December 2009 Please note that some links may have expired due to the ever-changing nature of the Internet. Let us know if you find anything unexpected or offensive so we can remove or change a link.Youthwork magazine and CCP ltd are not responsible for the content of external sites accessed from youthwork.co.uk The year of the video This month, share memories, footage and history using online video editors. John Allan shows you how. I remember when video cameras were big, bulky and extremely expensive. (Last month, wasn’t it?) But now, suddenly we’re surrounded by hundreds of miniature devices: phones, MP3 players, digital cameras, probably toasters too which all shoot video just as an incidental party trick. It’s getting easier and easier to do. Which means you’ve probably started shooting more film of your group than ever before; and if you haven’t, maybe you should be. Putting little video mementoes of your group’s historic moments on Facebook or YouTube is a great way of building shared history. And nowadays you needn’t buy fancy software to help you; everything you need is online. We’ve mentioned Jumpcut before, but it’s still the best and quickest of online video editors. It’s easy to upload your stuff to their site, simple to edit the scenes and add fancy effects, the work of a moment to post the resultant masterpiece on the Web. Jumpcut has its rivals though, including the new ambitious OneTrueMedia, which offers more transitions and special effects. You can insert text frames and add music too. Pixorial is much the same, and if you’re happy to send precious old VHS or cine footage to America, they’ll digitise it for you so that you can use it online. At BubblePLY you can add an extra layer of text to the movie, which allows you to insert captions, translations, lyrics to songs as they’re sung, explanatory notes if it’s a teaching video all without harming the original film. If you’d rather not use your own footage, you can make short cartoon films at Digital Films, Minivid, or Dvolver. It’s not very sophisticated, but so much fun that it could well be an effective group teaching activity sending people off to recreate a Bible story in four or five scenes, then watching the result together. YouTube has just announced that its films are now being watched well over a billion times every single day. This is the Year of Video, people. Get out there and make your own. YOUTUBE PARABLES Dick Hoyt is an inspiration: a man with a severely disabled son who pushes him in a wheelchair as they compete together in triathlons and marathons. Rick will never be able to compete by himself, but with his father’s power and his father’s company, he’s a winner. The parallel with our Heavenly Father is obvious and you’ll find video clips about Team Hoyt to which people have already appended Christian music, as well as news clips that simply tell the story. What we can’t do for ourselves, our Father’s strength can do through us. Tell the story, show the video, and make the point unforgettable. EFFICIENCY EXPERT Many of us have long-term goals that we never do much about; we’re too absorbed by everyday pressures and urgent deadlines. How do you keep your eyes on the far horizons? One answer might by Disciplanner, where you can set and track goals for yourself without micro-management. You can use it to monitor and fight bad habits too. At Noomii, you can pair-coach somebody else helping them achieve their targets while they help you with yours. It could be an interesting and creative aid in mentoring and discipling young people! TEACH IT There’s a lot of talk about the God Spot – the idea that there’s a part of your brain which is responsible for creating religious experiences. Is God just an electrical illusion produced by your synapses? To help intelligent kids think this through, first check the facts. The online summary of a 2003 Horizon programme will help, as well as an Independent article from March. There are videos about God on the brain, the God helmet and Ramachandran’s work on the temporal lobes. To find more, Google names like Michael Persinger and Susan Greenfield. How do Christians respond? There’s a good basic response at Facing the Challenge, and a video clip from evangelical neuroscientist Gareth Jones. Annoyingly, it’s only his last minute which mentions the question, but there’s more in a downloadable PDF from Christian psychologist Malcolm Jeeves, a Powerpoint on neuroscience and faith which contains great usable quotations, and a whole lecture by Oxford’s Justin Barrett too detailed for most of us, but he produces brilliant one-liners: Why wouldn’t God design us in such a way as to find belief in divinity natural? Suppose science produces a convincing account for why I think my wife loves me should I then stop believing that she does? John Allan is based at Belmont Chapel, Exeter, UK, and is a regular contributor to Youthwork magazine. Back to main page