Church Sound Article Fri, December 05, 2008

You’re inside Browns Bridge Community Church’s auditorium for the fi rst time, and the worship band kicks into high gear with a sound that’s loud but pleasant. It thumps you in the chest, yet your ears aren’t overloaded. Every spoken word is intelligible, even though you’re sitting in the very back of the 2,056-seat venue. The side-screen IMAG of the lead singer is so crystal clear that you wonder if you’ve ever encountered anything that comes close. Then, after casual announcements from Campus Director Lane Jones and a glance or two at a slick, four-color promo piece you picked up at the door, it’s time for the sermon. Now on stage is Senior Pastor Andy Stanley, and he quickly draws you into his topic for thought and prayer. As Stanley stands before you on the stage, you hear attendees answer aloud to questions he masterfully poses. You even fi nd yourself answering amid the crowd. Stanley is on stage, yet his message was pre-recorded weeks before. You know it’s so, but it doesn’t matter. Welcome to enhanced reality.

Browns Bridge Community Church (BBCC)
Browns Bridge sits in Forsyth County, a prime location north of metro Atlanta, Georgia and near well-populated Lake Lanier. The 150,000-square-foot campus grew out of North Point Community Church in suburban Alpharetta, Georgia, just 20 miles to the south. The parent organization, North Point Ministries, includes another satellite as well, Buckhead Church, in a thriving urban area known as Buckhead. The $30-million Browns Bridge campus consists of a main auditorium with 1,522 non-fi xed seats on the main level and 534 fi xed seats in the balcony, for a total of 2,056 seats. A children’s worship area includes 317 non-fi xed seats as well as a carpeted space for children to sit on the fl oor. A youth space holds another 360 middle schoolers at two different service times. And the facility includes 48 small group gathering rooms as well as offi ces for church staff. As North Point Community Church grew to maximum capacity, leadership decided to add more campuses. BBCC Campus Director Lane Jones relates, “Five years ago when North Point began to outgrow its facility, we decided to add campuses instead of increasing the current capacity. Our goals in [building] Browns Bridge were to free up space at North Point by moving 1,500 people from that campus, and to use that core group of people to reach the unchurched people in the area around BBCC.” Most Sundays, North Point Ministries provides a pre-recorded digital video sermon for BBCC. According to Tyler Reagin, director of service programming for Browns Bridge, a sizable backstage area houses Barco rear projection equipment that transports the speaker’s video message, digitally, onto the center screen. Jones’s role is to then provide a platform presence in most services, welcoming people and delivering announcements. “I preach during weeks when we have a campus-specifi c need or if there’s a gap between video sermons,” he explains. “We have live worship as well as other live elements that complement the [pre-recorded] video message.” Those elements include a live professional praise and worship band. And the church typically focuses on Sunday worship rather than hosting touring acts. The staff at Browns Bridge is quick to emphasize that cyber sermons don’t mean a lack of human interaction. Jones says the video aspect of the service is well-received by attendees and members alike.

BBCC Video To deliver its enhanced-reality, 100%-digital cyber sermons, Browns Bridge staff turned to Alpharetta, Georgia-based Clark ProMedia, a performance engineering fi rm that has played an instrumental role in designing the tech systems at each North Point Ministries’ campus. Chris Briley, BBCC production director, explains how BBCC’s all-important video component is received and managed. “We mainly designed our video system after the North Point Community Church control room. A digital router is at the heart of our video system. This allows us to put any source to any destination at any time. We only have a 16-input switcher, but with the router attached to it our options are endless.” The primary use of BBCC’s system is IMAG, yet video clips, song lyrics, Scripture, and incredible graphics round out the experience. Clark ProMedia’s Matt Card, vice president of client development, sums up the necessary video equipment components and their roles. “The church installed a Ross Synergy 2 video switcher, supporting three Panasonic SPX800 standard defi nition cameras and several Panasonic HVX100 roamer cameras.”

Video playback is provided by computer software from Renewed Vision. “Software includes a program called Pro Video Player for playing video clips, Pro Video Sync for playback of the pre-recorded teachings, and Pro Presenter for lyric text presentations,” Card reports.

On BBCC’s stage set, the video is displayed on an expansive center screen, measuring 17 feet by 28 feet, using a Barco XLM HD30, a 30,000-lumen projector. In addition, two side screens, measuring nine feet by 16 feet, utilize Barco SLM R12 12,000-lumen projectors.