it doesn’t always conform to what we’ve learned about the world and thereby ignore the wisdom of our faith. I don’t think I’m alone feeling this bind. I think, in fact, that lots of faithful Christians want an alternative to the false dichotomy of faith or reason, head or heart, fundamentalist Christianity or outright atheism. Much of our dilemma...

This is probably my favorite retelling of the Christmas story. The folks at St. Paul’s Church in Auckland, New Zealand do a fantastatic job with the video, music, and all the rest, and you have to love the brilliance of the idea of letting children tell the story. Plus, their New Zealand accents are adorable, especially when they say “baby” (I suppose it would have been over the top if they’d thrown in “dingo” as well. ☺) Watching it a week after the events in Newtown made it all the more poignant. I hope you can be encouraged wherever you are by this simple retelling of a beautiful story and feel, once again, the love of Jesus...