Bellevue Community Church

New Tech Director's New Plasmas

Implementing new technology is a two-edged sword, especially if it's expensive and it needs to do things nobody else has tried. It provides exciting new capabilities, but it can also fail miserably. Because most churches prefer not to fail they pick tried-and-true technology, but a select few are willing to push the technology envelope. Bellevue Community Church, in Nashville TN, is one of those churches, and making it more complex the new technical director started the first day of the install.

What technology did Bellevue Community want to push to the edge? The goal was to display hip and trendy video content above stage on plasmas. Really big 65-inch plasmas, the largest available at the time, and they wanted them to work in portrait or landscape. Engineering the system and selecting the correct truss required careful planning and installation to ensure every message series has supporting content, no matter the orientation.

The second technical hurdle to overcome is how do you control them? Bellevue Community wanted to support both independent and simultaneous display of content for the plasmas. Mankin Media Systems designed a system using two content management computers connected to a matrix allowing the technical team to send any content to any plasma. We even integrated the system into the campus-wide digital signage solution.

The result is big, beautiful content with the house lights up or down. The ministry team has more flexibility in designing content for any message series. The technical team has a cutting edge system that is volunteer friendly and looks great from the seats. Not bad for the tech director's first day on the job.