Eight minutes of wisdom: The Animate video series

My denomination’s principal yearlong Bible curriculum, which I’ve taught several times, features video clips from Bible scholars. After a few sessions we usually drop the ten-minute clip of the talking head. The experts aren’t bad. Some are the best biblical scholars alive. But the video clips are dull. Wrong and interesting would be preferable.

Animate is not boring. When I showed some Animate videos to a class for new members, they jumped right in, asking questions about the topic. Animate is crafted for the constantly distracted viewers of the YouTube age, with clever hand-drawn doodles throughout. (When I asked my eight-year-old what he thought of one clip, he said: “I like the drawings.”) The series comes replete with a handsome journal for participants that leaves plenty of space for doodling (“I’m all about doodling,” Lauren Winner says in a promo piece) and a leader’s guide.

This seven-session series, produced by Augsburg Fortress, is designed to engage small groups on basic Christian topics: God, religion, Christ, salvation, the cross, scripture and the church. It features some of the best teachers around, including Brian McLaren, Lillian Daniel and Nadia Bolz-Weber. Coming soon is a sequel on the Bible that features William Willimon and Phyllis Tickle, among others. The architects of Animate are Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt, pioneers of the digitally savvy church and leaders in the emerging church network.