Images courtesy of United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, Leawood, Kan.
When The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection was launched over 28 years ago, Senior Pastor Adam Hamilton and his small band of volunteers dreamed of a faith community that would make an impact lasting for generations and even centuries to come. In the years following that launch Hamilton began to cast a vision of a sacred worship space that would communicate the depth of their faith and tell a sermon in architecture. Hamilton even led several trips to the Holy Land in order to help key stakeholders grasp that vision. As the church grew to be one of the largest and most influential mainline denominational churches in the world the leadership of the Leawood, Kan., congregation continued to dream about what God had in store for their final church home.
By 2002 Church of the Resurrection had outgrown their second sanctuary and plans were beginning to be developed for a permanent sanctuary. The entire process took almost 15 years of careful planning, hard work and faithful giving, but in 2017 those dreams finally become a reality as the church celebrated Easter in it’s new 3,500-seat worship space.
Designed by HGA Architects and Engineers of Minneapolis and Gould Evans of Kansas City, Mo., the final sanctuary serves both as a testimony and a powerful statement of faith to visitors and congregants alike. The exterior of the building features eight panels that represent the days of Holy Week, leading around to the a spectacular 100-foot wide, 67-foot tall stained-glass window that represents Easter Sunday. The window is made up of 161 individual panels and tells the story of God’s plan, from creation all the way through to the Easter story, continuing on to the stories of modern day saints like Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa. The architectural design also incorporates more subtle elements, such as the Methodist cross-and-flames design that is worked into the balcony railings.
Complimentary reinforcement
With so much time and effort going into the architecture of Church of the Resurrection’s new sanctuary, it was crucial that the installed audio, video and lighting systems served to complement and enhance the overall experience, without creating undue distraction. With the stained-glass window serving as the unquestioned visual centerpiece of the space, the tech team chose to deploy an ultra-wide LED video display running directly under the window itself. Absen LED panels were chosen based on their quality, value and outstanding customer service.
With so much time and effort going into the architecture of Church of the Resurrection’s new sanctuary, it was crucial that the installed audio, video and lighting systems served to complement and enhance the overall experience, without creating undue distraction.
The tech team also chose to deploy Christie’s Pandora’s Box video control software to maximize the display’s unique 7416x1080 resolution and 1:6.8 aspect ratio. While the learning curve was a bit steep early on, the tech and communications teams quickly learned which types of content would clash with the window and what styles of composition would work better. They were also pleasantly surprised to learn just how well the congregation would engage with narrative content played on the screens beneath the window.
For the iMag and broadcast applications Church of the Resurrection selected the Sony HDC-1700 system cameras, as well as some supplementary Sony PTZ remote cameras. After extensive testing the video team was deeply impressed with the imagery coming off the Sony cameras, as well as their outstanding service and support. Based on their previous experiences the team also selected the Ross Acuity switcher. While the switcher was a more complex device than they had previously utilized, their desire to have a single solution to feed IMAG, campus broadcast and digital signage simultaneously led them to the Acuity.
On the lighting system design front, the primary goal was to provide subtle reinforcement that would feel organic to the natural light within the space. While the lighting team elected to install 16 Vari-Lite VL4000 intelligent spots in order to have some functionality and flexibility at their disposal, they still found themselves leaning more on conventional ellipsoidal fixtures for much of the stage lighting. They also selected a team favorite, the High End Systems Hog 4 lighting console, in order to stay consistent across all of their four campuses and maintain the quality and dependability they had already come to expect from the Hog consoles.
Sound reflections
From a design perspective, the most challenging system to incorporate into the architectural plans was the audio system. The demands of reinforcing the multiple music styles utilized on the weekend, ranging from full orchestral music to modern rock-style worship, presented significant difficulties. Coupled with the challenges posed by extremely high ceilings, multiple hard surfaces and reflection points, success required years of coordinated planning and purposeful compromise to arrive at a system that provided great sound coverage while still respecting the beauty and intentionality of the space.
From a design perspective, the most challenging system to incorporate into the architectural plans was the audio system.
For the main speakers the church selected EAW Anya arrays to capitalize on their high fidelity and directional steering. After a successful run with previous Digico audio consoles, the tech team chose to go with the Digico SD10 sound console for the FOH and broadcast audio positions, with a Waves server installed at FOH.
During the process of researching in-ear solutions, the audio team had the chance to demo the new Klang systems, which made a big impression on both the tech and music teams. The leadership was riveted by the 360-degree directional sourcing technology that creates a kind of surround-sound imaging to stereo headphones. After spending a few weeks with the Klang the entire ministry came away convinced the technology was a game changer and selected it as their man monitoring solution.
In conclusion
Moving into the future, the Church of the Resurrection’s new sanctuary has become a destination for pilgrims from around the country seeking a place simply to be renewed or inspired within the space. The church is also currently in the process of renovating its previous worship space into a community center and modern black box-style worship venue. They’re also celebrating the grand opening of a new downtown Kansas City campus in June of 2018. Through it all, they continue to carry out the vision of changing lives, strengthening churches, and transforming the world.
Absen America
Christie Digital
Sony USA
Klang:technologies
Digico
Eastern Acoustic Works (EAW)
Waves
Ross Video
Vari-Lite
High End Systems
