Living Witness: a DVD/Study review

When I was in college, I was part of a Christian fellowship which was intentional about sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with our campus. However, very few of us were your typical evangelists. We didn’t do open air preaching or hold up Bible verses at sporting events. If anything, we had a certain shyness in sharing our faith with our friends. And so our group leader had us watch a video of Rebecca Manley Pippert on sharing our faith conversationally (the video was based on her book Out of the Saltshaker. Pippert shared her own journey and stories of how she learned to share her faith in personal, winsome ways. We were all challenged to be more intentional about our witness.

Fast forward a few years, Pippert is still preaching what she practices with a brand new DVD series designed to introduce  to ‘joyful newness of life with Jesus Christ.’ Live: Your Life with Jesus Christ is the first of a series of DVD curriculum designed to help seekers and new believers press into truths of Christianity and the wonders of the Christian life.

Live has five sessions which work well for a small group Bible study. The videos have an introduction, a presentation by Pippert on the session theme, and testimonies from a variety of people on how they came to faith. The corresponding handbook has a suggested framework on how to use the video in conjunction with a small group Bible study session (described in its pages).

The five sessions take us through the following:  (1)”How do I know it’s true?” examines why we can reasonably trust that Jesus did rise from the dead, and the implications of that belief for our life,  (2) “What is the Good News?,” (3) “Is [the Christian Faith] Worth it?,” (4) “A Time for a Commitment” and (5) “New Life in Christ.”  The individual themes are each tied directly to a particular scripture and Pippert shares what has been helpful to her in her own journey towards faith.

I appreciated the DVD and the handbook for these studies. Part of my joy in watching these is knowing that Pippert remains both a faithful witness, and someone who helps others be more faithful in their witness. The Good Book Company, which publishes Christianity Explored, produces this video. The videos are done well but are ‘talking head’ videos of Pippert sitting down discussing the theme. The testimonies are also ‘talking head’ shots with minimal editing. I think that these videos are golden as far as content, but that they suffer a little for their production value. I wish the makers of this video, had more experience with and respect for the medium. Still I give it four stars, because I think that it can and will be used fruitfully in small groups. I may even suggest it for my context.

Thank you to Cross-focused Reviews and the Good book company for supplying me with a review copy in exchange for this review.