Make the most of Christmas movies

The holidays are the perfect time for a low-key movie night with your students. But don’t miss the opportunity in the middle of the popcorn and beanbags to shine a light on the true meaning of the season.

We’ve had the chance over the last several years to put together Youth Ministry Resource Guides for three great seasonal movies – The Nativity Story, A Christmas Carol and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. I’ve shared some excerpts below that might help you make the most of movie night.

Youth Leaders Only members have access to the complete youth leader guides for each of these movies (and many more!) 24/7 at interlinc-online.com. If you’re not a member yet, check out the benefits of membership here!

The Nativity Story

You know the Christmas story inside and out. You know the flow of events, the cast of characters, the intimate details, and even the ancient prophecies that foretold it all. You know many of the misconceptions, misunderstandings, and mistakes that many people have about the story. You started learning the story before you could even walk or talk. And every year, you hear the story again.

Your challenge as a youth leader tasked to teach that familiar story to teenagers once every year is to find a way to make the familiar into something exciting, insightful, or even interesting.You need to find something, ANYthing, to bring to the surface the phenomenal wonder and mystery of the Christmas story. (from the introduction to The Nativity Story Youthworker Kit by Ken McCoy)

• Watch the trailer.
• Download the article “Really? A Virgin” from interlinc’s movie resource for The Nativity Story

A Christmas Carol

From Ken McCoy’s introduction: Dickens’ novella highlights a uniquely Christian virtue: self-sacrificial love. An old-English word for it is “charity.” Dickens’ A Christmas Carol not only emphasizes togetherness, reconciliation, and concern for the poor; it is also a critique of the anti-population social planners who speak of “surplus population” and those who believe that “workhouses” will solve the problems of poverty while “prisons” will solve the issues of ignorance.

• Watch the trailer.
• Download the Bible study “A Reason For The Season” from our youthworker guide for Disney’s A Christmas Carol
  

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

I didn’t become a fan of Narnia until I was a father, and I needed something to help the time go by for my three kids as we drove across the country on vacation. That’s when I got an audio version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and was immersed in a world of mythical creatures, talking beavers, and an evil White Witch that kept her world in a perpetual winter. Only after listening to the story (several times!) on that long vacation did I finally get the books and read them for myself.

The Chronicles are classics for good reason: they are wonderful stories that are also morality tales. They entertain as they teach. The language used, and the scenes depicted, are so wonderfully deep and engrossing that the pages just fly by. No wonder so many people around the world know and love those stories. (Excerpt from the Youthworker Kit introduction by Ken McCoy)

• Watch the trailer.
• Download the PDF for the study “Always Winter, Never Christmas”