Music videos allow North Texas church to touch the world

BURLESON – When Jarod O’Flaherty saw the 2008 movie Fireproof and learned a Baptist church in Georgia produced it, he left inspired to do something similar with his Burleson church.

“I tried to see what I could do to try and put something together, like they did with Fireproof,” O’Flaherty said. “A big concern obviously is funds. To do something like that is very expensive. So, I thought we could do a music video.”

He and his church, Retta Baptist in Burleson, created two music videos—“The Resist Project” and “Run to You”—and posted them on networking sites like Facebook and YouTube. O’Flaherty’s church has embraced this ministry as a response to the rise of technology-driven culture.

“There are a lot of people out there on Facebook that will sit and watch a video or a link that some of their friends send out to them, but they won’t step into a church in 2010,” said O’Flaherty, director of both music videos.

Not only do these videos reach those who may not be open to attending church, but they also are cost-efficient ministry tools.

“We felt like we may not have the time or money to go on a mission trip across the world, but we can put out a video that people all over the world can see,” said Shane Clements, lead singer of the Shane Clements Band.

The first video “The Resist Project” features a teenage girl whose spirit is broken by worldly troubles. The girl finally turns to God with her time of need.

“In ‘Resist,’ the message and all the characters are primarily teenagers. I work specifically with the youth ministry at our church so it originated there,” O’Flaherty said, “That was the target audience for the first video.”

After seeing the success of the first video, O’Flaherty and the Shane Clements Band began to put the next project, “Run to You,” in action. The video for “Run to You” features a more varied age range of actors portraying people who are facing situations where they must run to God.

“You saw a dad who lost his job, a grandmother who lost a grandson. We were really trying to direct it more toward everyone,” said Samantha Craig, a member of the production crew for the videos. “That was Jarod’s whole idea for the second one, to reach out to a bunch of people instead of one specific group.”

After seeing the success of their original songs, The Shane Clements Band has plans for the future.

“We’re definitely going to move forward, if that’s what God has in store for us. We wouldn’t be a band with out having ‘The Resist Project,’” Clements said. “We have and always will consider ourselves a ministry. … We want to continue to move forward. We’re in the process of writing songs and doing normal band things.”

O’Flaherty, despite not having specific plans for additional videos, believes God will encourage them to create more.

“I’m pretty sure something will come up, and God will lead us to do more of this. And hopefully each time, it gets a little more professional, and we know how to do our part of it better,” O’Flaherty said.

Even if there are no future projects, Clements feels these videos served their purpose.

“To us, if one person or two were to be saved or start asking questions to somebody that then led them to get saved, it was completely worth it.”