bumper videos
WCC celebrated its 50th anniversary in September 2025. In the lead-up to that date, the church revisited its history through interviews with pivotal members from its founding to the present day. This video served as a short stinger leading into each interview, with the title screen ‘We Declare’ overlaid on a sepia-toned group photo that served as the sermon artwork. The ‘We Declare’ series was very well received and was one of the more popular series in 2025.
For four years in a row, WCC worked through one of the Gospels each summer and called it ‘Summer in the Son,’ beginning with Matthew the first year, Mark the second, etc. During the development phase, the lead minister wanted the series to convey the feeling of a ‘summer vacation.’ I developed a bumper video that used postcards, with one side depicting an illustration of a common summer vacation scene and the reverse side highlighting Scripture from the current study. I paired the video with fun, upbeat music to solidify the ‘summer vacation’ feeling. The leadership and congregation loved the series, and that artwork was used (with updates) over the next four years.
During the concept and development phase of the Parables series, it became clear that the Lead Minister wanted a more modern take on Jesus’ best-known parables. In the Bible, Jesus often answers questions with a parable, so my idea was to put that question into a text message format. I also tried to modernize the language a bit while keeping the parable’s narrative easily recognizable. I then used the text message ‘bubble’ as part of the message artwork and placed it over an opened Bible to tie the video and series artwork together.
The concept behind ‘Living the Dream’ was to discuss the struggles and wins we all experience at different times in our lives and how those same struggles and wins have been experienced by various people in the Bible. The title comes from the sometimes sarcastic reply when you’re asked, “How’re you doing?” — “Oh, I’m just living the dream!” With that concept in mind, I leaned into highlighting those struggles and wins for a modern audience, with moments we can all identify with. I paired the video with fast-paced music to match its quick cuts, but ended on a more hopeful melody. The video was very well received, with some people even becoming emotional during certain clips (the father-son reunion, the couple fighting).
In 2022, WCC did a year-long series on ‘Core 52.’ The series was divided into 12 themes, and each theme needed its own artwork and bumper video. The series began with ‘Beginnings’ and covered the creation story. My idea for the bumper video was to lean into the drama of the story, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” So I started with darkness, then bright light, followed by a scene of the Earth floating in space. I timed the video to a dramatic reading of Genesis 1:1-4a and originally paired it with music to match, very modern. The video was very well received, but there were concerns about the choice of music and potential copyright issues with the voiceover (taken from an older audio version of the Bible). Ultimately, different music and a different narrator were chosen for the video, but this version has remained my favorite.
Worthington Christian Church remodeled its building in 2023, and the capital campaign to help fund that was called ‘Reach.’ When the remodel was complete in 2024, a sermon series was developed to encourage members to reach out to others by sharing, serving, listening, and praying for their neighbors and community. When I saw the title of the series and read the overview, I had the idea for a drone shot of the Columbus skyline in the background with residential homes in the foreground, emphasizing that each family living in those homes is our neighbor. I paired the video with hip-hop-style music and overlaid multiple points on the map, symbolically indicating the people living in each home, which grew more crowded as the video played. The title artwork, with its blueprint background, harkened back to the Reach Initiative artwork I designed in 2023, pairing ‘How to Reach Your Neighbor’ with the recently completed Reach Initiative.
