First Christian Church

Relevant Digital Wallpaper

Easter weekend has a way of sharpening the focus at church because everything from the sermon to the coffee receives an extra level of scrutiny. With a high-profile event it's important that the church think about how they communicate to their audience when several hundred extra people, many first-time guests or members who've missed a few services, will attend. First Christian Church, Huntington Beach CA, views Easter as an opportunity to engage the audience and create compelling messages with new technology. They turned to Mankin Media Systems to help dream big about new technology.

The idea was to create a digital canvas on stage that reinforces the musical or teaching content. During worship the canvas would show pictures that reinforce the lyrics and enhance the experience. During the message from the pastor, the canvas would reinforce his message with graphical content.

First Christian selected our 3D: Dream, Design and Deploy process to create the projection and video control systems for the project. Our first goal was to select multi-projection technology that would allow a blended image to be shown across one massive screen. In order to maximize the church's investment we selected technology that would work seamlessly with existing video components. To make the projection system work we upgraded the existing video infrastructure by running new video tie lines and electrical lines. We gave careful consideration to the design of the projection system and sight lines to ensure the rear-projected system would not interfere with on-stage activities.

The message from the senior pastor was reinforced by the dramatic visuals with a cinematic style and effect that the previous system was incapable of reproducing. Tying the message to onscreen visuals built rapport and helps establish a relationship between the message, the presenter and the audience. The results for the church were spectacular as the 30' screen created an environment that captivated the audience with powerful graphics, lyrics and video. For that week the screen not only became part of the stage, but an integral part of the service.

The church was thrilled with the results because they had the best Easter service ever with more folks not only coming on Easter Sunday, but more people coming back the next week to experience church.

Resources

• First Christian Church Case Study (116 KB PDF)