There’s no denying that the pandemic has changed how churches are doing church. For lighting designers (as for all church tech artists), live streaming has them thinking about the camera more than ever before. Recently, Church Production sat down with three lighting designers to discuss their approach to production lighting––and the advice they have for those aspiring to get into the field.
KEITHAN CARROLL / ASSOCIATE PRODUCTION DIRECTOR
Transformation Church,Tulsa, Oklahoma
Keithan Carroll began operating lights at his local church as a teenager. This activity grew into a full-blown career, with him running audio, video, and lighting for touring acts as well as corporate events. However, he says that church––and the opportunities it offers to minister to up-and-coming lighting designers––is his calling.
“[In the church], I’m able to share the knowledge that I have with the younger generations, and even with people who are older than me that didn’t have the resources and connections that I have to be able to learn what I learned,” Carroll says.
Of the three production disciplines, Carroll says that he is most at home when he’s designing and running lights. “Creating a distraction-free, engaging experience that provokes emotional responses is my goal,” he says. “If I’ve enhanced what the worship leaders are doing, or what the sermon message is, I know I’ve done my job.” At Transformation Church, Carroll currently works with a video director, video systems engineer, systems manager, and video supervisor, as well as contractors for Sunday services. On any given week he’s overseeing production, lighting programming, or he’s in a lead producer role.
Before the pandemic, Transformation Church had purchased the SpiritBank Event Center, a roughly 5,000-seat facility in Tulsa. The church was only able to celebrate a couple of services before everything locked down. As of this writing, services continue to be online-only and live streamed from its old facility, with an in-person “studio audience” of 300 to 400 members.
The focus on streaming has required Carroll to adapt his lighting designs for a remote audience. “In the room, I want to create this emotional connection. How do I do that for streaming?” he challenges. “I’ve got to play to the cameras at that point.” He adds that his experience in video production has helped him with this, since he knows the camera’s limitations and how far he can push things before they don’t work on screen.
Once back in Transformation Church’s new home, Carroll will be manning a lighting rig consisting of hundreds of fixtures. While the system’s scope addresses the former SpiritBank arena’s size, he says that he will be using this technology thoughtfully. And, he argues, churches of any size can produce quality lighting designs that serve their message. “It’s about the intentionality of what you’re doing, and the excellence in what you’re doing,” he says. “In anything I do––including lighting––I want to represent God in excellence so people can come one step closer to Him. That’s what I want to do.”
KRISTI SMITH / LIGHTING DIRECTOR
Flatirons Community Church, Lafayette, Colorado
Kristi Smith began her lighting career in college. She was in the process of changing majors, and an actor friend encouraged her to explore the technical arts. In doing so, she discovered how much she enjoyed storytelling with lights.
At Flatirons Community Church, she began by running lights at the church’s satellite campuses. Three years ago, she was promoted to the position of lighting director at Flatirons’ 4,400-seat broadcast location. There, her lighting designs address a hybrid worship environment, as worshippers attend in person, as well as online.
“I love backlighting, I love silhouettes, I love washing people in color,” Smith says of her designs. “I don’t want [online worshippers] to feel separated, where [the people on stage] have so much front light on them that you can’t tell what color it is.” She explains that the church’s live streams feature a lot of tight shots, and that it’s important to give the online viewer context. “If they’re taking tight shots, I like for viewers to see that because it helps establish the mood.”
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Smith encourages aspiring lighting designers to take risks and try new looks––even if they may not always be appreciated. She relays that every Thursday the Flatirons production team does a run-through for weekend services, and this is when she presents her designs to her colleagues. Every now and then, one of the risks she takes is met with a tepid response. “Be willing to take that, but don’t let that stop you from trying new things,” she says. “Every designer has their own style––like I said, I love backlighting and silhouettes, and that’s me. I’m not saying everybody should do that, because it’s art, and art is very subjective.”
Art is also about conversation, and Smith urges designers to connect with as many professionals as possible to learn about how they approach lighting design, and the techniques that they apply. “To get into this role, you need to learn from the people who have been doing it more, and even people who are new to the field,” she says. After college, Smith worked concerts for a production company alongside a colleague; they, too, were starting their career, but still had lessons to share. “I learned a lot from them. You can learn from everybody, so just take it all in. The biggest thing in this role is just reaching out to people.”
JOHN WEYGANDT / LIGHTING DESIGNER
Cherry Hills Community Church, Highlands Ranch, Colorado
John Weygandt began his church lighting career in the 1990s. At the time, his designs were for fully in-person services; while the church he worked at incorporated IMAG into its services, the camera didn’t play the major role it does now.
“My job was to make it beautiful,” Weygandt says. “Yes, we were playing to the camera somewhat [but] now it’s about perfecting what I do based on the definition of the camera and what looks good to the camera.”
Weygandt admits that this is challenging for him, but not from a technical perspective. He says that it’s causing him to ask himself some big questions about how––largely because of the pandemic––church has evolved.
“I’m asking really serious questions of myself as a professional and doing the Lord’s work,” Weygandt says. “As I approach, potentially, the end of my career in church lighting, have I spent it well? Have I followed what I thought were my marching orders from God for good church lighting? It was easy in the early days because it was about beauty; I could lead people in worship by making visual beauty in the room where we came together because church was about being together. I don’t think beauty has left the equation entirely––I think it’s still present for the camera––but it’s been reshaped, redefined, reorganized.”
While technical artists challenge themselves to grow in their craft, Weygandt reminds us that it’s the bigger questions that can influence how and why they’re pursuing this calling. He recounts a recent experience where he attended a church service that had no production lighting at all––a far cry from Cherry Hills, whose contemporary services incorporate concert-style production. “I hope that people are able to confront the big questions––not just how to do this, but why. And one of those big questions must be: is lighting necessary? Why is lighting necessary? How much lighting is necessary?” he challenges. “I’ve had a very healthy, exciting, and energetic time in this field, and I have loved being part of church production, always striving to find: how do we communicate with a body of people sitting in a room? And now we’re not sitting in the room together––or few of us are,” he says. “It’s very challenging to me as a person who thinks about ministry, and who thinks about my role in the world. How am I spending my best hours of my day? And the camera wins. But it all comes back to: what is church all about?”
DISCLAIMER: The thoughts expressed here are entirely from John Weygandt. They do not indicate or reflect a philosophy of Cherry Hills Community Church or any of his previous employers.
