Bible stories in LEGO: The Passion of Christ comes to life in stop motion

In a small room filled with LEGO bricks, Josh Whitehouse has given shape to a project that is captivating audiences worldwide: telling the stories of the Bible through stop-motion animation.

What started as a homemade resource for Sunday school lessons during the Covid-19 lockdowns has grown into a full-fledged creative studio with a global vision and a clear purpose—to share the message of the Gospel through engaging, accessible, and high-quality visual storytelling.

Go Chatter Studios, now operating as an independent charity in the UK, has already produced ten animations faithfully based on biblical narratives. These creations, crafted with painstaking attention to detail (each second of animation takes about an hour to produce), have been used in over 1,200 churches and are freely available to families, churches, and schools across the globe.

The long-term goal is bold: to complete a series of 70 to 80 episodes that cover the whole biblical storyline, much like a children’s picture Bible, but in animated form—with LEGO.

One of the project’s most remarkable aspects is its ability to connect with people from diverse backgrounds.

“We’ve had feedback from Christian families, but also from Muslims and atheists who enjoy the content”, says Josh. The use of LEGO, a visually familiar and culturally neutral medium, breaks down barriers and grabs attention, making each video not just educational but also a powerful in sharing the Christian message.

Now, the project is expanding with a Spanish-language channel and the translation of its videos into Spanish—opening the door to millions of new viewers. In this interview, Josh Whitehouse shares the origins, creative process, and vision behind this initiative that brings together creativity, technical excellence, and a deep love for God’s Word.

Watch the full interview:

Question. Let’s start from the beginning. Tell us, how did this project start, and where does your love for LEGO come from?

Answer. I’ve been a LEGO nerd my entire life at this point—ever since I was five and got my first LEGO set. I started building models, first following the instructions, but very quickly I began taking them apart and creating my own builds—usually based on castles and nature and that kind of thing.

So, my love for LEGO started at a very young age and just kept on growing. It grew particularly during my teenage years and especially during lockdown, when I had a lot more time to build and to enter online LEGO competitions.

Another thing I started doing during lockdown was making some very basic animations for my church at the time. My mum was involved in Sunday School and she asked me, “Hey, can you make a Bible story out of LEGO for the Sunday School class?” I thought, “That’s a cool idea, why not give it a try?” So I made a very simple LEGO stop-motion of a Bible story.

Over the course of that lockdown, I made about four or five more of those. But once lockdown ended, I quickly went back to the competitions because that was more fun for me. The stop-motions had been a huge amount of work and were only being seen by 8 to 12 people in my church—not many for the amount of effort that went into them.

Then, about a year later, a Christian ministry in the UK—while I was in South Africa—reached out to me. They had come across some of the LEGO content I’d made and said they’d love to collaborate on a LEGO Easter story. They offered to work with me and distribute it around the UK.

That really excited me, because this time, there would be a way for the animation to reach thousands—if not hundreds of thousands—of people around the UK. So I put a huge amount of effort into that animation because I could see the value it could have in the wider Christian community.

That animation really marked the start of this project. It ended up being used in over 1,200 churches that first Easter, just in the UK. Since then, we’ve made more and more animations, and the project has continued to grow.

I started working for that ministry full time in 2023. Then in 2024, we realized that the LEGO project—which had been a small part of the larger ministry—had a lot of growth potential. So we decided to spin it off into a separate charity focused solely on the LEGO work.

And that’s where we are today. We’re an independent charity called Go Chatter Studios, creating Bible stories in LEGO stop-motion. Our goal is to create the whole Bible in LEGO stop-motion. So, if you picture a children’s picture book Bible—that’s what we want to create, but in animated LEGO form.

We’re looking at 70 to 80 animations over the coming years. So far, we’ve completed 10, we have another one ready to release in a couple of months, and now that the project is up and running, we’re aiming to reach as wide an audience as possible. That includes translating the videos into languages like Spanish.

Q. That’s amazing! It’s very interesting to learn how this works. I’m curious—what were people’s reactions when they first saw the videos?

A. One of the great things about LEGO is that it engages such a wide range of people. That’s one of the real strengths of using LEGO to retell Bible stories—so many people are familiar with it, whether from their childhood or through their kids now. There’s a nostalgic and universal appeal.

When people see one of our animations, they’re immediately drawn in—just because it’s LEGO. It grabs their attention, and then we’re sharing a Bible story and the gospel with them through this medium they’re already interested in.

It’s a great way to engage Christians with biblical content. We’ve heard from people saying our videos are perfect for family services—where they’re the one moment when everyone from 9 months to 90 years old is completely silent and focused on the video.

But it’s also great for evangelism. LEGO is a neutral, content-neutral medium. So it draws in people outside the faith and gets them excited about the Bible stories we create.

Q. How do you develop these stories? Do you handle the scripting, concept, and production yourself, or is there a team?

A. Our animations always start with the Bible and the script. That’s the foundation of everything we do. We want all our ministry to be built upon God’s Word. We work with a very skilled scriptwriter named Rachel, who helps us craft the scripts based on the biblical texts. She retells the stories beautifully and with a lot of gifting from God.

Once she finishes the script, she sends it to me along with the voiceover she’s recorded. Then I begin working on the animation. That starts with building the sets—so for the Easter story, for example, I’ll build Jerusalem, Pilate’s courtyard, Golgotha, and so on.

Once the sets are built, I start animating. This is by far the most time-consuming part. On average, it takes about one hour to produce one second of animation—and that’s just the average. Some shots take even longer.

It usually takes me two to three months to complete a full four-minute animation. That involves setting up scenes, lighting, camera angles, characters—then animating the scene, which can take hours, and repeating that over and over again.

When the animation is finished, our editor puts it all together with Rachel’s voiceover, adds music and sound effects, and then we release it on YouTube. Now that we’re translating content, that’s another step in the process—starting with Spanish, and hopefully many more languages in the future.

Q. It’s a long process, and it’s great to know how much work you’re putting into it. How are the videos used in churches, schools, or other settings?

A. In churches and schools, they’re used as teaching resources to engage children with the Bible stories. If a church is doing a teaching on David and Goliath, for example, we have a stop-motion video of that story.

They can show the video and then build their own activities and teaching around it.

The animations are also used for online evangelism and by families at home. Parents use them to engage young children with the Bible. They’re easy to share and accessible to a wide audience.

We often get comments like, “Hey, I’m an atheist,” or “I’m a Muslim, but I’m enjoying this content.” That’s really encouraging.

Q. Which platforms are you using? Are you on YouTube and elsewhere?

A. Yes, our full videos are on YouTube—that’s the main platform. Then we have English-speaking channels on Instagram and TikTok. We’ve also just set up a Spanish Instagram channel.

Q. Great! So we’re talking about the Spanish project—why and how did you decide to start this new branch?

A. It’s always been part of our heart and mission to reach as many people with the gospel as possible through this medium. We’ve always seen LEGO as a widely accessible way to tell Bible stories.

Spanish became our starting point for translations after God brought us into contact with Max. That connection happened in May, and we began working with him to translate the videos.

Our long-term goal is to translate into many more languages, but Spanish is a great place to start because it’s spoken so widely around the world.

Q. How can people support or collaborate with the project?

A. We’re a charity and a nonprofit. All of our videos are free—we don’t want there to be a paywall preventing people from accessing this content and engaging with the Bible.

Our content is free to watch on YouTube, and on our website you can also download it to show in churches or Sunday Schools—all for free.

That’s made possible through donations from individuals, churches, and organizations who see the value of what we’re doing and want to help. Basically, we crowdfund each animation. Just this week, we finished crowdfunding our next animation—the Prodigal Son. Now we’re starting to fundraise for the Book of Ruth.

So yes, we rely on people who are excited about this ministry and want to help us keep creating.

Q. It’s a beautiful and amazing project. I hope many people get involved. Josh, is there anything else you’d like to share?

A. Just that I’m so excited about what God is doing through this ministry. We officially became a charity just four months ago, after six or seven months of preparation, effort, and prayer.

It’s been amazing to see God fulfilling that prayer and going above and beyond our expectations.

One of the most exciting things is being able to distribute the content in Spanish around the world. I’m so, so excited about that and looking forward to where God takes this part of the ministry.