Grace over Guilt was Midland Bible Church's Summer 2020 sermon series over the book of Galatians. The Pulpit Team really wanted to talk about how we often use guilt to try and bring people to Christ. Not because it is more effective, but because it make us feel better about ourselves. While we are grateful that grace is Christ's gift to us, we often feel uncomfortable when we see it extended to those who are different from ourselves.
I designed and animated the sermon bumper which is played as a transition between the worship and the sermon. Being a bible church, they love incorporating bible verses in the bumper, so I tried to pick the key verses that I felt summed up the epistle, along with a few thoughts from the Pulpit Team.
There's a lot of comparing and contrasting in the epistle: freedom over slavery, life over death, spirit over flesh, love over hate, grace over legalism. The idea of prisoners in orange jumpsuits kept coming into my mind, first because any time Paul talks about slavery I think of prisoners, but also because he talks so much about legalism/becoming slaves to the Law. Eventually I thought that's actually how we subconsciously see people different from us: as people who need to "fall in line" or be separated from society. We try to use guilt and legalism to make them more like us so we are more comfortable extending them grace, considering them one of us, welcoming them into the family. And it's wrong! Jesus' grace is for everyone, and as His followers, his legacy continuing on Earth, we must make sure everyone knows it. We must chose love over fear and hate, freedom over legalism, grace over guilt.
Later, the Pulpit Team wanted to have some members of the congregation share their thoughts on the various topics in the series. I filmed them in our small, makeshift "studio" that we put up after the church closed for COVID-19 to shoot some announcements and other things (like this!). I edited the footage and created an intro similar to the bumper.
