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Live streaming is handled by Techwerks, a small company in Asheville, N.C., that handles video streaming for Billy Graham's ministry and the White House, among others.
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"Most of our videos and print graphics are based on stock footage and photos from Shutterstock.com.” -- Gene Mason, Communications Minister
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The technology in Cross Pointe Church’s main room includes Hitachi Z-HD5000 cameras feeding a Ross Video Carbonite Switcher, Digital Projection Titan Quad Projectors and Stewart Filmscreen projection screens.
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Cross Pointe uses neither staff nor volunteers for its key technical ministry roles. “We moved away from having a staff position because for the cost of that one staff salary and benefits we can get contractors to serve on the weekend," -- Alfred Burgess, Worship Ministry Director, Cross Pointe Church.
Pastor James Merritt, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, founded Cross Pointe Church in 2003. Following God's lead, and accompanied by about 250 from his previous Atlanta-area congregation, Pastor Merritt chose to focus on a younger demographic in Gwinnett County, Georgia. The church began by meeting in Collins Hill High School, moving to Peachtree Ridge High School shortly thereafter.
But it wasn't long before the church began looking for property to create a space of their own, and two men who were strongly behind the vision of the church located an old missile factory in Duluth, which ironically built Hellfire Antitank missiles. The gentlemen made an offer on the facility, purchasing it for about $10 million, and donated it to the church.
The church invested in renovating the buildings into worship, youth and children spaces, creating an environment to support reaching the young families in the area.
Currently, the church has about 2,700 attending each weekend, mostly in their 20s and 30s; college students through young families—precisely the demographic they had set out to reach.
After an initial pass at renovation to get the church up and running eight years ago, Cross Pointe has continued to rework the space to turn it into the best possible vehicle for reaching its target audience. For the last three and a half years, Alfred Burgess has been in the role of pastor of worship and creative arts at the church, guiding the technical production side of the renovations and services.
“I moved up to Duluth from Austin, Texas, when I joined the Cross Pointe team about five years ago to be the NextGen pastor and to oversee NextGen Ministry
which is comprised of the preschool, children and student ministries,” states Burgess. “However, after my first year, the church was having some technical issues while preparing for their Easter production, and I was able to lend a hand and get them through it. After that I was asked to take over the worship ministry, which included the technical production areas. I used to run sound as a way for paying for college when attending Liberty University, so I has some experience with the technical aspects of running a worship service.”
The church started with a traditional service as well as contemporary, but after a few years they transitioned to purely a modern worship style. “It's similar to many other churches in the Atlanta metro area,” Burgess describes. In fact, Gwinnett Church, a satellite campus of North Point Church, uses the Cross Pointe facility to hold their services on Sunday evenings. “Gwinnett Church [which is affiliated with North Point] helped us as well by upgrading our FOH (front-of-house) console, video screens and projectors for us,” adds Burgess.
The Tech
To create their weekly worship experience, the Blue Hat Design, a division of Technical Innovation of Norcross, Ga., has assisted with the ongoing renovations to the old missile factory for several years now. A recently installed Meyer Sound Mica line array provides the main PA system with Meyer 1100-LFC subwoofers rounding out the low end. Cross Pointe uses separate FOH and monitor mixers, with an Avid Audio Profile serving at FOH and an Avid Audio D-Show for monitors. Meyer Galileo DSPs handle audio signal processing. The band uses all PSM1000 wireless in-ear systems for their monitors, and Sennheiser 2000s for handheld vocals. “I also have some Cascade Fat Head II ribbon microphones that I love on the guitar amps,” Burgess states. Guitar amps are kept in isolation boxes back stage to reduce stage volume.
For lighting, the church recently upgraded to Jands Vista lighting control systems, with an L5 console in the main auditorium, and computer-based Jands Vista installations with M1 and S1 hardware wings for the other rooms needing theatrical or concert lighting support.
ETC Sensor Dimming and Source Four and Source Four PAR fixtures provide conventional fixture illumination, with Chauvet Colorado Tri-Tour LED fixtures providing a color wash. “The Tri-Tours are very cost effective and they're amazing,” states Burgess. “We've also have 10 of the Martin Professional Mac 700 Profile fixtures, and 20 of the Chauvet 560z LED zoom washes. We're also picking up some of the Chauvet Legend 230SR Beam fixtures—they are a lot like the Clay Paky Sharpie.”
"...two men who were strongly behind the vision of the church located an old missile factory in Duluth, wihich ironically built Hellfire Antitank missiles."
On the video side, the church has a full HD video system with cameras for IMAG, broadcast and video capture for the pastor's associated broadcast ministry, “Touching Lives.” Two video control rooms—one for broadcast, and one for IMAG—are built around Ross Carbonite switchers. The broadcast room records all cameras, and the IMAG room calls the shots for the live video in the room and for future satellite campuses. Each video room has an audio room in the rear for mixing audio for broadcast as well as online streaming. Hitachi Z-HD5000 video cameras provide the video capture from the auditorium.
Live streaming is handled by Techwerks, a small company in Asheville, N.C., that handles video streaming for Billy Graham's ministry and the White House, among others. “They provide an incredible user experience,” comments Burgess, “We've been really happy with them—the stuff they do is unbelievable.”
Stewart Filmscreen screens provide video to the main auditorium, with Digital Projection 3D Titan Quad projectors creating the image.
Staffing
Cross Pointe uses neither staff nor volunteers for their key technical ministry roles. “The Atlanta area has very high expectations when it comes to production value,” states Burgess. “So we don't want to leave that to chance. We moved away from having a staff position because for the cost of that one staff salary and benefits we can get contractors to serve on the weekend as FOH engineer; monitor engineer; streaming video engineer; and a video producer.”
Burgess continues, “I actually have a 17-year-old running FOH for me. He's just amazing, with an incredible ear. He's been running FOH for various churches for a few years. Most of our other FOH positions in the facility are contract positions as well. All other needs, such as camera operators, stage direction, additional video and lighting, are filled with the best volunteers on the planet. ”
Media
Media is a big part of what Cross Pointe does on the weekend, and Gene Mason, the church's communications minister, is the content creator for both print graphics as well as video promos, testimonies and bumper videos. Mason has worked in churches most of his professional life.
“I've been here for five years,” states Mason. “I previously worked at the Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Ala. Before that I served at Hunter Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. My first church staff position was just out of college, at Shades Mountain Baptist Church which I was attending at the time. They asked me if I might be interested in joining the staff and developing the graphics arts/media ministries there. I loved it, and worked there for 11 years. I developed their first website, and put in their first video system.”
Mason also has an interesting twist to his faith and church-staff life, which he says is more common in the church than you might think. “I accepted Christ in 2007, after having worked on staff in churches for years. I became convicted that while I knew a lot about God, I didn't know Christ."
Mason stepped out of ministry for a couple months after that to sort things out on a personal level. He decided after six months that he was really suited for the role he was playing in the church, so when an opportunity to come back into ministry opened at Cross Pointe, he took it. “This was in 2009, just as the economy was collapsing. We put our home in Birmingham on the market, and believed that if it didn't sell, that would be a sign from God that this wasn't the right path to follow. Well, it sold for the asking price in 18 days.” And the rest is history, as they say.
“THE ATLANTA AREA HAS VERY HIGH EXPECTATIONS WHEN IT COMES TO PRODUCTION VALUE. SO WE DON'T WANT TO LEAVE THAT TO CHANCE.”
Alfred Burgess
Pastor of Worship and Creative Arts, Cross Pointe Church, Duluth, Georgia
Media Creation
Mason approaches sourcing media for his graphics and video work a little differently in most churches CPM covers.
“We do a lot of graphic arts and video at Cross Pointe,” Mason comments, “but I take a middle-of-the-road, Chevrolet view on the process. We do things that look really nice, but we don't want to break the bank on it. Therefore, most of our videos and print graphics are based on stock footage and photos from Shutterstock.com. We take stock their art and customize it as needed. I could spend four times as much with video staff and photo/video gear, but it won't be over-the-top better such that it would justify the cost.”
Cross Pointe has subscription plans from Shutterstock for both photos and video. The photo license allows then to download up to 25 images per day; the video plan provides 25 HD clips for a fixed price. “There are lots of coupons available on line for Shutterstock, so we rarely pay the listed rate for the subscriptions,” Mason says.
Occasionally he also visits other stock sites such as Veer.com if he can't find what he needs on Shutterstock. Additionally he inherited a huge library of Digital Juice media when he came to work at Cross Pointe.
Macs are the platform of choice at Cross Pointe, not only for content creation but throughout the church. “We find the computers last longer, and they are less work to support,” Mason states. “I use Adobe Creative Cloud for graphic design, and both Final Cut X and Adobe products for video creation.”
When Mason does need to capture his own footage, he has a Sony HD cameracorder available, but also will sometimes go low-tech and just use his iPhone.
Wrapping Up
“We have Southern Baptist roots,” adds Burgess, “But you'd never know it from our environment or our service style. The name ‘Southern Baptist' can be a barrier to many of those we're trying to reach.”
“But this church has a band, moving lights, rock' n roll—we've haven't had a choir in years,” adds Mason. “We realize the church environment has to change to reach the current generation. That sort of environment is so necessary to capture people's attention. It's definitely the most progressive in terms of style that I've been at. This is a very relevant church in terms of culture.”
And the growth and demographics show that when it comes to reaching that generation, Cross Pointe Church is pretty much on target.
