Leadership at King Jesus Church in Miami, Florida has upgraded the church's Clear-Com intercom system. The upgrade incorporated an existing Clear-Com Encore analog partyline intercom system and now additionally includes an Eclipse HX digital matrix system fitted with an EIPA card, FreeSpeak II digital wireless transceivers and beltpacks, HelixNet digital partyline, LQ Series of IP interfaces and finally the Agent-IC mobile app, “creating a dynamic and robust intercom communications system designed to support the organization’s growth with plenty of room for expansion in the future,” according to the announcement from Clear-Com.
King Jesus Church of Miami (KJM) has been ministering to Southern Florida for over 20 years, seeing attendance of 15,000 to 20,000 each week between their main and remote campuses across the globe, spanning five continents. As the ministry has continued to grow, so has their production - broadcasting online to hundreds of thousands worldwide, many of whom reside in Latin and South America. What sets this ministry apart from others is not only their Latin American roots with services spoken in Spanish, but also that they offer services in English, as well as many other languages, to minister globally.
KJM’s reach and continued growth had surpassed the capacity of their Encore party-line system, with an evolving production crew consisting of camera operators, technical directors, director, producer, audio engineers, graphics, streaming coordinators, and various production assistants all working throughout the facility. The production level grew to require more flexibility and bandwidth from their comms.
With the goal to increase communications for today’s needs, together with room to grow for the future, Sean Sweeney from CP Communications, worked with KJM Technical Director Jonathan Garcia to design an intercom system that would satisfy the modern requirements of King Jesus Church. Garcia explains, “Communicating on Sunday was becoming more and more difficult, when you have 25 plus different people, doing 10 different things and all sharing a four-channel system... the idea of ‘controlled chaos’ comes to mind.”
In order to make the ‘controlled chaos’ manageable, Sweeney and Garcia installed an Eclipse HX Median frame with 16 ports of 4-wire and 32 IP ports on the E-IPA card, four FreeSpeak II IP transceivers and 15 FreeSpeak II beltpacks. This change gives them the freedom to roam the building while staying online with the production crew. A HelixNet base station and LQ IP interface was also installed to support the Front-of-House audio and lighting crews, allowing them to communicate more easily. To complete the new system, they implemented several Agent-IC mobile app licenses with an external internet connection, enabling the production crew to roam outside the sanctuary as needed, while still connected on comms. This system is designed to facilitate a modern workflow that takes into account hybrid and remote workflows.
After their first Sunday service with the new system in place, Garcia explains, “The way the new system configuration streamlined our operations and made Sunday service a breeze for all of us involved, is a total game changer.”
While also producing in-person services, King Jesus Church produces and broadcasts services around the world. To help produce these global broadcasts, KJM has a broadcasting studio a few blocks away, which is connected to the main facility over a WAN network, allowing all their communications to happen via their HelixNet beltpacks. The studio control room is outfitted with an Eclipse HX Delta frame, V-Series Iris panels, E-IPA card, Agent-IC, and FreeSpeak II beltpacks and transceivers. Sweeney and Garcia worked together to configure the system, designed to be scalable and reliable, while bridging the two buildings for seamless broadcast and streaming productions.
“We now have a solid and flexible intercom system backbone for our communications that will be able to grow with us as we continue to expand our operations and broadcasting reach,” concludes Garcia.
