Church Sound Article Tue, December 02, 2008

Thanks to an Electro-Voice distributed sound system and NetMax N8000 DSP control system, congregation members can hear the word loud and clear during sermons performed by Young, his brother Senior Pastor Scott Young, or any of the other six pastors on staff. The addition of a three screen, six-projector video system controlled by dual Vista System Spyders, takes the projection systems to the next level. According to Young, this particular combination of blending and warping through a dual control system has never been done before, and required some technical support from the projector manufacturer to help get it to perform properly. Meanwhile, architectural and theatrical lighting help set the atmosphere in the sanctuary with colorful wall washes and other special effects.

But that’s not where the Church of Hope’s technology begins.

The prominent “Tower of Hope,” a 15-story steeple, employs the same lights used in Las Vegas’s Luxor hotel; 3.2 billion candle power of illumination highlights a 100-foot cross, while Studio Due CityBeams wash the outside of the tower in colored lights.

When congregation members pull in to the parking lot, they hear music distributed through 30 loudspeakers mounted on 25-foot-high poles.

All this, plus extensive A/V, lighting and broadcast systems inside the building, showcases the church’s commitment to technology.

Room to Grow
When Senior Pastor Scott Young, Peter’s brother, joined the interdenominational Church of Hope in 1996, it had only 35 members and was deep in debt. Dynamic growth brought the church up to 500 members by the time Peter Young arrived in 2000. At that rate, the church would soon outgrow its 17,000-square-foot building.

“The property itself would not have allowed us to expand beyond 1,500 people,” Young explains. “We were living and operating on a campus that was far too cramped.”

After four years of prayer, negotiations, bids, building permits, fundraising, and architectural planning, the church broke ground, in 2005, on a 52,000-square-foot worship center spanning 16 acres of the church’s new 50-acre property on I-75.  On Palm Sunday in 2007, the Church of Hope held services in its new sanctuary, signifying the completion of phase one of the six-phase building project.

The facility includes a sanctuary with room for 1,390 chairs, a 3,500-square-foot foyer with an espresso bar and eight LCD screens, a game room called “The Zone,” a choir rehearsal room, a life center, a worship chapel, a recording studio, and office space.

Total cost of the audio, video, lighting, and broadcast systems exceeded $1.2 million, with close to $700,000 going to video, including broadcast systems, $400,000 spent on audio, and approximately $150,000 spent on lighting.

Winter Springs, Florida-based Encore Broadcast Solutions designed, specified, and installed most of the audio, video, and broadcast systems, but sub-contracted parts of the project. Encore’s Jeff Cameron says, “They wanted to do some pretty sophisticated stuff … and wanted to find someone who would work with them within their budget.”

The church saved money by selecting a lower-cost, yet equally effective distributed sound system instead of a line array loudspeaker system, sub-contracting Longwood, Florida-based Pro Audio Solutions to install the audio gear, and buying the lighting fi xtures direct from Jacksonville, Florida-based ARC Associates Lighting Inc. With help from ARC’s President Fred Costantini and world-renowned lighting director Dan McKendrick, Young designed the lighting systems himself. Young was exceptionally pleased with the entire experience, noting, “Above Encore, I really chose Jeff Cameron. I was confident in his competence to supply the right equipment and to work with me when I needed something. We built a trust relationship.”

Distributed Sound
The audio system in the sanctuary was designed to grow with the church. In the future, the sanctuary can become a gymnasium and youth sanctuary, with zoned sound systems and a movable athletic curtain.