Mother’s Day is coming up and many churches want to express gratitude and love for all kinds of moms. But no church wants to overlook, alienate, or embarrass anyone. We’ve created a free guide exploring why and how churches can celebrate Mother’s Day. But now we’ve got a video that exemplifies that idea. And it’s free for your church to use.
The “We See You” video was created by Grace Church in Erie, Penn. Here’s what they had to say about how it came together:
Our Creative Team was made up of and connected to women in all walks of motherhood. We felt compelled to represent the widest breadth of “motherhood” we could on that day. We set out to have real moms share their real stories, versus scripting something for actors to portray. We crafted the statements on the boards, but those statements represented their stories. –Danielle Hartland
The video is simple shots of moms in their everyday lives, each one holding up a board with a short statement. Some are funny and some are poignant. It covers a breadth of experiences, showing the joy of motherhood and the frazzled nature of modern life (I’m reminded of the World’s Okayest Mom), as well as the pain of loss and hurt. All of these experiences can be present at your church on Mother’s Day.
Whether you use this example as simple inspiration or download it and share it on Mother’s Day, we hope it’s helpful.
Download We See You Mother’s Day video now (390 MB .mov file).
(Created by the Creative Team at Grace Church in Erie, Penn. Thanks for sharing!)
Wende
May 9, 2018
Beautiful job representing the many experiences of motherhood, but more diversity is needed in the women portrayed. There is only one black woman in the video, and of all the roles she could have, she’s the childcare provider. Seriously? You can do better.
Kevin D. Hendricks
May 9, 2018
Hey Wende: Appreciate your comment. I’m always on the lookout for more diversity, and the church, unfortunately, is often the place with the least diversity. It’s something we need to work on.
I can’t speak for Grace Church, but I know in many churches a lack of diversity in marketing materials often reflects the reality of their congregation. If you try to tell real stories of real people in your church, that can often mean a lack of diversity. Or sometimes churches fall into the trap of the token person of color (and it’s often the same person).
It’s often not a problem a church communicator can fix while they’re trying to get out the next piece. Many of us would love to have more diversity in our materials, but that would require having a more diverse church, and that’s not going to happen by tomorrow’s deadline.
I don’t mean that to be dismissive, but it’s the reality we do face. One solution? Having more real and honest conversations about race and diversity. We explored Dru Hart’s Trouble I’ve Seen a few years back, and this spring we gave our Courageous Storytellers members the first chapter of that book when we talked about demographics and targeted communication.
That’s not a great answer, I know, but hopefully it’s an honest one. We do need to do better.
And while I can’t speak for Grace Church, I’ll say this in their defense: They didn’t set out to create the perfect video for other churches to use. They created a video for their church in their context. When they saw our Mother’s Day resource, they offered to share their video. I jumped at it, knowing how many churches don’t have the resources to create their own video. I’m grateful they shared it, even if it’s not as diverse as we might like.
Roger Vest
May 3, 2019
Perhaps you can seek out other Mothers Day videos that might provide the diversity we’re looking for. Add to the one you already have posted.
Kevin D. Hendricks
May 6, 2019
Roger: If you come across any, let us know.
Denise Cabak
April 23, 2019
Hey! Any chance this link for downloading the video can be reactivated? It’s exactly what our staff was talking about for Mother’s Day.
Thanks!
Kevin D. Hendricks
April 24, 2019
We just fixed it.
Rick
May 9, 2019
This is an awesome video – very well done – brought tears to my eyes. Thank you!
However, one demographic that I’m guessing are in a large majority of churches – but I didn’t see it on the video. Grandmothers, or mothers of grown kids, or grandmothers that are now raising (or helping to) their grandkids. My wife helped raise ours – in our house – for 7 years, sacrificing opportunity in the job world. Our kids are great parents, and she wouldn’t change how it worked out for anything. But …
Just a thought – maybe for next time around.