Since its founding in 1955, Green Acres Baptist Church (GABC) in Tyler, Texas, has grown exponentially. By 1962, this church had a congregation of more than 500. Since then Green Acres has blossomed grown into a Southern Baptist megachurch with over 16,000 members.Green Acres established its Broadcast Ministry in 1981, with its Sunday service being broadcast by KLTV in Tyler. Today the church’s “Discover Life TV” weekly TV broadcasts have been joined by distribution on the church owned-and-operated local cable channel, the GABC websites (www.GABC.com and www.gabc-archive.com), and Roku.To produce this content, Green Acres Baptist Church has 11 full-time and one part-time staff members aided by over two dozen faithful volunteers, collectively handling video, audio, lighting, and websites for the church and its more than 400 events per month. But although the Broadcast Ministry has been running on professional quality equipment since its inception, Green Acres has kept its ongoing equipment buying and maintenance costs under control since the 1980s.
Green Acres Baptist Church has 11 full-time and onepart-time staff members aided by over two dozen faithful volunteers, collectively handling video, audio, lighting,and websites for the church….
The cost-saving ways in which they create great television on a budget is worthy of note for all churches — particularly those on tight budgets.
Actively Targeting Longevity
Green Acres Baptist Church started out using broadcast quality equipment from Day One. But it also has always taken great care of its equipment, allowing the church to get 18 years of life out of its SD-SDI Hitachi studio cameras before replacing them in 2018.The replacement of the Hitachis was part of an SD-to-HD upgrade of Green Acres’ Worship Center video system, executed two years after the church upgraded its Worship Center audio system. “This upgrade also included replacement of the old triax cable runs to each camera with all new fiber runs, as well as an upgraded engineering area where the CCUs and RCPs are located where a volunteer shades all eight cameras during services,” says Casey Hawkins, Green Acres’ director of video engineering and IMAG operations. “Our backbone was upgraded to HD-compatible equipment several years ago, so we didn’t hav
e to get new switchers or a new router for the production side of the house.” The team also replaced the church’s intercoms, its cable channel automation system and playback server, master control router, most of the monitors, and the old signal transmission system that went from NTSC analog video over fiber to HD ASI over fiber. All had lasted for years, due to proper usage and maintenance.
Planning Far Ahead
Upgrading the broadcast ministry with professional-grade HDTV equipment was not cheap. But given the fact that Green Acres last replaced its video camera system almost two decades ago, it was an expense that could be planned for over time.This is how Green Acres’ broadcast ministry manages all of the church’s AV projects, Hawkins reports. “We give the committees years of notice when we will be needing to do an upgrade, and that way our needs don’t surprise them with some expensive emergency,” he says.
“We give the committees years of notice when we will be needing to do an upgrade, and that way our needs don’t surprise them with some expensive emergency.” —Casey Hawkins, Director of Video Engineering and IMAG Operations, Green Acres Baptist Church, Tyler, TX.
“Our theory is that if we plan ahead and purchase what we need for the long haul, then we can prepare for funding and secure the bids and plans either in-house or from an integration company.”
One Step at a Time
It is no accident that Green Acres’ video system was replaced two years after its audio system. Again, mindful that system upgrades can be expensive, the church does its upgrades and new equipment purchases in sections over time, rather than all at once.
“We stagger our upgrades,” Hawkins states. “For instance, one of our next upgrades on the horizon are the projectors in the worship center. If we do that in 2021, then that will be two years after we upgraded our cable channel, over three years after we upgraded our cameras, and five years after the audio upgrade. So this way, while there is always something on the books for an upgrade for our ministry, the church can plan on it and manage it properly.”By taking this approach, Green Acres Baptist Church handles its AV purchases in a rational, manageable fashion. “This consistent rotation of upgrades keeps us running fairly smoothly and without very many major issues or downtime, all while providing the administration and finance part of the church ample time to prepare for our needs and approve our well-laid-out plans that we provide them,” Hawkins adds. Some equipment can be low-cost. Just because Green Acres’ cameras and key video production equipment are broadcast quality—which means they’re expensive—doesn’t mean everything in the production facility has to be, Hawkins asserts. “While we have a robust backbone with high-end cameras, switchers, routers and audio consoles, we also have very low cost basic equipment in other areas,” said Hawkins. “We try to invest in the major areas of the backbone of our entire system and then consider lower-cost solutions in the less mission critical areas. The end result is a lower average cost of the operation.”
Fulfilling Needs Before Wants
When it comes to buying a new car, you may want a Mercedes-Benz. But there’s no doubt that a Toyota will fulfill your driving needs just fine—and for a lot less money.
This pragmatic approach guides Green Acres’ approach to AV upgrades and expansions. “The ‘Needs’ list is a lot shorter than the average ‘Wants’ list and a lot less fun to think about and talk about, but it is important,” Hawkins says. To get the best value for the church’s AV dollars, “develop your ‘Needs’ list carefully, and include others who are going to be affected by your ministry and your choices into your planning process.” This same pragmatism extends to trends like live streaming, which Green Acres has historically refrained from doing in favor of on-demand recorded events (but over the past few years has ramped up its live streaming products).
Our backbone was upgraded to HD-compatible equipment several years ago, so we didn’t have to get new switchers or a new router for the production side of the house. — Casey Hawkins, Director of Video Engineering and IMAG Operations, Green Acres Baptist
“My main recommendation on streaming live is again this: Is it needed?” says Hawkins. “In some cases it may be. If you have a large church and on any given Sunday you might have 500-1,000 or more regular attenders out of town on vacation or work trips, or simply at home sick, or even in situations like the coronavirus pandemic that shut down worship in public crowds, then those folks will definitely appreciate the live stream because they will have attended services otherwise. But if you’re merely serving content for someone who would never attend in person or a church home shopper, then those folks would be just as well served with a lower cost, nicely edited and polished on-demand recording of your services.”
The Bottom Line
The high-quality video content produced by Green Acres Baptist Church proves it’s possible to do great church video ministry without breaking the bank—a lesson worth noting by churches of all sizes and budgets.
