The air is pure, the view breathtaking – and that’s just half way up the mountain – wait until you get to the top! If we are honest many of us are content to remain there at the half way point. Maybe the climb is proving too hard, too costly.

We have found a cozy little harbour of rest, and we’d quite like to stay. Maybe we actually prefer to be down in the valley of mediocrity and unfulfilled dreams – it’s safer, more secure and less demanding.

Well, if that’s the case, you need to come to CEVMA. We’re going higher up the mountain!

Only fools attempt to climb on their own – it’s a team thing. We need each other – for safety, for help, for companionship,and above all for encouragement. The Christian working in visual media who does not need encouragement has yet to be discovered!

Whatever your own personal mountain is – in religious speak –‘vision’, you will also know the slips, the falls, the long cold nights and loneliness that go along with the climb. And if you have persevered – you will also know the exhilaration of reaching the top. That sense of achievement – the fulfilled dream, a task well done, and the opportunity to take a long look back and enjoy the view – until the next time. There’s always a next time!

So this year CEVMA is about ‘climbing higher’ – about achieving the dreams we once were so foolish to dream. The only thing is those ‘foolish’ dreams sometimes come from God. That makes it harder to quit half way up!

The writer to the Hebrew Christians wrote: ‘Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us’.

If one may be so bold as to paraphrase this for our purposes, it could read: Let us strip ourselves of the clutter and baggage that weighs us down, leave behind our wrong attitudes, and get on with the climb – encouraging one another to keep at it until we reach the summit.

Your encouragement to climb higher up the mountain may come through our speaker Ron van der Spoel from the Netherlands whose mission is to open up this subject. It may come through any of the many sessions – including our ‘film clinic’, designed to help us attain a higher level of programme-making.

Or, and most likely, it will come through meeting fellow climbers like yourself and sharing your experiences, aspirations and dreams. One notable thing about mountaineers is that they develop strong friendships with their fellow climbers – and that’s not really surprising, as their lives depend on each other. At CEVMA we like to think the same thing happens.

Come and find out!

Conference 2006

Jesus, the Only Way! Message Impossible?’

To avoid possible offence and discrimination against black people, a school in northern England has changed the words of the popular children’s song ‘baa baa black sheep’ to ‘baa baa rainbow sheep’. Thanks to Political Correctness, any word or statement, which can conceivably cause offence, is out.

How does this affect Christian programme makers, presenters, actors, distributors and broadcasters? It’s a question we need to ask, and especially so in the spiritually hungry culture we now live in.

70% of people say they believe in ‘god’. The age of materialistic atheism is over. God is back on the agenda.

But which god?

Christians believe in one God, and that there is only one way to Him – through His son Jesus Christ. It’s a message, which is clearly offensive to Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, not forgetting atheists and humanists.

So what’s new? After all most of the New Testament was written under the same conditions. It was called ‘pluralism’ then, when you could select from the spiritual supermarket a god or religion to suit yourself – and people did. From the goddess Diana at Ephesus, to Zeus at Athens, from Gnosticism to Paganism. And into this religious broth came the clarion call of the gospel - Jesus Christ – the only way to the Father. No wonder the gospel was a scandal and the early Church persecuted.

How about those of us today whose very livelihood comes from proclaiming this scandal? How do we broadcast to an increasingly hungry audience, the exclusivity of Christ - a message which by its very nature is politically incorrect?

How long will it be before we hear of Christians being prosecuted for the message they proclaim?

These are the issues our guest Bible Speaker, Rev Richard Bewes tackled at this year’s CEVMA conference. His many years as a writer, broadcaster and pastor of All Souls Church in the heart of London, means Richard was well qualified to speak on the subject.

CEVMA 2006 offers the perfect opportunity for reunion, fellowship and networking. We held our bi-annual Film Festival, where we saw and judged for ourselves how relevant this year’s theme was. And there were plenty of side benefits, such as other inspiring sessions, excellent food and wonderful Swiss scenery.

Crawford Telfer