Though admittedly not involved in anything arts or performance related while in school, these days Houston Clark finds himself sharing the helm of Clark Promedia with his brother, George, where together they design and build sophisticated audio, video, and lighting performance systems, primarily for the house of worship market.
Clark helped found the company – based in Alpharetta, Georgia – in 1996 while he continued to work in the software industry. He eventually joined the company full-time in 2002. The brothers complemented each other well with Houston concentrating on the business side, (sales, marketing and operations), while George focused on the performance technology aspects.
Houston Clark recalls, “A lot of it really originated out of a passion to work with my brother. We were eight years apart age-wise and really didn’t know each other as adults. I had left for college when he was in sixth grade.
“So it wasn’t until he got in college in Atlanta, that we really spent any amount of time together as adults, and just realized that we really enjoyed one another. We’re very different from a personality perspective. The desire to work together was the starting point. Over time we both developed an incredible passion for the church and helping the church create engaging environments. And obviously media – multimedia is a huge part of creating an engaging environment in today’s church culture.”
While they knew what they wanted to do, it took them a little while to determine a specific area to concentrate on. Clark continues, “The first couple of years, we did literally anything from conference rooms to production events. In fact, we produced a user conference event for the software company I worked for, and worked at whatever else we could in this industry.”
Around 1997 George Clark started to work with sound at Northpoint Community Church, and his brother notes, “We convinced Northpoint to let us do their audio system for a 2,700-seat auditorium, which is just crazy. I mean there’s no way they should have done that.
“But that allowed us to start with a church that was influential, and that really is what solidified the market niche we’re in. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the number of churches that were new and needed to build facilities that embraced and valued performance technologies was just exploding.
“And we just happened to be in that position. We had the incredible opportunity to literally start with one of the most influential churches in the country.”
Looking back, he concedes, “It was crazy. Today if I were competing for a job it would be unheard of for someone to say, ‘Well I’ve never done this before, but I really think I could do a good job.’ You know, I could tear that up from a competitive perspective, given the risks you are taking, it’s just crazy. You’ve got to look back at that and say it’s a total God thing because they were crazy to do it, but George had the confidence that he could do a good job.”
The facility at Northpoint, called the East Auditorium, is operating currently with fundamentally the same system Clark Promedia installed over a decade ago.
Community, Culture & The Church
Clark has strong feelings regarding the topic of the church understanding and responding to the culture of the community it serves, as well as being relevant in its presentation both in method and content.
“What I’ve learned is that you could have phenomenal content and average platform, and by platform I mean the audio, video, and theatrical lighting solution, and you’re just beating people back with a stick,” he says. “Conversely, you can have an incredible platform, but your content just isn’t that relevant. I think that’s the conundrum many churches are finding themselves in.
