"Gymatoriums" also known as "sanctinariums" were, only a few years ago, the only common non-traditional worship spaces. Today, churches meet in storefronts, movie theaters, school cafeterias and renovated older church facilities. In any worship environment, however, two questions arise as soon as the topic of gear emerges. First, "How do we make it sound right?" and second, "How do we make it look right?"

Silver Screen Teams:
Tips for the church that meets in the local Cineplex

By design, a movie theater is at odds with traditional church architecture. While a theater blocks natural light, a church invites it. A church is reverberant while a theater is muted. Therefore, holding a traditional worship service in a movie theater is fraught with difficulties. On the other hand, a movie theater is an excellent venue for post-modern events and intense stage productions. The acoustically treated walls, plush seating and cool temperature create an ambience of anticipation for sensory stimuli.

Naturally, the main feature of a theater is its large screen. Instead of ignoring it or trying to mask it with a black drape, use it as a gigantic backdrop. In the photo on the opposite page, Ridgestone Church, under the leadership of lead pastor Gary Lamb and worship leader Tim May, makes the most of the stark white fabric with Chauvet TFX-1550CM color washes shining on the center of the screen and dual Panasonic video projectors mounted atop a 40 foot Applied truss system held up by L-16M mobile bases aimed at the sides. The projectors' images are set far enough apart to prevent bleed from the washes but close enough to keep the congregation's focus on the stage proceedings. In the same photo, notice the speaker stacks on each side of the stage. Instead of trying to mount speakers along the walls or overhead, Ridgestone is using an EV Cobra ground stackable line array to make it sound right. The line array principle reduces energy lost to the room by close placement of the vertical drivers. The Cobra system is one of only a few speaker designs capable of line array performance in a stage stackable box. The Cobra's connectivity is a study in simplicity, with one power outlet and two speaker feeds emanating from the factory configured amp rack.

A Little Polish
Onstage, the band is segmented to present an asymmetrical appearance. The drums are upstage left, the keyboards, downstage right. Tim, as worship leader, is set downstage left next to the bassist who doubles on vocals. The physical orientation is designed to create a "scattered" look with just enough cohesion provided by the symmetrical projector images. Candles, area rugs and random art objects temper the tech-laden layout while illumination is tightly controlled to mask unsightly hardware.

Conventional Amendment:
Mainline update to the church built in the 70s or 80s

In mainline denominations, tradition holds the day. For Hickory Road Baptist Church, the needed tech improvements took a back seat to aesthetics. However, some creative planning paid off, especially in the "sounding right" arena. The church's curved ceiling made a line array speaker system the clear choice to prevent room inclusion on the audio signature. The committee, however, rejected the plan out of hand. In place of two rows of six speakers, the installation team mounted a single Renkus-Heinz CE-153/12K speaker to handle the audio chores for the five hundred-seat rooms. While not as capable as the line array would have been, the single box is adequate for the church's blended worship style and as a bonus, is tonally neutral. On stage, the committee insisted the mic cables be hidden, so all input plates were mounted on the rear of the choir modesty rail. For video, a single remotely retractable Draper nine-by-twelve screen was mounted in the molding above the baptistery. It is lowered only during the song service and then recalled for the sermon.

Hoops to Hallelujahs:
Church in a Gymnasium

School gyms and cafeterias are built for function, not beauty. Their concrete floors, flat steel ceilings and cinder block walls turn ordinary speech into a sonic maelstrom. However, Bridgepointe Church has managed to overcome these limitations with yards of acoustic pipe and drape. While portable churches commonly use thin black sheets to dress out school walls, there are better, heavier materials available from Da-Lite designed as acoustic treatment panels. In conjunction with Auralex bass cube traps, Bridgepointe was able to tame the cafeteria acoustic and its aestethic problems with one product. To improve the visual element onstage, Jeffrey Mel-vin, Bridgepointe's creative arts pastor, bought reams of Transformit, a Span-dex based material with reinforced side seams and insertable grommets for ten-sioning. Akin to sails, the form factors are a visual hit and can be easily washed with color from PAR cans as well as Fresnels. He pulls them into position with stage trussing mounted vertically and held in place with sandbags.

True Blue Update:
How to update the old country church with respect for its history

Unlike Bridgepointe, Bethel Assembly of God is in a decades-old fixed location. This small country church had survived the years but needed an update. Pastor Clint Williams tried to introduce projected images but found the only suitable surface was a portable tripod screen. Sensing the congregation's wariness of the venture, he turned for help to a design team. Their initial plan called for a video screen on the rear wall. Unfortunately, the plan had to be changed to meet the demands of a parishioner who wanted the American flag left in its original position on the rear wall. Thus, the team had to cut out a section of the drywall ceiling in order to mount a retractable screen above the stage with enough clearance for the pastor to stand unhindered at the podium. Proper sound was an easier task, as the church felt side mounted speakers were adequate for their needs.

Starting Over:
Keeping the ultramodern church looking and sounding right

Sometimes, it is easier to remove an existing facility than to renovate it to modern standards. However, the downtime, schedule disruption and desire to cling to the past often prevent a wholesale replacement. Rose Heights Church of God faced such a dilemma when its membership voted to upgrade their fifteen hundred-seat auditorium to accommodate concerts and dramas. The church wanted to start and end with a clean slate, meaning they wanted the new stage free of obstacles. To meet their request, the installers placed Ace Backstage floor pockets in multiple locations with redundant connection points for all critical signals. To eradicate permanent floor monitors, they installed an Aviom personal monitoring system and Sennheiser ew300IEM-G2 wireless in-ears. For backup, extremely low-profile EV QRX112 speakers were modified for monitor duty and placed overhead in the lighting grid as well. The stage is now nothing but hardwood flooring.

Rose Heights preferred a single video output for the congregation in place of the more common three-screen set-up. To deliver the imagery from a single point, the installers chose an RGB Spectrum V4 combiner to convey I-Mag, lyrics and moving backgrounds on one display. With a Christie Digital SK projector out front, the imagery was clear and bright, leaving plenty of room on the upstage walls for a cluster of downward firing Giotto and Duccio three cell fifteen hundred watt cyc (cyclorama) lights to bathe the area in pleasing shades of color. The results are nothing short of amazing, especially in light of the room's origin as a 1970s shag and plaid showcase.

Stage aesthetics can be made to work with the competing need for accurate sound reproduction and visual communication if time is taken to determine where each of the three can be compromised and through creative use of existing technology.

Kent Morris delivers a bridge-building perspective to the technical arena. He is a live sound engineer for Tommy Walker, Paul Baloche, Don Moen, and Israel Houghton and served as a senior pastor for a decade. Currently, he is an audio/video system designer with Cornerstone Media, whose clients include Mt. Paran Church of God and In Touch Ministries.

Reprinted with permission from Worship Leader Magazine (June 2007 issue, vol. 16 no. 4, Kent Morris)

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