Not all churches have an option to meet in their own dedicated worship space. Church plants and new campuses of multi-site churches often begin as portable churches, meeting in rented space to hold their weekend worship service. Whatever the reason, utilizing an outside space for weekend services brings with it a unique set of dynamics, as well as opportunities, that any church thinking of going the portable church route should be aware of.
One church that has significant experience with portable church dynamics is The Summit Church based in Durham, N.C. Since its re-launch from the original Homestead Heights Baptist Church in 2002, the church’s growth to over 11,000 attendees prompted expansion to nine campuses across the greater Raleigh-Durham region, with an additional Spanish-language campus co-located at the main campus in Durham. In addition, the church opened two more campuses in the Raleigh men’s and women’s prisons. While four of the campuses meet in permanent spaces, four are portable campuses meeting in schools, and one portable campus meets in a performing arts theater. Summit’s Garner campus, opened in January 2019, is meeting in the new South Garner High School, a part of the Wake County Public School System.
Portable moves with a conscience
“Our first experience with going portable wasn’t long after we re-branded as The Summit Church,” says Rick Langston, lead pastor of strategic development at The Summit Church. “Because of our growth, we were looking for new permanent space, and our existing church building sold before we found a new property.”
He continues, “We approached a local school about meeting in their space, and it turned out the school staff and administrator had a bad experience with the previous church that used their facility. Rooms were not put back the way the teachers had left them on Friday, and the school facilities were not cared for appropriately by the church. It required several meetings with the principal just to get to the point of gaining his trust. He wanted to be assured that it would be a good experience for their arts department and teachers. We met many times to assure them that we would be different—that we would meet their needs.”
“Think about it—why would a teacher want someone coming into their classroom and using it for another purpose on the weekend?” Langston continues. “It’s no direct benefit to them, and if things aren’t put back the way they left it, it’s a serious inconvenience. Therefore, when we go into a school such as the South Garner High School, we look for opportunities to serve the school at large. We partner with them in school beautification projects; we improve the AVL equipment so it not only serves our worship service needs better but also serves the school’s arts department. We help maintain the equipment. Our goal is to be a benefit to them, not an inconvenience. We help where we can and strive to leave things at least as good as the way we found it. We look for ways to bring a little joy into the teachers’ lives.”
In the case of the new South Garner High School, Summit’s technical staff strove to be that blessing from the start.
Loving thy neighbor—in action
“There was a benefit to our coming in to assess the technical production systems in their theater and see how they were set up as part of preparing to use the school for our new campus,” says Justin Manny, production pastor at Summit. “They had complete AVL systems installed, but no one really knew how to operate them. So our plan was to come in, teach the school staff how to use the systems they have, and evaluate what’s there for our Sunday morning needs. They had a Yamaha M7CL audio console--we were comfortable with that. The Danley GH60 PA system worked for us, as well.”
He continues, “We tracked down all the audio and video line runs to see what the connectivity options are. Their lighting system consisted of an ETC Ion console and reasonable stage lighting. To avoid interfering with their lighting needs during their productions, we added in our own stage lighting using Chauvet EVE P-130 color washes and E-100Z front profile fixtures. Keeping the lighting fixtures separate makes things much simpler--we don’t get in each other’s way with re-aiming fixtures. We put in our own wireless ClearCom system.”
Each Summit Campus has live worship with their own worship teams, with the actual preaching streamed live from the Brier Creek campus in Durham. Therefore, video projection quality is important to the church and this affects the size and placement of the projection screens at the campuses.
“We upgraded their existing video projector with a Christie 10K DWU1075-GS laser projector,” says Manny, “and added a larger second screen by Draper further upstage for handling the message video. We also installed a Christie 7.5K Christie DWU700-GS laser projector as a confidence monitor in the back of the auditorium, projecting on a motorized Draper screen. A 70-volt speaker system was installed in the ceiling out in the lobby so that the service can be heard there as well as in the auditorium. This is all permanently installed at the school.”
Cabling was installed to support the new equipment, with appropriately dressed wall plates for equipment such as video screens in the lobby that would be set up and removed each Sunday. DP Designs, based in Milwaukee, performed the permanent installation work. “They really rocked it for us,” Manny notes.
In addition to the facility upgrades and additions, Summit needed to create portable racks of gear to fulfill the production needs unique to the church. Two audio racks were built out to house their wireless mic systems and wireless in-ear systems. Shure QLX microphone systems and a QLX Wireless guitar system are all networked for Shure’s Wireless Workbench monitoring and control system. For IEMs, the Summit team uses Shure PSM900s and an Aviom D400 personal monitoring system.
Video sermon strategy
Delivering a quality sermon via video is critical to Summit’s campus strategy. For the primary delivery mechanism, a StreamTwo Storm system encodes the signal at the Brier Creek campus, and each campus has a StreamTwo Rain streaming receiver. To ensure delivery of the message, Summit implements several levels of redundancy. The service is simultaneously streamed to the campuses via LiveStream as a backup to the StreamTwo system, and the 4 p.m. service on Saturday is recorded to SSD drives via Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Studio recorders. One SSD is recorded for each campus, and eight volunteers, standing by at Brier Creek, deliver an SSD to each campus that has Saturday evening services immediately after the message is concluded in time for the 5:30 PM Saturday evening service’s preaching segment as a hard-copy backup to the two streaming systems. Campuses that only have a Sunday service have their SSD by Sunday morning.
“We built out a video production rack,” Manny continues, “to handle our graphics and streaming needs. It includes a Blackmagic Design ATEM switcher for video routing; the StreamTwo Rain streaming receiver; a Blackmagic Design Hyperdeck Studio for playing the SSD when necessary; two Mac Minis for graphics and LiveStream support; and three monitors.”
“The relationship between the church and the school is what makes it work,” states Manny. “When the school has a play, we’ll bring over our wireless systems for them to use. The relationship is what helps us get into the school during the week to debug issues that crop up. When we used the Cary High School for what eventually became our Apex campus,” Manny says, “we left behind all the installed tech gear for the school’s use when we moved to our permanent facility in Apex. That’s all part of relationship-building.”
Two-way street
The school system also views relationship as important to a successful and productive rental use of a school facility by a church.
“Some of our larger, long-term churches have provided equipment installations that are an enhancement to the school property,” says Jill Touchberry, senior administrator of community use for the Wake County Public School System. “They are also community partners [that] assist with mentoring students and assist school administration with providing supplies for students and teachers.”
Linda Willcox, director of community services, adds, “When a church donated lighting and sound equipment then later built its own building, the lighting and sound equipment remained for the school. Any installation becomes the property of the district. Another school was able to have its auditorium re-carpeted due to the longevity of the church rental. This refurbishment also benefited the church.”
However, it’s also the case that a church (speaking generally) can be less-than-great tenants. Touchberry and Willcox comment on some of the things they have seen happen that can make life difficult for school staff: when a church damages the school property; fails to completely remove its equipment from the property at the end of their weekly usage time; attempts to ‘hide’ some of their equipment at the school instead of removing it each week in violation of their agreement; using parts of the school they did not rent for use; violating fire safety laws; and does not leaving classrooms in the same condition they were found.
Willcox states, however, that there are many ways churches have been a blessing to the school district. “Church members have found ways to assist school’s individual needs, whether it is through helping students or assisting the school administration in meeting facility needs that are outside the school’s budget. Church members have registered to volunteer, gone through the volunteer background check, and provided services by mentoring students, tutoring, proctoring, chaperoning school dances, and in many other ways. Churches have held community work days to beautify school grounds, provide landscaping, and have provided snow removal services.”
“A church should bring joy to the community in which it exists,” comments Langston. “Our goal is that when we finally leave a school, the staff will be sad that we’re no longer there. And there are some distinct advantages to being in a school: you're able to serve people in the secular/public sector as a part of putting on your worship service every week. That doesn’t directly happen when you have your own space.”
