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As Southcrest Baptist Church continues to grow in its longtime home of Lubbock, Texas, staff is also using technology to reach worshippers in surrounding states and around the globe.
Their recently completed, 46,000-square-foot facility not only provides an inclusive, modern look for worship that expands their seating to 1,600, but also includes a state-of-the-art audio, video and lighting infrastructure. Past embracing the technology in the new building, Jerry Newman, executive pastor of worship and media at Southcrest, has also integrated the technology teams whose efforts each week serve to illuminate pastors’ impassioned messages and create professional video productions for Internet and television broadcast.
Considering the team’s successes, Newman believes media teams are much more than support staff. “Being a team is like being family,” he says. “Each member of the team fulfills an important role in ministry.”
Designing a new home
To accommodate the growth of Southcrest in the Lubbock area, as well as to provide a better space for worship with the church’s orchestra and choir, church leaders engaged David Shanks, president of Dallas-based Shanks Architects. Shanks saw several ways to improve worship in the new space. “The previous multi-purpose worship space was a wide rectangular flat floor space with inadequate congregational sight lines and with a limited platform area,” he recalls. The insufficient height of the old room also limited placement of theatrical lighting and large-format video imagery.
Shanks met with senior church leaders, the building committee, and Newman’s team members. Together, they developed a strategy to guide them through the process of designing and building the new worship center. With a completed design, the team would engage Lee Lewis Construction, also of Lubbock, to create a space that would support four Sunday morning worship services for the church’s average weekly attendance of around 2,500. The construction included implementing an extensive platform design that supports Southcrest’s worship leaders, choir and orchestra in modern worship. “We use very modern songs and orchestrations,” says Newman, “and create a great amount of energy and corporate worship in this process.” For this project, Shanks followed what he cites as basic principles for good platform design: adequate access to BOH, good sightlines from both the house and for presenters on the platform, and easy access to the technical infrastructure.
The new building was purposefully designed to be Southcrest’s main worship space with a large commons area, guest services center, coffee area, and offices, but Shanks’s design also included multi-purpose components. Most notably, the lower seating area has a flat floor and utilizes movable seating making it suitable for other functions in addition to worship services. To provide for a more welcoming and visually accessible connection to the community, Shanks carefully considered the entrance and orientation of the worship center. His design both connects the commons area of the new building back to the corridor system of the existing buildings and provides clear entry into the worship center from the primary entrance of the property.
While the new worship space features music with worship choir and orchestra, Southcrest’s previous 850-seat worship space was repurposed. Now called “The Venue,” the old auditorium provides space for a band-driven worship style requiring key production personnel to be divided between the two on Sunday mornings.
A team approach
Gary Newman
Gary Newman
The son of a pastor, Newman learned from watching his father, Gary Newman, and went on to serve churches in Texas, Colorado and California. Newman’s 33 years of experience includes three years at Dr. David Jeremiah’s Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, Calif., and 11 years at Southcrest mentored by Senior Pastor Dr. David Wilson. One thing Newman’s experience has taught him is the importance of a well-integrated production team. Southcrest’s media team is coordinated in four areas of production: video, audio, audio for video, and lighting. Each area has been established with a team lead supported by 12-15 volunteers, including three volunteer video directors who work on rotation between the church’s two worship spaces. A mix of volunteers and staff, the teams work closely together to support a busy schedule of church services in the main worship center and in “The Venue.” They also facilitate large speaking engagements hosted by the church, school events, community ministry events and concerts. Throughout the year, media team members are called upon to support events away from the campus at several large venues in the Lubbock area. While he appreciates that each team leader must be an expert in their respective area, Newman looks to them to do more. “Many situations they encounter require more than one set of hands,” he says. “We work together, very much like a family.” Building out systems for the new auditorium is a good example.
The Players
When speaking with members of the team, it’s clear to see Newman’s technology-team-as-a-family analogy in practice. Per Newman, “The production of TV content, major events, and weekly worship requires team members to own a part of the project and work together.”
VIDEO | David Benson
David Benson is the owner and general manager of local Media Support Group. He and his family have been Southcrest members for more than 20 years, and he has been involved with Southcrest’s media department for about 15 of those. “I’ve been a volunteer from day one,” he confirms. While in the planning phases for the new building, Benson reviewed the budget for projection and screens. “Our company has great relationships with LED wall manufacturers and installs a lot of them, so I knew that LED technology presented significant advantages,” he says.
Although the cost for LED walls was more than the quote for projection equipment, Benson knew that the new technology could provide what the church needed, as well as save the church money on upkeep. Benson and Media Support Group installed two Vanguard P5 (5mm pitch), 19- by 11-foot LED video screens installed stage left and right. Between the two screens, there are a total of 162 modular LED panels. The 16x9 ratio accommodates the HDSDI video. “Vanguard was willing to work with [us] on a design that would meet our needs and budget,” says Benson.
LED screens present several distinct advantages over more typical projectors and projection screens including brightness, reliability and resolution, Benson reports. And he also feels that the video walls provide a great look for video, making them an ideal fit for Southcrest’s ministry. The video walls are suspended with hoists so they can be lowered to stage level. This allows for both easy maintenance and the possibility of using the video walls as design elements on stage. Three Sony HXC-D70 cameras equipped with CAFB70 fiber back modules and HXCUFB70 fiber camera control units are mounted on Sachler 18S1SL tripods located in the house and technical booth. In addition, three Sony BRCH900 PTZ cameras are used, with two capturing action in the orchestra pit. A Ross Carbonite 2ME video switcher was installed in the video suite along with a Blackmagic Design 40x40 video router and Blackmagic Design SmartScope Duo waveform/vectorscope monitor. “The Ross switcher was an easy choice,” says Benson, “knowing the team had worked with them in the past. We like the dependability and capabilities.” Benson also notes that the Ross switcher is in use at other locations close by. “It makes it easier to recruit if we need an operator,” he says. “Having all that expertise nearby is like having a built-in user group.”
Three Blackmagic Design HyperDeck SSD recorders are used to record events and in for post processing. Equipment is mounted in Middle Atlantic control room console and equipment racks. An Apple iMac with ProPresenter software provides video content and a Clear-Com MS704 four-channel intercom system keeps the teams in contact during productions.
AUDIO | Rusty Trowbridge
Rusty Trowbridge
Rusty Trowbridge is a technical director and responsible for front-of-house (FOH) audio. As a consultant, Trowbridge had previous experience with various audio manufacturers and narrowed the field of potential audio suppliers to three, of which L-Acoustics stood out as the best fit for the new Southcrest worship center. Trowbridge, familiar with L-Acoustics loudspeaker designs and reputation, worked directly with the company to design a monophonic system for the room. “We wanted perfect sound in every seat,” he reports, “and knew a mono system would do just that.” In terms of audio challenges, the unique “clamshell” design of the stage creates a 180-degree amphitheater with an orchestra pit that holds 60 pieces, a raised loft for 225 choir members, and 10-12 praise team members on the platform.
All that action plus floor wedge monitors makes stage noise the major issue for the FOH engineer. Two factors that help are the acoustic treatment of about 50% of the wall space and the location of the choir nine feet above the orchestra. Both factors make for a clearer sounding mix, according to Trowbridge. To effectively cover 650 floor seats and 950 upper theater seats, Trowbridge worked with Stan Wagnon of Lubbock Audio Visual Inc. to implement his audio design. Eight L-Acoustics Karai loudspeakers were hung in a center cluster, with additional eight-box clusters on the left and right. Six L-Acoustics SB18 subwoofers were flown behind the center cluster with four L-Acoustics KS28 subs mounted under the stage to handle the lower sonic range of 30-45hz. Five L-Acoustics X8 provide front fills and six L-Acoustics Arcs are used as choir monitors with two L-Acoustics X15 HiQ installed at each side of the platform for side fill. A combination of 10 L-Acoustics LA4X and two L-Acoustics LA12X power amplifiers provide amplification for the system.For FOH audio, Trowbridge uses an SSL L300 console connect via an SSL BL II.D Blacklight II MADI concentrator to two ML 32.32 analogue stage boxes and a ML 32.0 analog stagebox. “It’s a great system for what we do,” he says. “It runs 192 paths over two strands of multimode fiber as a main, and has two as a backup in the unlikely case of a failure.” Trowbridge is a big fan of open architecture consoles that allow him to easily configure the number of inputs and outputs needed for a particular production. “We can configure console as needed,” he notes, “and that can give us processing power for inputs or more effects. Essentially, we can tell the console what we need it to be that day.”
For Southcrest that is typically a high channel count with approximately 86 inputs that must cover orchestra, choir and praise team. With that many inputs, the engineers report being appreciative of the L300’s layers and faders set up that makes the console easy to navigate. An additional SSL L300 console equipped with an RME MADIface XT USB 3 multi-tracking interface is dedicated for mixing audio for video. Southcrest’s microphone selection includes 12 Shure QLXD wireless microphones equipped with KSM9 capsules for vocals along with Audio Technica, DPA and Heil microphones for use with the orchestra.
AUDIO FOR VIDEO | Spencer Wells
Spencer Wells
Spencer Wells
Spencer Wells is the audio-for-video audio engineer who mixes and handles post production for television and mixes for Southcrest’s Internet broadcast. “To be effective,” Wells says, “services must sound great.” Broadcasts are mixed in post-production using ProTools, but during services two sound engineers are employed with one running live sound and the other mixing for the broadcast and stream.Audio in the new worship center is mono for clarity, but to create the best experience for Internet viewers, Spencer mixes audio for video in stereo.
For the Gospel to be heard clearly, Wells uses more compression on individual inputs. He also makes use of the SSL console’s group compression feature. “Compression helps to ‘glue’ the mix together,” he says. “The final product needs to be dynamic, but must be consistent—easy to listen to.” He notes that switching over to higher quality SSL consoles has made for noticeably better quality in the broadcast mixes. In addition to radio broadcasts, quality audio is a major feature of the video feeds sent to Wirecast, Southcrestlive.tv and FacebookLive. Broadcasts are viewed by 22,000 viewers each week a number that continues to grow. “Video is a wonderful tool for us to reach people with the Gospel,” notes Newman. Many worshippers check in from locations far from Lubbock, including packets of worshippers in Arkansas and California and even foreign countries.
LIGHTING | Robert "R.T." Todd
Robert Todd
Robert Todd
With years of theatrical experience and a degree in theater design and technology, Robert “R.T.” Todd is the production manager and is in charge of lighting design. For Southcrest’s television ministry, Todd handles the video production while Wells handles the audio. Lighting is something common to both Sunday services and video production. “How I light on Sunday,” says Todd, “affects how I edit on Monday.” For lighting purposes, having a platform that has three sides presents some interesting challenges. As Todd says, “lighting angles tend to ‘get creative.’” The result is that more than three directions of light are required to give dimension to people on the platform.
Todd has found that making the effort for better lighting makes live production easier, both on Sunday mornings and in post-production. Edited programs combine the sermon with music, lower thirds, and announcements from the church. Todd delivers two programs per week to four local networks on a three- to four-week delay. Having a background in theater, Todd insisted on high-quality ETC lighting control and fixtures. A ETC Gio 32k console was chosen for both reliability and ease of use by Todd’s volunteer crew. The console is supported by two ETC high-density, 48-dimmer Module Sensor 3 dimmer modules and lighting loads are switched through four ETC 24-relay Space Echo Panels. Eight Net3 DMX/RDM Two-Port Gateways provide distribution for lighting control signals. For lighting the new worship center, the team installed 10 ETC S4 LED Series Lustr 2 fixtures with Fresnel adapters along with 62 ETC Colorsource DB Par fixtures. ETC Source 4 ellipsoidal reflector spotlights were also installed, including 50 with 19-degree EDLT lens tubes, 40 with 14-degree lens tubes, and four with 10-degree lens tubes. ETC S4 Zoom ellipsoidal spotlights provide Todd with a variety of field angles with 14 15- to 30-degree fixtures and 10 25- to 50-degree fixtures installed. A Paradigm Architectural Control Processor (ACP) is used to control house lighting.
Teamwork by design
Having volunteers who are also AVL professionals has helped Southcrest Baptist Church to grow, both with the technology in their new facility and through their video ministry. However, it is the ability of Newman’s key players to work as a team that keeps them on top of their game. “It’s easy for worship pastors to not think about what is happening in the back of the room,” says Newman, “but the message is only as good as can be seen and heard.” Though some might see production teams as working behind the scenes, Newman views his team as fellow worship leaders. “They understand that our job is to present the Gospel. This is their mission and their ministry—not just a job.”
Why Southcrest Decided on LED Screens
Robert "R.T." Todd, is the production manager at Southcrest Baptist Church in Lubbock, Texas, which recently constructed a state of the art, 1600-seat facility. They installed two Vanguard P5 (5mm pitch), 19-by 11-foot LED screens instead of choosing projectors for video. For Southcrest, the benefits went beyond bulb replacement and energy savings.
“There would have to be two additional rooms in the building as projector rooms for a rear project system, or the projectors would be visible and a sight issue if [it were a front projection system],” he says. “Viewing angle also came into play as we were trying to make vision accessible to as many seats as possible.”He says working with now Vanguard (formerly Aeson), the LED screen manufacturer, was a very positive experience. “They were amazing to work with, and helpful in making sure everything was installed correctly and functioned well. People can see better and we can easily achieve our goals of using full image for worship as well as for sermons.”
