This year for Advent, I put out an invitation to everyone in the congregations at both Living Hope and Christ the King to record a brief video related to Advent or Christmas, then I put them together into a (nearly) daily Advent calendar series.
Here’s the prompt I gave folks:
• Share a favorite Christmas memory
• Sing or recite the words to a Christmas carol or song (religious or not is fine!)
• Read a poem or short story about Christmas
• Share a favorite Bible verse related to Christmas
Or anything else along those lines that you can think of!
I think it turned out really well! Across all platforms (YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram) we had over 12,000 cumulative views, which is fantastic. Most of them were brief enough to count as Reels, although a couple ended up posting as just regular videos – those got far fewer views.
I also supplemented the videos I received with a couple of filler videos, including ELCA Presiding Bishop Curry’s Christmas message, a choir video from a previous service at Christ the King, and a choir video from the Lutheran World Federation’s annual online Advent calendar.
Check out all the videos in the YouTube playlist below.