dan stevers | whyismarko

more than two years ago, i blogged about my church’s uh-maze-ing video guy, dan stevers. the guy’s creativity blows my mind. but he’s also a deeply good guy, with an amazing heart for ministry. in fact, he stepped out in faith this year and stepped down from his paid role to focus more on creating video content for the global church (many of his videos are available now in spanish, chinese, and other languages). dan is also passing along what he’s learned: there’s a whole collection of free tutorials on his site.

i’ve just rarely seen such high quality work — with a HUGE variety: mini-movies, comedy, animated scripture, sermon themes. heck: i dare ya to click through to his site, watch one video, and not watch a second. it’s almost impossible (sort of like pringles).

because i believe in dan and the quality of his work, and think there are enough youth workers who could use his stuff, i want to do a little give-away contest dealio.

and i’m going big on this one: gonna give out THREE prizes, worth a total of $123!

one person will win a license for this amazing video about identity, normally 17 bucks (seriously — so good for youth ministry):

Identity from DanStevers.com on Vimeo.

another person will win a license for dan’s best-selling mini-movie, change the world, also normally 17 bucks. (you can click through to watch a preview)

then one lucky winner gets this motherload: dan’s bestsellers collection (as he says, “all killer, no filler”), which is normally 89 bucks.

and, here’s how i’m going to give these away. i know there are a TON of you who are planning on coming to The Summit or the Middle School Ministry Campference, and just haven’t bothered to register yet. i know, because you’ve told me! so: the next three people who register for either of those events win these prizes (first one gets the bestsellers collection, and the next two get the single videos). i get emails from our reg systen when someone registers, so i’ll know who you are! but you’ll have to act quickly.

and, whether or not you come to the MSMC or The Summit, check out dan’s amazing art, and think about the impact it could have in your ministry.

my church is amazing. really, after 11 years there, my love for this church continues to grow. i love how open they are, how humble, how postured for input and change.

the amazing programming of the worship services is not what keeps me there or lights my fires, as excellent as it is. worship doesn’t feel affected, and is regularly surprising and creative. the preaching is paradoxically deep and casual. but there is one programming element that regularly shocks me in its creativity: the videos. yup, the little videos that set up each sermon series (and each individual sermon) are a consistent uber-creative invitation to engage. they are simply beyond the quality that any single church should be able to produce. and, while i’m sure many people have their fingerprints on these little screen gems, they are primarily due to the over-the-top gifting of one guy: dan stevers.

for years, i begged dan to make his videos available to others. he’s a humble guy who isn’t a self-promoter. but i recently found out that dan has created a website to make some of his videos available. here’s a sampling (and i encourage you to go to dan’s site to see more):

“god of the broken”