ChurchNext and Augsburg Fortress have teamed up to bring the popular animate series to an online learning environment. Presenters include Brian McLaren, Lillian Daniel, Nadia Bolz-Weber, and Mark Scandrette whose video presentations anchor the learning experience and combine with quizzes, discussion rooms, downloads, and other features to help individual and group learners more deeply contemplate some of life’s most important questions. Check out the online courses here.

“This top-selling curriculum has already touched and inspired the lives of many,” said ChurchNext founder Chris Yaw, “We are proud to be able to extend its reach and allow online learners a platform to grow in faith.”

There are three animate series to date which have been launched in DVD format by Augsburg: animate: Faith, animate: Bible, and animate: Practices.  ChurchNext has launched its first online learning series, animate: Faith here. The online learning versions of animate: Bible will launch in early 2015 and animate: Practices will soon follow.

The animate series has been described as “designed to energize conversations about faith, with the hope that this will spark new life in churches”.  Casual but ordered, funky yet substantive, modern yet based on and exploring age old truisms, this series wants to “animate” all our senses. Participants are encouraged to create through journaling, creative writing and graphics; whatever method helps to explain or enhance the conversation.

Presenter Mark Scandrette says, “Christianity is not just something to believe, it is a way of life, and that by learning to follow Jesus’ way, we will experience the rest and become agents of God’s healing in our world.”  animate DVD and animate online are poised to help in this mission by inspiring deeper conversations on faith, deeper immersion into what it means to lead faithful lives in Christ, and helping students become more fully those agents of God’s healing in our world.