Each week, church technical teams strive to create the big moments within our services, the ones that have the potential to reach people and change lives. Making that personal connection is most likely to happen when all the creative elements of a church production come together, and one of the most powerful elements under our control, one common to all parts of the service, is lighting.
“What do people remember about a service?” asks Bradley Fox, technical director at Inland Hills Church in Chino, Calif. “Chances are that it spoke to them in a way that was different.” Fox believes that, as humans, we relate best to stories. “With effective and purposeful lighting techniques,” he says, “we can create the tension within and around a story. That could mean big scenes or intimate settings.”
Lighting, Fox says, has the power to “pull it all together,” setting the right tone for worship, heightening the spirit for praise, and focusing attention on a teaching.
Find the story being told
In land Hills Church hosts two venues on its 22-acre, Southern California campus: The Main Auditorium that seats 650 and The Studio that seats just under 400. The venues welcome a total of about 2,500 worshippers every week, and are connected by a fiber run, primarily so that the Main Auditorium can share parts of the service with The Studio. “The service styles in each venue are intentionally different,” notes Fox who, in addition to technical direction, is also production director. “The Main Auditorium has a full band for modern worship and is set up with lighting and video to be the church’s broadcast location.” The Studio, as Fox describes it, is a more intimate acoustic service, but his concepts for lighting are the same.
“We love to see lighting cut through the haze, but you can create contrast by running lower, leaving yourself room to grow a scene when you feel the Holy Spirit is in the room.”
TREVOR DIXONTechnical Director, Venture Church, Howell, MI.
“Our objective for lighting either venue,” Fox notes, “is to understand the story we are telling and use lighting to help create the tension within the story.” According to him, that doesn’t mean everything has to be big and impressive. “If you use everything you have at hand, you have nowhere to build from.” To create the tension Fox is talking about, he advises lighting directors to “find the little details to build from, but don’t distract.” In a recent production, Fox and his team staged a simple scene, with only a jazz singer and pianist, that provided a gentle start ahead of the service. It was an intimate beginning and a great warm, nostalgic look from which to build, he recalls. “Our goal was to have this small scene perfectly lighted using traditional three-point lighting,” he notes, “with front key light, fill lights and a separating hair light. This is our typical process. We’d do this even with a big scene—start with the basic elements and add to make the scene as big as it needs to be, but always have the subjects of the story perfectly lighted.”
Plan both big and small moments
At Cincinnati’s Crossroads Church, National Production Designer Jon Gray has observed how experience with concert and theatrical lighting can bring different elements to lighting for worship. “Lighting for worship isn’t very different from many other theatrical and concert lighting environments,” he says. “However, most lighting directors I run into typically favor a concert lighting approach, as most don’t have a theatrical background. The biggest hindrance to this approach is that there is generally not enough contrast over all.
”Gray’s experience has taught him that the big moments in worship are created with what he terms “high contrast.” “If all the gear is on all the time,” he says, “there is no place to go when the music builds or an emotional pull develops in a song or service.” This is detrimental when it comes time for what he calls "a big push." “Having a plan that leaves some room in the rig for those large builds is as much a practiced skill as it is programming,” he says.
“If all the gear is on all the time, there is no place to go when the music builds or an emotional pulldevelops in a songor service.”
JOHN GRAY National Production Director,Crossroads Church, Cincinnati, OH.
Gray teaches his lighting designers that directing the congregation’s attention and developing towards the moment of the emotional high should be their main focus when programming. “It’s very much about preparation,” he says. “When an LD doesn’t have good rehearsal tracks, or hasn’t heard the entire song before going live, then they haven’t been given enough advance notice to give those moments their full attention and effort.” Gray feels that this is a major flaw in how many churches program their lighting. “Asking a volunteer to come in on a Sunday morning with very little prior knowledge of the songs or service layout and expecting that volunteer to create emotionally supportive lighting is ridiculous,” he says.
Gray notes that in many modern worship settings, where digital media has taken over and the house stays dim the majority of the time, “spill” from giant LED and IMAG screens can cast more light on congregants than the overhead lighting. “To keep the congregation’s attention where the producer, director, or pastor wants it is the challenge,” he says, “and very much what stage lighting is about.” However, he is quick to add that it is not about how much gear you have. “Even [in] a room with no dimmers whatsoever and only a couple painter’s lights you can create a powerful scene. The difference is intentionality. Prepare and be intentional about your lighting, especially teaching looks,” he advises.
Avoid distractions
The unique design of 1,000-member Venture Church in the Detroit suburb of Howell, Mich., has allowed its technical director, Trevor Dixon, who has also served as the church’s lighting designer, to create a signature look for intimate moments. “We have a narrow space much like a Broadway stage,” he says, “so we’ve learned to employ a Broadway style of lighting.”
“In our space,” he says, “we can’t get two light sources at 45 degrees to complement front lighting, so we employ high side lighting at almost 90 degrees.” Dixon can cut the front light down and with his shallow side lighting create a very unique look. “Supplemented with heavy backlight,” he shares, “it can create an effect that is almost silhouettes.” Dixon has used this technique to pull attention back from the stage, making it ideal for worship. “Of course, there is a time and [a] place for it,” he says, “and it should be used only when transitions call for it. It can create a very dramatic effect, so as effective as it is, it’s very important not to overdo it.”
Dixon argues that an overused low-key effect can be as distracting for worshippers as “flash and trash” concert-style effects in upbeat moments. Like Gray at Crossroads Church and Fox at Inland Hills Church, Dixon shares the sentiment that even good lighting effects used at the wrong time can detract from a service. As readily as lighting can put emphasis on what is important, lighting mistakes have the potential to distract, undermining our mission.
“With effective and purposeful lighting techniques, we can create the tension within and around a story. That could mean big scenes or intimate settings.”
Bradley Fox Technical Director, Inland Hills Church, Chino, CA.
One way that Dixon avoids distractions is to “pull back” often. “We love to see lighting cut through the haze,” he says, “but you can create contrast by running lower, leaving yourself room to grow a scene when you feel the Holy Spirit is in the room.” When setting up a scene, Dixon will move his lighting to what he considers the top end and pull back to a reasonable starting point. “When we pull back, say, our front lighting,” notes Dixon, “we frequently see the look improve. We often get the best looks by running our lights a lot lower than we expect.”
Another technique that Dixon employs to build intensity is to make the most of longer lighting cues. “Color shifts and moving lights that change quickly can be distracting,” says Dixon, “so using longer cues of 30 to 50 sections can make lighting change in the room with less distraction as the transition builds in intensity.” For powerful musical moments, Dixon’s longer transitions allow the lighting to build along with the song. “Don’t move lights,” he says, “just because they can move.”Like Gray at Crossroads Church, Dixon believes that preparation is the key to making effective lighting transitions. To that end, Dixon pre-programs as much as possible, but leaves room in his lighting design to react. In setting up his console, he tries to anticipate for moments where he might need more intensity from his front or other static lighting positions. “You want to be prepared for expedient scene changes,” he says, “but you also want to be able to be creative—to be in the moment. Pre-programming some elements, but not all, allows us to follow the energy in the room and react on the fly.”
Lighting design making a difference
While many opportunities to reach worshippers may present themselves between the welcome and closing song, it is often what our lighting designers and technicians do for a service that can make all the difference.Gray remembers an instructor explaining to him how John Wesley would have decisive moments in his preaching where he would light a candle to describe a moment when Christ dwells among us, something at the core of the Wesleyan tradition. “When John Wesley brought a candle to the service,” Gray observes, “he was prepared with both the illustration for his teaching and also for creating an environment in which the Holy Spirit is expected to move. Isn’t supporting moments like this the ultimate goal when designing lighting for a service?”
