Colorful LEDs Transform the Worship Experience at Speak The Word Church
At Speak The Word Church International in Minneapolis, lead pastor Randy Morrison encourages the congregation to be “problem solvers” by tapping into their God-given creativity.
The church was experiencing a problem with their existing lighting system as maintenance costs were skyrocketing while reliability was spiraling downward. Heat produced by lamp sources and the power needed to run the stage lighting system stressed older components and led to many moving light and dimmer module failures.
Lighting consultant Travis Slyter is a technical problem solver and has been the lighting designer and programmer at the church since 2007. Slyter is also the sales manager with locally-based visual design company Ruehling Associates, Inc.
An LED Solution
Slyter recommended a new cost-effective LED lighting system with increased stability and versatility for their worship services, holiday specials, music and dance performances, and broadcast/live streaming.
The transformation of the lighting system took several phases. First, the church sold off or donated most of their lamp-based automated lights and conventional fixtures and replaced the stage dimmer racks with 96-channels of DMX-controlled relay/dimmer modules.
The new PCS Trio System from Lex Products allows the church to mix and match 110 and 208 VAC relays with traditional dimmer modules. Slyter explains, “When we started the design process over two years ago, we planned to keep some stage dimmers for TV lighting of the stage and audience. We later simplified the system by installing LED fixtures with integrated DMX dimming, so the system is now all relays except for a couple of dimmers for some architectural elements that still have incandescent fixtures built inside them. The system’s modularity allows for remote control of power circuits for everything from chain motors, to LED video panels, moving lights, conventional dimmers and eventually low-voltage dimmers for an LED house light conversion in the near future.
“Next, we consolidated the key lighting for speaking, dance and music to a single system of 36 Desisti F-10VW LED Fresnels, which have variable color temperature,” Slyter continues. “We can have intimate, warm tungsten looks for speaking and drama or bolder, cold daylight looks for dance and music.”
Following that, the church combined the remaining key lights (for musicians, vocalists and drama) with the scenic and effects lighting into a single system of LED moving lights.
Fixture Features
Familiar with High End Systems’ LED line of automated fixtures, Slyter specified the Sola Series for the main auditorium, including 20 SolaSpot 2000s, 6 SolaFrame 750s, 18 SolaHyBeam 2000s, 6 SolaWash 2000s and 4 SolaSpot 1000s. This range of lighting would provide all the bells and whistles of automated fixtures, but with all the energy savings and color consistency benefits of LEDs — along with its patented lens defogging system.
Slyter adds, “The consistent color temperature of the white LEDs allows us to use CTO on the Sola fixtures and CTB on the Desisti Fresnels for a ‘warm daylight’ look near 5,000K that has become the new standard for broadcast wash. We can have smooth subtle CMY cross-fades and still have split colors and color scrolls for bolder moments.”
The high output of the SolaSeries’ LED engines covers more area with fewer fixtures and gives flexibility to light areas from multiple locations, which improves broadcast coverage and provides multiple creative layers, Slyter explains. “The framing shutters are invaluable in shaping light to just where it’s needed. They are a definite plus in the SolaWash and SolaHyBeam fixtures, which are often used as key lights along with the SolaFrames.
“We also installed five Robe Spikies as we needed a compact, versatile fixture for a variable wash, tight beam and pixel effects,” Slyter continues. “Plus, it offers the unique bonus of a center Spikie micro-ACL node with a flower beam-splitter effect, to give us another layer of aerial effects and break-ups.”
The main auditorium also includes two Philips/CK ColorBlast 12 washes, 24 ETC Sensor D20 Dimmers (for houselights) and various other accessories including Look Solutions Unique Hazers and F-100 Foggers.
The Video Setup
The movement to LEDs also extended to the video system.
Part of the lighting upgrade included replacing a large front projection screen on the upstage wall with a 24-by-10-foot 3mm LED video wall. Ruehling Associates President Ron Ruehling helped design a compact solution that is fanless and virtually silent, Slyter says.
The wall is comprised of 180 AmFlex-3 mm panels from Design LED USA. The system has a modular metal grid with built-in fanless power supplies and data receivers. The grid mounts directly to the wall and the LED tiles magnetically stick to the metal grid allowing for easy access and a virtually seamless array. In the next phase of video upgrades, the two side Christie projectors will be replaced with LED video walls to display lyrics, scriptures and video.
Control
A Hog 4 console controls the lighting and LED video wall playback from an HES Axon HD Pro media server.
The conversion to LED has reduced the power consumption in the main auditorium from nearly 250,000 watts to just under 60,000 watts. Additionally, the low heat output allows units be placed next to curtains, set pieces, instruments and the LED wall with no worries.
“The rig is much quieter now that we have cut the number of fixtures by 70 percent, and don’t have a couple of dozen fans trying to cool larger units with 1,200-5,000 watt lamps,” Slyter says. “In the past, we would have breakers, dimmers and in some cases lamps fail after being on for a few hours due to the electrical load and heat. We had one of the hottest summers in the Twin Cities in many years and the system has been rock-solid.”
Most importantly, the new equipment allows the pastors to share their message more efficiently and with maximum impact.
“We debuted the moving lights at Christmas and the LED video wall at Easter,” Slyter notes, “and there were lots of ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs.’ There have been many positive comments on how the unified look of the stage lighting and video complements the music, drama and speaking by creating an emotional visual experience.”
