Reprinted from the Jan/Feb 2008 issue of Church Production Magazine
The story of a contractor with conviction and a church with dreams as big as Texas
A new suburban church building with a modern design and high ceiling, a dynamic ministry looking to serve the community, a budget to meet and dealings with a local sound and lighting contractor—nothing unusual here, right? Wrong. This church has overcome some unusual adversity to continue into its 40th year and there’s something very different about this sound and lighting contractor, too.
The people at Vanguard Sound and Lighting in Rockwall, Texas, know first-hand about the needs of the church, as both the owner, Mike Wallace, and the project manager, Aaron Kincaid, are also pastors. Each brings years of experience in the ministry, as well as church staff experience, so these sound and lighting professionals have their roots (and 99% of their business) in the church market. Their combined experience and concern for their clients allows them to approach church business in a unique way, and their skills were just what was needed to help Oak Ridge Baptist Church accomplish its mission to be a developing fellowship of believers committed to sharing God’s love.
A Church with Perseverance and Vision
The lush suburbs off Texas’ I-45 just outside of Houston, the fourth most populous city in the nation, have been home to Oak Ridge Baptist Church since its inception in 1967. The church, however, has not always looked the same. With humble beginnings in a community center where its 30 original members gathered to worship, Oak Ridge became one of the fastest growing churches in Texas by 1977. The church served its 1,600 members well and had a bus ministry bringing over 100 children to Sunday School and services each week. For almost 20 years the church remained a staple of community life for the Oak Ridge area—until a silent adversary threatened to shut it down.
What could derail this important and long-standing ministry? The most unlikely of foes: mold. On August 10, 2000, when toxic mold was discovered inside the walls of offices in the sanctuary building, for their safety, the congregation was moved to a temporary home at a neighboring high school. After several years of holding services in schools and ongoing troubles with the old building, church members voted to demolish it, sell the property, and relocate with a new vision to grow the church and serve the community. After five years of struggles, the congregation got its wish and on November 13, 2005, broke ground on their new 37,000-square-foot building on 13 green acres. The new location is just blocks away from the community center in which the church began in 1967.
Today, with construction of their new facility recently completed and its sound, lighting, and media technology in place, regular attendance at Oak Ridge Baptist’s single Sunday service is already bumping 500. The congregation, young and old, is enjoying worship in a modern and dynamic 750-seat octagonal sanctuary, built to be expandable to seat 1,000. In addition, two buildings adjacent to the impressive sanctuary house a busy multi-purpose gymnasium and a facility for church offices, educational space, and a youth worship center that includes a game room with a café area for youth fellowship. Projection, lighting, and sound needs throughout the buildings were addressed by the professionals from Vanguard Sound and Lighting to be both effective and efficient.
A/V/L Accoutrements
To cover the audio needs of the modern sanctuary at Oak Ridge, Vanguard’s Wallace and Kincaid worked closely with A-Line’s director of engineering, Tony Faranda, to come up with a di-polar design using two flown arrays comprised of A-Line Acoustics’ powered AL-10As, passive AL-10xs, and ASA215s, dual 15-inch powered subwoofers. The AL10A, with 800 Watts of program power, features two-inch by10-inch drivers and a one-inch by 1.4-inch high frequency driver/horn. The ASA215s boast two-inch by 15-inch drivers and 1,000 Watts. Both the AL-10s and ASA215s cabinets are powered with Bang & Olufsen ICEpower amplifiers with sound shaped by two factory supplied onboard DSP programs configured by Faranda to meet the room’s specifications. Wallace and his team rigged two arrays to be flown over the altar, each with two subs and two AL-10As powering a passive AL-10x.
“Providing a passive cabinet option is very efficient for the church market,” says Wallace. “Where sound pressure levels rarely reach rock concert proportions, using passive cabinets can save the customer thousands.” A-Line claims their “hybrid-active” design with AL-10s provides superb audio at only slightly less system output (3-5dB) than fully powered cabinets. Wallace also remarked about the additional savings for his clients using a combination of powered and passive cabinets, since these systems require less wiring, racks, and supporting gear.
To control unwanted sound reflections, flat surfaces in the main sanctuary were treated with 47 Acoustical Surfaces two-foot square by two-inch wide acoustic panels.
For church services and performances at Oak Ridge, inputs from instruments and Shure and Sennheiser microphones are digitally snaked from the stage via 32 by16 Aviom gear, including a 16-channel microphone preamp and three Aviom 16-channel line level AN-16 devices using CAT-5e cable to deliver signal to the church’s Soundcraft 40-channel, Series 2 mixing console. Monitoring is handled with Aviom and Westone UM-2 in-ear devices.
Lighting for the main sanctuary was accomplished with 16 Elation Opti-Zoom fixtures (chosen for their high output and wide range of focus), 16 Lightronics 30-degree ellipsoidals, 15 American DJ Pro LED PAR64 fixtures, and controlled by Elation’s Compu Pro 06 software with USB to DMX interface and compact DMX 4-channel dimmers. Moving and creative lighting was accomplished using four Elation Design Spot 250s and eight additional American DJ Pro LED PAR64s with RGB color mixing and DMX-512 protocol.
To bring each part of the service to every seat at Oak Ridge, video is projected from three 15,000-lumen LC-XT4U Eiki projectors, centrally rigged from the ceiling between the line arrays, onto three Elite R200H 200-inch diagonal (98-inch by 174-inch) 16:9 framed screens located behind and on either side of the stage. Projected images are controlled by a Vaddio ProductionVIEW FX control console with video switching, and a Kramer VP-128H matrix switcher with a live feed is supplied by a mounted Canon VC-C501 PTZ camera with 26x optical zoom, ¼-inch CCD and one LUX sensitivity. A R120H 120-inch diagonal screen and projector is located in an overflow area for the sanctuary.
In addition to the main sanctuary, Vanguard also installed sound, lights, and projection systems for the well-equipped youth sanctuary at Oak Ridge with seating for just over 100. A stage is set up for performance with drums, keyboards, guitar, and bass amps. Lighting is covered by three American DJ Spot 250s, eight LEDPAR64s, and 16 PAR56 fixtures, and is controlled by Elation Compu 06 software with USB to DMX interface. Projection for the youth stage is set with a second Vaddio ProductionVIEW FX control console, Edirol V4 video mixer with effects, Sanyo PLC-XU 3,000 Lumens XGA projector, and a mounted Canon VC-C501 PTZ camera. EAW VR series speakers, Yamaha SW115V subs, and CM12V floor wedges along with an Allen and Heath CL2400-24 mixing console cover the sound.
The End Product
Total budget for the comprehensive job of lighting, sound, and projection design, equipment, and labor for the main and youth sanctuaries, gym, foyer, café, and hallways was $220,000. The project lasted about five months and was done in concert with the final phases of the building’s construction.
Jeff Johnson, associate pastor at Oak Ridge Baptist, has helped with training the first team of six key volunteers. “We’re getting better at it,” says Johnson, who feels that the training and follow-up from Vanguard has been critical to their success. He adds, “Vanguard was great though the process and we were truly blessed to have them work with us and our students. They are strong believers and it shows in their work.”
Music Minister Joe Suggs says the audio, lighting, and video technology at Oak Ridge allows his music ministry team to follow their emotions and is simply the product of “dreaming big.” “That’s what we did,” says Suggs, “We dreamed big and it happened. Now, we have the equipment to continue our dreaming and really do it.” Suggs says that while learning to handle all the power of new technology is challenging for the volunteers and staff, the system allows them to create the right environment for worship, one that looks and feels great. “Our new building and great equipment allow us to make a place where worship can happen, to make a place where God meets with us.”
Andy McDonough is a freelance writer, photographer, musician, educator and consulting engineer based in Middletown, New Jersey. Among his favorite topics are the application of technology and music in houses of worship. He welcomes email at andymcd@comcast.net.