What started as a dream years ago for one church is now a reality as they release a Christmas movie called More Than A Manger.

Mark Werner is the Pastor of Children and Youth at Centerpoint Church Winnipeg. Kids are an important part of their ministry and the church runs one of the largest day camps in the city each summer. 

The church released the 45-minute film on December 13, written by Werner, Karen Braddock, and Carla Luis. 

"It's been a dream of our church for a number of years to do a Nativity play. We do lots of programming for our kids here at our church, discovery camps and lots of events especially at Christmas," says Werner.

The cast ranged from 13-years-old and younger. 

"With this year flipped upsidedown we thought this would be an opportunity for us to be creative and to give the gospel message in a different way."

Normally the church puts on a big Christmas production each year, but with the lockdown in Manitoba, that wasn't an option. 

"In June we started the writing process, which is late already. Then the editing was done and we picked the filming locations," Werner says.

The casting director chose which children from Centerpoint would work best for different roles, then asked the parents and children if they were on board as there was a time commitment.

"We gave the scripts out to the kids in July and they practiced over two months," says Werner.

They started filming at the end of August and finished the final scenes by early October. The editing process took from mid-September up until early December. 

"We had a group of 59, and 33 were cast members and the rest were crew, including costume makers, props, music, and videographers."

In total, members from the church put in thousands of hours for the production. 

More than a Manger video made by Center Point Church.The final nativity scene. (Supplied)

"We thought it would be really cool to have an all-kids cast and to make it even more interesting, why not use all kids and live animals at the same time," he says.

"We wouldn't have been able to do it if it weren't for the pandemic"

Through their day camp, the church has a connection with Morning Sound Farm. The owners allowed one entire day of shooting with their animals, which took the group 16 hours to get the shots they needed. 

That day the animals made for a few funny moments. 

"One donkey was a stubborn mule which escaped during one of our filming episodes. The kids were dragged with the mule for a bit and had to let go. Nobody got hurt thankfully," says Werner. "We also lost 80 sheep because we had to turn the electric fences off. We had to herd sheep back so there were a lot of fun times while filming."

The story of the movie covers four angles of the nativity story. The movie gives the audience the perspective of the wise men, the shepherds, Mary and Joseph, as well as a side story of a boy named Jesse. All four stories converge into one that points to the King, Jesus in a manger.

The final nativity scene was shot at Bird's Hill Park Ranch the weekend before the level orange restrictions were put into place. Had they not captured it then, it would have meant a Christmas movie without a nativity scene. 

"We wouldn't have been able to do it if it weren't for the pandemic because our church moved to all online services and we had to be able to purchase the equipment to do that, which became the equipment to do this film as well. It all worked together for the glory of God," says Werner who shares that the project was God-led throughout.