Lighting Project Spotlight: Journey Church

By: Craig Dereka

Since its inception in 2015, Journey Church of LaPorte, Indiana, has been more than just a place of worship. It is set upon one of the highest points in their county and includes a cozy auditorium setting. With its intimate 150-seat worship space, a warm and inviting atmosphere is present. The small space presents exciting challenges to the church as it grows and strives to enhance the worship experience.

Journey’s lighting specific frustrations and challenges were:

?Low 10ft ceilings

?Lighting control system that was too complex for volunteers

?Too many stage fixtures cluttering up the space

?Poor light coverage even with 32 individual fixtures dedicated to front wash

With the guidance of Pro Church Lights, a leading expert in lighting technology for churches, Journey Church embarked on a remarkable project to upgrade their stage lighting, aiming to set a new standard for illumination and ambiance for their worship services.

Out with the Old, In with the New

Journey Church accumulated a decent number of lights over the years. Over 40 light fixtures were installed that were dedicated to the stage. In such a small space, 40 fixtures were overwhelming as well as distracting. The lights cluttered up the ceiling and also introduced a lot of other problems such as color temperature differences, hot spots, and obstruction.

According to Frank Schabell, lead lighting designer at Pro Church Lights, “a lot of churches get caught up in buying and using a lot of lights in hopes of solving lighting problems - instead this usually leads to more problems. It’s best to focus on buying the correct fixtures for the job at hand -not the quantity”.

Journey went from 40 lights hung from their ceiling down to fourteen.

Nick Bello, lead pastor at Journey, was impressed. “For years our church has struggled to get our stage properly lit. PCL’s team of professionals came in, simplified our system and now our lighting is unbelievable using one-third of the lights that we were before! Our congregation has noticed a huge difference and our tech volunteers love the simplicity of use.”

Front Wash

The existing front wash at Journey was made up of old Par Cans retrofitted to LED, RGB pars, and a handful of lamp based ellipsoidals. The various fixture and lamp types contributed to mixed color temperatures which resulted in poor skin tone reproduction. This was apparent during live services as well as online which drove the video team MAD.

Thirty-two of their existing front wash fixtures were removed and replaced with six (yes six!) Pro Wash? fixtures by Pro Church Lights. The Pro Wash? is a 200w White LED fixture that produces a smooth and brilliant wash with a 45 degree beam angle. This was the key factor in allowing Journey to go from 32 fixtures to six. The correct light output matched with the correct beam angle allowed for maximum coverage of the stage. The Pro Wash? also included barndoors which were a key component to keeping light out of areas such as screens, walls, backdrops. Barndoors are one of the simplest (and lowest cost) tools in a lighting toolbox, yet most church lighting setups do not have them implemented.

Backlight

The prior backlight setup at Journey consisted of RGB dot-style pars which produced a very narrow beam. These dot-style pars had very poor color mixing ability as well which led to color inconsistency and poor reproduction of color. Journey also wanted the ability to have movement and variable beam sizing for additional creative options during worship. The low ceiling height also meant that the moving head had to be compact. Every inch mattered when dealing with a 9-foot ceiling height at the stage position.

The compact ZoomMini? moving head fixture by Pro Church Lights was utilized delivering smooth color mixing as well as a variable beam feature that allowed for 5 degree to 50 degree motorized sizing. 8 fixtures were utilized, 4 for the upstage area and 4 for the downstage area. The ZoomMini’s small footprint meant also that the fixture would not hang down too low. Journey’s low ceilings also meant that fixtures needed to be tucked between structural joists to keep them as high as possible. The ZoomMini? was a perfect tool for the job due to its compact size. Too big of a fixture and the light would be inches from the worship team’s heads.

Wall Wash and Moving Head Spots

The church had 8 existing Chauvet ColorRail Bars as well as 4 Eliminator moving head spots. These were re-utilized within the new design. The ColorRails were used to wash the back wall, cross and side stone walls. The Eliminators were re-purposed along the backline floor to provide texture and another visual layer to the space. Journey was thrilled that some of their existing fixtures were able to be redeployed in new locations on the stage to help enhance the atmosphere.

Haze

Haze is a touchy subject in a lot of churches. Some churches won’t do a service without it, others won’t even let a hazer near the building. Joking aside - the setup and use of a hazer should be taken seriously. If set up and located incorrectly, the comment cards will roll in. When set up well and in a location that works well with the room, the haze will be even and not noticeable until lit with a beam of light.

Journey had an existing Antari Z-350 on hand that was used only a few times. The church stopped hazing early on due to complaints and poor haze outcomes. They really wanted to see the light beams and utilize haze again but they were hesitant to try again after such a poor outcome the first time. With guidance from the PCL team on location, intensity and strategic timing noted on when to begin hazing the room - they were able to successfully redeploy their hazer in a way that was complimentary to the worship service. And best of all, they shared no comment cards came in - rather complements were given and how everything looked crisp and clean.

Control

Journey Church had been utilizing MagicQ by Chamsys with a Mini Connect control surface. While MagicQ is a very popular and feature rich control system, it does come with a steep learning curve for most people. Volunteers need to be set up for success when it comes to programming lights, and the control system is a key area that prohibits this. The weakest link in any lighting setup is not the gear, but the person operating. But as leaders of our production team and volunteers - we need to do what we can to set them up for success. And that means implementing software and control that people can grasp quickly, yet powerful enough for them to be as creative as they can.

LightKey was chosen and implemented due to its ease of use and gaining popularity. The Journey volunteers were very quickly able to move lights, select new colors and build presets for their upcoming weekend worship service.

Since there is not a proprietary control surface for LightKey, a midi board with faders was added into the setup. The AKAI APC mini was utilized and gave the tech the ability to have faders and set various colors

and presets to the buttons on the board.

House Lights

Edison bulbs hang over the congregation at Journey Church. These were originally controlled by a typical wall dimmer which posed playback problems during the live service. Journey wanted the ability to control their houselights using LightKey. To do this a DMX dimmer was added to the setup, all bulbs powered through the dimmer and now able to be controlled through LightKey.

A Wall Panel Pro? was added to the setup which gave access to people or groups using the auditorium during the week to simply turn on house lights or stage lights, all using the simple touch panel located near the room entrance. The Wall Panel Pro? allows for simple saving of presets allowing anyone to pull up lighting “looks” without needing to turn on the lighting computer. Perfect for bible studies, cleaning, wedding, or any other situation where some lights need to be turned on quickly by untrained people.

It’s easy to get caught up in the sparkle, glamor and glory of large scale lighting setups and high-end production in churches – which is why we are showing off what Journey Church of small town La Porte Indiana was able to accomplish. Seeing smaller churches go through a lighting transformation, reutilize existing gear and add the correct tools for the job is refreshing. At the end of the day, the lights don’t matter. What matters is we create a space where people are welcomed, loved, and shown the love of Christ – a space where they can begin their walk with their lord and savior without distraction and with excellence.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Craig’s passion for lights starts at age six, creating light shows in his parents living room. At 12, he was running lights at church. His passion eventually led him to becoming a producer within the corporate events industry. With 25+ years of production and lighting experience, he now leads Pro Church Lights and prioritizes pouring out knowledge and wisdom upon tech and worship teams.

How to Establish a Good Haze

If you’re considering haze or are currently getting poor results, there are a few factors that contribute to the final outcome, especially in a small auditorium. In larger auditoriums, it’s much easier to get good results. In smaller spaces, like the one at Journey - it is easy to get stuck in a very bad situation (think over hazing and reduced visibility in a major way). Remember.

?Experiment with different hazer placementsand test with your HVAC system on.

?Incorporate a box fan and help disbursehaze faster throughout the area

?Haze 20 minutes before doors to build yourhaze base, then move into maintenancemode at a very low intensity to maintain thebase you built.

?Choose a hazer that is of good quality.Ultra-tec by Radiance is an excellentchoice. The Antari Z-350 produced goodresults in Journey’s space as well. We do not recommend purchasing low priced hazers.