This week’s story comes from Iraq. In a place of such conflict and violence this video reminds us that we need to continue praying for our Christian brothers and sisters there.
What is True Story Tuesday? Since the goal of Deidox is to tell true stories of how God is at work, very often we hear of powerful stories or situations that for one reason or another haven’t been made into a Deidox film. (Or, perhaps we should say they haven’t been made into films “yet.” You never know what the future might bring.) So every tuesday is True Story Tuesday where on our blog we post a quick story about how God is at work.
This past weekend we started shooting out next Deidox film – Alyssa. It was so cool following her around with a camera and observing the unique perspective God has given her on life.
Here are a few stills from the first day of shooting. We’ll be shooting this story off and on over the next few weeks.
Also, you’ll notice a new team member with a camera. That’s Jacob Lewis. He and Jefferson Henson are working with us on this Deidox story. They also do media for Cornerstone Simi Valley (the church Francis Chan speaks at). We had a blast shooting with them.
In the following video Heather shares about preaching the gospel in Muslim countries, and the miraculous story of a man she calls “Gideon.”
What is True Story Tuesday? Since the goal of Deidox is to tell true stories of how God is at work, very often we hear of amazing stories that for one reason or another haven’t been made into a Deidox film. (Or, perhaps we should say they haven’t been made into films “yet.” You never know what the future might bring.) So every tuesday is True Story Tuesday where we post a new story about how God is at work.
This Tuesday’s story comes from our good friend Seth Barnes’ blog Radical Living In A Comfortable World. He’s in Haiti right now and we thought we would share this.
So many things have been crushed in Haiti, people, homes, and government buildings. You’d think that hope would be one of them. Today we saw where a building had tumbled down on a man, snuffing his life out, leaving his blood and his shoes behind in the rubble. You’d think hope was lost in the rubble too.
But what we’re seeing has defied all our expectations.
We drove to meet a pastor and found the road blocked. Ahead in the middle of the street a band was playing and hundreds of people were dancing. We stopped and our gang piled out of the van. It wasn’t any one church – it was just a bunch of people celebrating the kingdom coming to Haiti through their dance.
Our youth pastors dove in and joined with them – twirling and singing with the masses.
Coming back they raved, “Wow – that was awesome! It was a moment of pure spiritual joy.”
We drove through the city streets and came to a complete halt as a huge parade of people blocked our way. They were carrying signs, “Jesus for Haiti. Haiti for Jesus.” They were singing. They were chanting. They were marching and dancing.
You can go a lifetime and never see anything like this. We can sing “Rend the heavens and come down,” but God already did – it’s happening here in Port-au-Prince.
What is True Story Tuesday? Since the goal of Deidox is to tell true stories of how God is at work, very often we hear of amazing stories that for one reason or another haven’t been made into a Deidox film. (Or, perhaps we should say they haven’t been made into films “yet.” You never know what the future might bring.) So every tuesday is True Story Tuesday where we post a new story about how God is at work.
This week we received a really cool e-mail from a Pastor about how he used Deidox in the weekend services.
We’re humbled by the ways Deidox films are being used. It’s our prayer that the Lord moves through the films to challenge and inspire His people, so when we get an email like this it’s pretty exciting.
Dear Deidox,
I purchased your video bundle a month or two ago and used them this past Sunday for the first time. I saved them for an 8-week series I’m preaching called “On a Mission” taken entirely from Luke 10:1-12. My goal is to help our members understand that they are all on a mission and have already been appointed and sent to the place where God wants them to shine for him and spread his gospel.
I had initally planned to use one of your videos each week as a tangible picture of someone who recognized that they had been appointed and sent. But, when I sat down and watched all five again to figure out which week they would best fit I was overwhelmed with the collective impact of watching them together.
So… I did something that Presbyterian pastors are never supposed to do … I trashed the traditional sermon and began by reading the passage, but then showed all five videos this past Sunday making only brief comments inbetween (e.g. “Robert is on a mission… appointed and sent by God to serve in a clinic for the uninsured.” etc.) and then a couple minutes to wrap it all up at the end. The response from my congregation was absolutely overwhelming!!!
So, first of all, thanks for making such excellent videos. I usually pass these kinds of resources by because they’re just not made well enough. Yours are. Please keep making these kinds of videos… God will use them so powerfully. A request: I wished this past Sunday that I had one profiling a high school or college student and one that profiled a retired person. The addition of those two would have made the collection complete!
Thanks for your ministry. It’s been a great help to us here at Fletcher Hills Presbyterian Church!
In Christ,
Kevin Womack
Fletcher Hills Presbyterian Church
So cool! We love to hear how the Deidox films are making a difference.
If you are a pastor or church leader, please let us know how you have used the films within your ministry context! If you are not a pastor or church leader, we’d love it if you made your church leaders aware of Deidox and encouraged them to use the films.
Greetings friends. Welcome to the first blog post from the new Deidox True Story Tuesdays, where every tuesday we’ll share a story of how God is at work in the world today.
This week’s story comes from an email from a filmmaker that has lived in Haiti for quite some time as a missionary…
“I’ve been meaning to write each of you. Some of you I have, some I haven’t yet. It’s been the most bizarre and awful 10 days of my life. The earthquake has hit me and my friends and family really hard. Our house may no longer be livable. It has a few cracks here and there, but the strong aftershocks keep happening and I’m sure they weaken the house in some degree every time. Some of my friends have died. One student of mine died. Her house collapsed on her and her mother. Dead bodies lined the streets, so many people had broken bones and smashed skulls. But the worst thing might have been the smell. You can literally smell the death in the streets and among the hurting. There seems to be little hope in the eyes of the Haitians.
But God is providing, protecting, and helping though. He has performed so many miracles. Well, miracles to us, but miracles are very natural for Him. I’ll tell you one quickly. A friend’s mission was giving out water from their cistern to whomever needed it. They gave all they could and in a few days it was gone. We all have cisterns to hold our only water in Haiti, it’s not like the US. So they went to sleep that night with an empty cistern. The next morning they woke up and checked their cistern and it was full to the brim! Awesome =) Check out Isaiah 33:15-16 to see God’s promise on that.”
True Story Tuesday is something new from the Deidox team. The goal of Deidox is to tell true stories of how God is at work, and very often we hear of amazing stories that for one reason or another haven’t been made into a Deidox film. (Or, perhaps we should say they haven’t been made into films “yet.” You never know what the future might bring.) So starting this week we’ll be posting True Story Tuesday updates every tuesday morning.
We’ve got some fun ideas cooking for True Story Tuesdays, so stay tuned. We hope you find them both challenging and inspiring.
Bonus for pastors: We hope some of these true story tuesday blog posts can help provide illustrations for your sermons. Both Dave and Brent are PK’s, so they hope is that at least one of these stories replaces an embarrassing story about your child that you were going to tell.
Early this week the largest church in China was raided and shut down by Chinese authorities. The news a sobering reminder of the persecution in China. (We’re posting about this news story because our most recent Deidox film, Li Yang, takes place within the Church in China.)
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
The Golden Lamp Church was built to serve nearly 50,000 worshippers in the gritty heart of China’s coal country. But that was before hundreds of police and hired thugs descended on the mega-church, smashing doors and windows, seizing Bibles and sending dozens of worshippers to hospitals with serious injuries, members and activists say. Today, the church’s co-pastors are in jail. The gates to the church complex in the northern province of Shanxiare locked and a police armored personnel vehicle sits outside. The closure of what may be China’s first mega-church is the most visible sign that the communist government is determined to rein in the rapid spread of Christianity, with a crackdown in recent months that church leaders call the harshest in years.
Sobering news about the reality of the Church in China, and a good reminder that we need to be continually praying for the persecuted church. There was another big new item from China that slipped under the radar this week. A pastor in China was sentenced to 15 years in prison for telling his story publicly. You can read that article here.
Whenever we hear this type of news it greatly humbles us because of Li Yang’s courage to have his story told in a Deidox film. Greatly humbles us.
The fifth film in the Deidox series is almost here. As many of you know we recently spent some time filming with Christians in China’s underground church. The resulting film, Deidox | Li Yang, comes out on Wednesday, October 21 at Deidox.com. We’re thrilled with how the film has turned out and can’t wait to share it with you.
Deidox | Li Yang tells a personal story of how the gospel is spreading in China.
For the launch, we’ll be hosting a live webcast on Wednesday, Oct. 21st at 9:00AM PST in which we’ll be screening the newest film, Deidox | Li Yang, followed by a Q&A with the Deidox director (Brent) and producer (Dave). On wednesday just visit www.deidox.com/webcast at 9AM PST and you’ll see us live. The film is 5 minutes in length and the Q&A will last about 20-25 minutes.
We are really excited about this new film and look forward to sharing it with you next week
This week we are in Washington DC to screen Deidox | Deon at The Idea Camp, a pretty cool conference (that’s free to attend!) focused on collaboration and the sharing of ideas. Our screening will be in the Saturday morning (8/29) main session. We’re honored to be asked to present.
Here’s an official description… Facilitated by a growing collective of innovative thinkers and practitioners from numerous disciplines, participants gather around topics of interest to encourage and inspire one another, share practical wisdom from the field, and develop intentional networks for idea-making. www.theideacamp.com for more info or to sign up.
During our trip we stopped by the White House for a meeting with members of their team responsible for online videos. We held a lively bipartisan discussion on documentary video production for the web.
Then they took us by the press briefing room to tell the world about Deidox. Unfortunately none of the major media outlets showed up (something about when the President is gone they are gone), but we gave our presentation anyway.
You asked and we’re responding. Deidox | Lindsay is now available for public sharing and embedding on your blogs, facebook pages, and websites.
Though many businessmen and businesswomen would advise against it, we’re throwing “standard Christian media operating procedure” to the wind and making the entire Deidox | Lindsay film viewable online through your websites. So please, share and dialogue away.
Grab the embed code from the video above (the boxes on the top right of the video), or at http://vimeo.com/3312951.
P.S. Our next film, Deidox | Dawn, comes out September 8. It’s a Deidox take on one of the most under-appreciated groups in America – moms.
… I trashed the traditional sermon and began by reading the passage, but then showed all five videos this past Sunday making only brief comments inbetween (e.g. “Robert is on a mission… appointed and sent by God to serve in a clinic for the uninsured.” etc.) and then a couple minutes to wrap it all up at the end. The response from my congregation was absolutely overwhelming!!!
