This Is What a Tech-Savvy Church Looks Like
You’ll be hard-pressed to find a churchgoer who carries a Bible to Church at the Springs on Sundays—and lead pastor Ron Sylvia doesn’t mind.
At “the Springs,” as it’s known—a multisite church based in Ocala, Fla.—most of its 3,000 or so members follow along during services with the YouVersion Bible app on their phones. Up front, Sylvia teaches from an iPad. Toss in contemporary-rock worship music, state-of-the-art LED screens, and Text to Give software (to simplify tithing), and it’s not difficult to see how the
pastor has cultivated such a following. “I don’t want people to step into a time warp to meet God,” Sylvia says. “The message will never change, but the method must. And our method is our delivery system.”
The 57-year-old pastor, a self-professed lover of numbers and technology, was studying for a bachelor’s degree in accounting when he entered the church ministry at age 21. What followed was two decades of trial and experimentation as Sylvia—moved by “a clear calling to start a contemporary church”—founded Church at the Springs in 1994.
The Bridge Bible Church in Bakersfield, California, has plans for its future. The 12-year-old house of worship, whose sanctuary today accommodates 1,200 worshippers at a time – a total of 2,5000 weekly across three Sunday services, is considering adding a satellite location sometime in the next year or two, which will necessitate the acquisition and integration of video cameras and I-MAG projection, something they don’t need currently thanks to an architectural design whose curved balcony makes for a pleasantly intimate worship space. But when The Bridge Bible Church makes its expansion move, its media infrastructure will be ready, thanks to the purchase earlier this year of a Roland V-1200HD Multi-Format Video Switcher. The Roland V-1200HD was purchased through Pacific West Sound, also in Bakersfield.
For Water of Life Community Church, video has long been an essential component in bringing its message to local congregants and followers around the world. When the non-denominational church recently expanded with a new facility and state-of-the-art technical equipment, they chose Z‑HD5000 HDTV cameras from Hitachi Kokusai Electric America Ltd. (Hitachi Kokusai) to provide the high-quality image acquisition they wanted to underpin their video initiatives.
In addition to being one of the most popular worship experiences in Austin, Life Austin Church has recently opened the beautiful 1000 seat Life Austin Amphitheatre. LightParts has been working with Life Austin Church since 2013, and the church turned to LightParts to fill some of their Amphitheatre lighting needs with High End Systems gear, including 20 intellaspots, five SHAPESHIFTER C1’s and the FQ-100 Fogger. Control is handled with a Road Hog Full Boar 3 console.
A large and diverse mix of church technicians and worship leaders from four states came to Tabernacle of Praise in suburban Atlanta to participate in an educational tech session sponsored by CHAUVET Professional and Church Production magazine. The first in what will become an ongoing series of “Church Production Live!” seminars, the event covered a variety of lighting, video and audio issues involving churches today.
Beaverton Foursquare is a contemporary church serving the Beaverton, Oregon area for over 50 years. The church holds three services on Sundays, with an average total attendance of 4,500 weekly. The Spirit-filled church offers a worship style that is a mixture of contemporary music along with a fresh take on the great hymns of the church. To serve those needs, the facility recently reached out to Hillsboro, Oregon-based Small Town Productions for a solution.
