Four Great Christmas Videos You Might Not Have Come Across

We all know the story. Mary, Joseph, a donkey, a stable and some shepherds. Possible an undefined number of wise men if you really go all out.

The same scene is repeated in primary schools and churches across the country every year. Parents weep with pride. The rest of us just weep.

But churches and charities around the country have jumped on the short film craze to produce their own interpretations of the old Christmas tale.

Here are five you may not have come across before:

St Thomas, Norwich, has made national news with its Christmas videos spinning off the latest John Lewis advert and giving it a Christian twist. 

This is its 2016 effort encouraging people to "give a Christmas gift that lasts".

The Joint Public Issues Team from the Baptist Union of Great Britain, Methodist and United Reformed Churches and the Church of Scotland has offered this – a Christmas tale with a focus on UK asylum laws.

Youthscape is a Christian charity based in Luton. While not a nativity story, its Christmas video plays on the rougher edges of Greater London to explore what the reality of Christ's arrival on earth would have been like. 

Glen Scrivener, a Church of England minister, has put this beautiful video together using children with Downs' syndrome to tell the story. 

News
Fire severely damages historic Amsterdam church on New Year’s Day
Fire severely damages historic Amsterdam church on New Year’s Day

A major fire tore through one of Amsterdam’s best-known historic buildings in the early hours of New Year’s Day, seriously damaging the property and forcing people to leave nearby homes.

Rwanda’s president on the defensive over church closures
Rwanda’s president on the defensive over church closures

Rwandan President Paul Kagame defended the government's forced closure of Evangelical churches, accusing them of being a “den of bandits” led by deceptive relics of colonialism. 

We are the story still being written
We are the story still being written

The story of Christ continues in the lives of those who take up His calling.

Christians harassed, attacked all over India at Christmas
Christians harassed, attacked all over India at Christmas

International Christian Concern reported more than 80 incidents in India, some of them violent, over Christmas.