Beginnings
For Jordan Brainard, project lead at Calvary Chapel, the process of getting involved in AVL leadership started at an early, early age. “My mom was pregnant with me when my family started coming to Calvary Chapel,” he explains. “I started serving my first day of junior high, covering the audio mix for third service on the weekend. I was hired here when I was 16 as an audio engineer at extra events, then it slowly evolved into fixing things and additional tasks.”
“Thirteen years ago we were heavily dependent on paid people, but eventually we made a deliberate decision to grow the body by focusing our leadership on developing volunteers.” Jordan Brainard, Project Lead, Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, Chino, CA
He continues, “When I was 18 I came on full-time to improve things overall and address some specific issues. I’ve always been a ‘yeah, we can do that’ kind of guy, so eventually the board came to me and asked me to take over the AVL and construction pieces of the new installation projects.”
Brainard says the church’s mission was what really drew him in. “The mission of Calvary Chapel really resonates with me because people are learning the Word here, not only in the main weekend experiences but throughout all of the ministries, from pre-school through young adults. I personally learned so much myself growing up in this church.”
Volunteer-centered
Within the church’s AVL and worship ministries, Calvary Chapel intentionally relies on volunteers. As Brainard says, “Thirteen years ago we were heavily dependent on paid people, but eventually we made a deliberate decision to grow the body by focusing our leadership [on] developing volunteers. Today we have almost 100 people in the worship ministry and around over 40 people in audio and media supporting all of our weekend and mid-week events.”
The church has a higher expectation where worship and AVL are concerned because, as Brainard says, “if you don’t show up to do sound or to play drums we have a serious problem. Sometimes there’s only one person in a role, and we rely on those people to show up and serve where we’re counting on them to serve.”
He continues, “So one of the requirements for serving is that people actually need to have been attending for at least a year. That way we know that this is their home church, and this is the place they should be investing in. We also take steps to ensure their spiritual walk is strong.”
Upgrade impact
One of the unique aspects of Calvary Chapel’s AVL ministry is its continued focus on spreading the church’s message through broadcast channels. “We stream our services live on our website, and for special series we stream to Facebook, as well,” notes Brainard. “We also have our Real Life with Jack Hibbs ministry, which combines our services for TV, radio and video on demand with special messages we record independently.” Calvary Chapel is currently broadcasting on TV in Hawaii and on SiriusXM, as well as on a number of radio stations. Brainard divulges, “With us moving more heavily towards YouTube and streaming, we knew our camera shots did not look great—mostly because we never really finished the sanctuary. We eventually decided to upgrade our systems in order to make it look better for broadcast.”
“The mission of Calvary Chapel really resonates with me because people are learning the Word here, not only in the main weekend experiences but throughout all of the ministries, from pre-school through young adults. I personally learned so much myself growing up in this church.” Jordan Brainard, Project Lead, Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, Chino, CA
Ultimately, the decision to upgrade the church’s systems was almost entirely driven by a concern for people beyond the walls of the church. “None of the people at Calvary Chapel really even cared—they were coming for the Word,” recalls Brainard. “The emphasis was more on making things look good for our visitors and making sure the online audience had a good experience, as well.”
AVL partnership
“Eight years ago we did a remodel in our East wing, and ever since then I’ve wanted to have CCI Solutions out to work with us,” recalls Brainard. “Eventually our head pastor reached out and let us know that we could be the ones to make the decision on who the best integrator would be, which is when we reached out to [Tumwater, Wash.-based] CCI Solutions and said, ‘You guys got this one.’”
For Duke DeJong, vice president of sales and integration at CCI Solutions, finding the right path forward began with really understanding where Calvary Chapel wanted to go. “When you’re talking about a large remodel or a new construction project the design and building processes can often take years. Then the settling-in process takes another year after that. From our vantage point, if you’re not working with people who have your back and know where you want to go, the end results are going to be less than ideal.”
He continues, “Most of us at CCI come from a tech ministry background, and we’re still dedicated to helping churches reach people. That means we’re passionate about getting a well-thought out design and executing well from the beginning. With each project we keep the vision and values as the cornerstone of the project, which means every single project is customized for that specific church.”
Solution-seeking
“Calvary Chapel has a huge reach, including a television ministry,” says DeJong, “and one of their big values was being able to create different stage looks very quickly. For the broadcast ministry they needed to be able to create three different kinds of looks within the [span] of about 30 minutes. In order to make that possible, we custom-created three different track systems for each modular set.” These modular sets can be mixed and matched.
“The trick for this project was that they also wanted to be able to move the LED wall from the backstage position to a mid-stage position quickly, which required us to develop a motorized cart system that would ‘drive’ the LED back and forth onstage, depending on what was needed for a specific look,” DeJong notes. “It’s something we’ve never done before, but our project lead, Mark Pearson, did an amazing job coming up with the project and working with the engineers on [execution].”
“At the end of the day I believe that Calvary Chapel will continue on with the work that God’s called us to, and our dream is that we’ll just be faithful to that.” Jordan Brainard, Project Lead, Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, Chino, CA
As a part of that solution, Brainard and the team from CCI selected Absen video panels for the LED video wall. “We demo’d them [and] we were really impressed right away with how they looked in-house,” he recalls. “Everything looks amazing on them once they’re calibrated and really dialed in.”
When it came to video switching, Calvary Chapel selected the Ross Carbonite for controlling broadcast video. “The Carbonite really fit our budget and had the right set of features we needed,” says Brainard. “Expandability was a big deal for us too, so that switcher set us up for future video upgrades.”
He continues, “Infrastructure is so important to us, and the Ross Ultrix Matrix Switcher has proven to be just awesome. We love how easy it was to route things, and just how future-proof it is. We always say things should last 7-10 years, and the next guy after us should be very happy with what we’ve done.”
When it came to finding the right lighting instruments, Brainard and the creative team knew the best approach was to try things out in person. “We went to Chauvet’s warehouse and did a full demo of everything,” he explains. “We actually brought volunteers with us to make sure they were comfortable, as well. The Chauvet Pro Ovation ellipsoidals, fresnels, Pro R2 spots and washes just provided the best set of features for the best price.”As for the house lighting, Brainard notes, “We wanted things to be even, we wanted to have color choices for the audience experience, and we wanted individual control over each fixture,” he shares. “The Chroma-Q Inspire fixtures let us just dial individual house lights on our Chamsys MQ500 in order to make everything look good on camera.”
“At the end of the day I believe that Calvary Chapel will continue on with the work that God’s called us to, and our dream is that we’ll just be faithful to that.” Jordan Brainard, Project Lead, Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, Chino, CA
Moving forward on mission
When it comes to next steps for the AVL ministries at Calvary Chapel, the goal for Brainard and the entire team is to remain committed to the work already in front of them. “We’re always content with where we are, but we also want to be constantly raising the quality bar to the next level,” he states. “We continually want to be involving more volunteers. And as we continue to pray and work faithfully, God continues to provide people in his timing.”He concludes, “We’re in a great place, and it’s only going up from here. At the end of the day I believe that Calvary Chapel will continue on with the work that God’s called us to, and our dream is that we’ll just be faithful to that.”
