Pennsylvania Church Updates with LED Displays, Lighting

WEXFORD, Pa. – For a church which opened the doors to its first of five campuses in 1981, the need for an update at their location in the north hills of Pittsburgh had become increasingly evident.

At first, the focus at North Way Christian Community Church was to change out the church’s carpeting.

That eventually morphed into what became a planned three-phase project for the campus located about 20 minutes north of Pittsburgh.

Averaging about 3,500 congregants between three weekend services, the church completed the first phase prior to its Feb. 25 service. The initial phase aimed to improve the worship space’s lighting. Next are an update to the church’s video capabilities is set to begin, followed by planned audio system improvements.

The carpeting will have to wait, at least in the short-term.

“We started with this project, talking about replacing the carpet,” said North Way Christian Community Production Director Jonathan Cooper. Other needs at the church became more apparent over time, he acknowledged. “We were a contemporary church (when it first opened in 1981), but in time you get outdated,” he added.

Completing the lighting install was Franklin, Tennessee-based integrator Mankin Media Systems, with an on-site team overseen by Deploy Lead Adrian Varner. In discussing the impetus behind the updates, Varner largely agreed with Cooper’s assessment. He said, “The church is going through a refresh of what they are looking to provide to the community, with a more contemporary worship style, and lighting to match … we gutted the whole lighting system.”

Since that first service using the new lights, the response from the congregation has by and large been “saying that they are loving it, to where they are allowed to reengage in worship and enjoy the arts in the production,” noted Cooper. For Varner, he said he had heard “from the technical staff and other staff in the church. They were extremely excited, and blown away with what they could do with (the new lighting system), to where they could continue to grow the church in their pursuit of making the church a place that the next generation would want to attend.”

Lighting Upgrade Feature CreateLED, CHAUVET Fixtures

As part of its first phase of improvements, the church installed 24 CreateLED AirBLADE-15 LED display panels. Each panel has a pixel pitch of 15.625mm. In addition, each of the eight elements in each panel 64 pixels wide and two pixels high.

More About Andres Caamano

Andres Caamano is the site editor for Worship Tech Director, which aims to inform tech directors, audio, video or lighting directors, creative directors, music directors and worship leaders about the latest technology, while also bringing to the forefront some of the most notable examples of leadership and completed projects that can be of benefit to houses of worship of all sizes. Andres joined WTD in 2015, and is focused on taking an engaged approach to the market; one that is encouraging, creative and set toward ministry purpose.

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