[Acts 8 Movement press release] The Acts 8 Movement has released a one-minute video inviting viewers to celebrate the love of God this Easter worshiping in an Episcopal Church.

“Nothing, not even death, can stop God’s love,” says Presiding Bishop Michael Curry as the video opens. Any congregation in the Episcopal Church can use the video on websites or social media as part of a digital evangelism strategy to share Good News and to invite people to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Thanks to a large group of volunteers from across the church, the group launched the video in eight of the languages in which the Episcopal Church worships with videos in English, Spanish, French, Korean, Dinka, and in two Chinese languages — Mandarin and Cantonese, as well as two Filipino languages — Tagalog and Ilocano. With a key component of the English Reformation being to put the scripture and the liturgy in the language of the people, the Easter invitation is meant to live into that tradition in making the invitation in the language of our worship.

The Rev. Canon Frank Logue, who edited the video, said “Hearing the Good News of Jesus’ resurrection in the mother tongues of people across our church shows the breadth of the Episcopal Church while demonstrating the depth of the faith we hold in common.”

All of the versions but Dinka for South Sudanese worshipers contain subtitles in the language of the video to make engagement more inviting for people who may be scrolling quickly through their social media feed, seeing the video without sound.

The videos are available for free download here: http://www.acts8movement.org/your-free-easter-invitation-video/ with information on how to use the video to create a low cost Facebook ad. These videos are provided to the church at no cost to foster digital evangelism. All participating in this project donated their time to this effort.

This Easter video follows on the heels of similar projects done for Christmas and Ash Wednesday. Evidence indicates that churches who invited people to their Ash Wednesday and Christmas services using the Acts 8 Movement video saw an increase in worshippers. Sue VanOss of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Duluth, Minnesota reported that they boosted their video on Facebook and saw an increase in attendance. She said, “The response was amazing. At the noon Ash Wednesday service 24 people attended, four of which were new faces—all young adults, at the 5:30 pm service, 58 people attended, eight of which were new faces.”

Results varied by congregation and the various responses will not all track to advertising alone. To better understand how the church can use these videos more effectively, the Rev. Nurya Love Parish surveyed churches who used the Ash Wednesday video, and offers some reflections on the data here: http://www.churchwork.com/7-lessons-from-the-ash-wednesday-facebook-video-experiment/ .

The Acts 8 Movement is a volunteer group of lay and clergy Episcopalians whose mission is to proclaim resurrection in The Episcopal Church. The group formed at General Convention in 2012 and since then has been active in carrying out its mission by providing resources, hosting vital conversations, and encouraging transformational change leadership within our church.