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May 2012

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Marching to a Different Beat - Elevation Church, Charlotte, N.C.

Maverick and multi-site Elevation takes on its first semi-permanent location with specific technical objectives in mind

by Carol Badaracco Padgett and Brian Blackmore

Elevation Church in Charlotte, N.C., is a young Southern Baptist fellowship that doesn’t stay in step with other contemporary Christian churches. The 20-something and 30-something-year-old staff members at Elevation really do seem to do their own thing—to follow a singular vision that defines them and drives them to excellence. That vision-centric focus, articulated in the preaching of Pastor Steven Furtick, is simply this: that people far from God will be filled with life in Jesus Christ. Although the message is one that all Christian churches share and can readily identify with, it’s Elevation’s way of getting there—of bringing its loud-rocking message to the Southeastern masses—that’s something new and fresh.

Apparently, the approach is working to help make the unchurched feel comfortable in church. Elevation started with just 121 attendees in 2006, and today the most recent 10-week average attendance is close to 5,300 per week. The staggering number of worshippers attend three multi-sites—a newly renovated, semi-permanent, 900-seat, leased retail venue known as the Matthews location, which used to be an Ashley Furniture Warehouse, a McGlohon Theatre venue in uptown Charlotte, and a Providence High School location in Charlotte.

Both the McGlohon and Providence locations are portable, with set up and tear down happening each Sunday. But the new Matthews location serves a particular purpose, according to Elevation’s lead producer, Wes Watson: to serve as a studio space to help the church’s young tech crew capture the best video and sound possible for playback at the other venues.

“We want to create the best video experience that we can—not just to create great video, but to capture Pastor Steven’s vision and message. He’s an incredible communicator,” Watson says.

“A lot of spaces are designed for theatrical performance,” Watson says. “But we’ve made ours to broadcast standard.” The end result is video that mimics the right shade of skin tone and mic’ing of the space that captures optimal crowd response, achieved through several time-delayed shot-gun mics coming out of the ceiling.

Before choosing the new Matthews location as a main broadcast studio hub, Elevation had a problem because its video was locked in to whatever sound could be achieved at the campus where recording occurred. Meaning that the church was stuck with the best it could harness at one of the high school locations. Now, at the Matthews location, sound can be captured in an ideal setting, and with a high degree of predictability of overall sound quality.

Lighting, too, is something the Elevation tech crew is striving to perfect. “With video, obviously the camera is important, but lighting is probably most important,” Watson adds. “We [worked hard] to get the lights to wrap around faster and create depth of field for the camera [at our Matthews location]—so we can get Pastor Steven to ‘pop’ off that back wall.”

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Carol Badaracco Padgett is editor of Worship Facilities Magazine. She can be reached at cpadgett@worshipfacilities.com.   .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Brian Blackmore is editor-in-chief and publisher of Church Production Magazine and Worship Facilities Magazine. He can be reached at bblackmore@churchproduction.com.   .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)