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The 1,700-seat auditorium at RFA Church’s new location features L-Acoustics Kiva, Arcs and X-Series loudspeakers, a Yamaha CL5 digital console with Shure QLX-D wireless mics, and Sennheiser EK300 wireless in-ear monitoring systems.
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A combination of 90 LED fixtures by Chauvet and Elation are affixed to a 60-foot by 14-foot pipe grid that CSD designed and installed on the stage’s rear wall.
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"They’re not adding technology because it’s really great to have all these toys, they’re adding technology because they’re understanding the value of this moment, this event, in terms of its energy." - Adam Henderson, Operations Manager, CSD Group, Fort Wayne, IN
When Charlie Perkins arrived at RFA Church in Raleigh, N.C., six years ago, the house of worship was embarking on a major transition. “We're a 50-plus-year-old Assemblies of God church, and had been at our previous location for [more than] 20 years,” he relays. “We were very established, but we were pretty landlocked as far as what we could do; we were landlocked as far as adding any other buildings, and we couldn't really expand our sanctuary.”
This led to the purchase of a 92,000-square-foot industrial facility, 58,000 square feet of which has been transformed into a church. (RFA Church has plans to retrofit the remaining square footage in the future.) The church commissioned CSD Group, an audio, video, lighting, and acoustics design and integration firm based in Fort Wayne, Ind., to provide acoustics, audio, video, and lighting for its 1,700-seat sanctuary, as well as throughout the facility (including a kids' worship area and a video venue in the café, which is used for overflow seating).
Acoustics, Audio & Video
For the main sanctuary, the first order of business for CSD was to tackle the acoustics. The space was large, but with a low, 25-foot ceiling, and its open steel construction made it too live for a worship setting. CSD specified and installed 118 custom acoustic panels by Golterman and Sabo, an architectural products company headquartered in St. Louis. “It really deadens the room,” explains Adam Henderson, operations manager at CSD. “When you have a live room—where sound just bounces and bounces and bounces—your first goal is to deaden it and then, in essence, fill it with audio.” Fitted along the back and sidewalls of the worship center as well as over the doorways, the panels, in conjunction with padded seating, help to achieve this.
The sanctuary’s main audio system is comprised of L-Acoustics KIVA line arrays, with L-Acoustics ARCS Wide and Focus used for side fills, and X-Series speakers for front fills. To cover the bass frequencies, CSD flew four 15-inch L-Acoustics subwoofers and installed four 18-inch subwoofers under the stage. A Yamaha CL5 sits at front-of-house (FOH), complemented by Yamaha RIO digital stage boxes. For monitoring, 1964Ears provided in-ear monitor earbuds, Sennheiser provided the transmitters/receivers for wireless in-ear monitoring, and Aviom supplied personal mixing systems.
“Everything we do is laser-focused for that Sunday experience & making sure that it’s top-notch & as good as it possibly can be. We think through the details to make sure that when people arrive here, that we’re providing the best opportunity.."
Charlie Perkins
Worship & Creative Pastor, RFA Church, Raleigh, NC.
For video, RFA Church uses three Panasonic HD cameras in combination with Eiki HD projectors to capture and project images onto two wide, 226-inch diagonal Da-Lite screens flown above the stage. “When we put the camera positions in, we wanted to make sure we [gave them] the basic camera angles, but we also had to put them in so that they didn’t kill sightlines,” Henderson explains, noting that there were a number of posts and pillars that presented some obstacles initially. The screens, he adds, needed to be wide enough to work within these sightlines, as well as to cover the entire room. “These are basic issues with a short, wide space—you’ve got a lot of spread to cover. They are simple things, but they always had to be in mind when we were doing the job.” Video switching and recording are achieved through Blackmagic Design systems.
“We wanted to make sure we could capture the excitement that was going on in our church,” explains Jon Murray, media lead at RFA Church. “[In the past,] we did have exciting things happening, but it was kind of hard to convey that to people who couldn’t be there every Sunday. As far as video, we really wanted [CSD] to help us capture that, and I think they’ve done a great job.”
Lighting, Overall Infrastructure & Direction
RFA Church wanted this space to maintain a level of intimacy in which worshippers would be immersed in the experience, and lighting plays a primary role in this. A combination of 90 LED fixtures by Chauvet and Elation are affixed to a 60-foot by 14-foot pipe grid that CSD designed and installed on the stage’s rear wall. For color washing, the church is using Elation Rayzor Q12 Zoom moving heads, with Satura Spot fixtures providing moving accent lighting, and DW Profiles for key lighting. Several ReelFX hazers are used for effects, and 80 ChromaQ Inspire RGBW LED house lights allow operators to extend what’s happening on stage into the house. “They really wanted to bridge the gap between the stage ‘up there’ and ‘out here,’” Henderson explains. “This goes a long way toward bridging that gap, and it gives them a lot of flexibility.” The lighting system is controlled by a Jands Vista S1 console with 2,048 DMX channels.
Perkins, worship and creative pastor at RFA Church, explains that one of the primary goals for this project was to get the infrastructure in place to allow for future expansion. “We made sure that the beginning groundwork was laid and done right for us,” he says. “That would be a suggestion I would have for other churches. In every church, dollars are always going to be limited. Do the infrastructure right, and then that way, down the road you’re able to add building blocks on what you did.”
This is partly why Perkins is emphatic about working with a reputable AV design and integration company from the outset.
“Bring the AV guys to the table immediately,” he advises. “Don’t build a building and then try to put sound in it. Don’t build a building and then try to put lights in it. Bring all those people to the forefront from the very beginning and almost build the building around the AV.” He notes that this approach prevents poor results and saves money. “That was one of the great things for us with CSD: we were able to talk with them from the very beginning before anything was ever done in this building that we had purchased, and that’s really what helped us.”
Staff Notes
Presently, RFA Church’s tech staff consists of Perkins, Murray, and newcomer Brock Sawyer in the position of music and creative assistant. “As the new guy [just] coming in, it’s real nice to have the technology they had from the get-go,” Sawyer says. “Because we have the newest and greatest things that we can utilize every weekend, it releases us to be able to concentrate on why we’re here.”
Henderson notes that he comes from a pastoral background, and in his work with churches both at CSD as well as in his personal life, he is seeing houses of worship increase their use of technology as a tool for ministry. “They’re not adding technology because it’s really great to have all these toys, they’re adding technology because they’re understanding the value of this moment, this event, in terms of its energy. And that’s not really a technology discussion, but technology has got to serve that or it’s misplaced.”
For Perkins, the tech department’s job at RFA Church is to provide an immersive environment in which people can experience life change. “Everything we do is laser-focused for that Sunday experience and making sure that it’s top-notch and as good as it possibly can be,” he explains. “We think through the details to make sure that when people arrive here, that we’re providing the best opportunity for them to meet the Lord. That’s what we’re here to do.”
