GILBERT, AZ – Mission Community Church is creating a new worship experience, supporting live performances with a JBL sound system and a VENUE Mix Rack System that includes a Profile console at front of house and a VENUE SC48 console on monitors.
Mission Community's approach is anything but traditional. But less than two months after opening its new campus, the church's 1,500-seat sanctuary packs multiple services weekly.
"Words like ‘choir' and ‘pulpit' aren't even in our vocabulary," said Mike Work, executive pastor of operations. "We think [of our services as] more like a rock show. Technology's such a big part of people's lives today, and we try to use technology to create an immersive and intimate worship experience. We're not here to entertain them, but what we do had better engage them."
"One of the church's goals was to create a system that could deliver professional, concert-level sound and mix capabilities," said Shannon Ericsson, founder and president of Olympia, Wash.-based Omega Consultants, the company behind the church's acoustical and audio system design.
Ericsson says it was Work, a veteran Christian producer and events promoter, who suggested VENUE.
"Mike's input was really invaluable to the project," he says. "He was able to bring a lot of substance to the church's vision, and he was influential in the decision to go with the VENUE system. I was already aware of how much we could do with just the standard plug-ins that came with the system, as well as the benefits of Pro Tools integration, and when Avid came out with the SC48, that pretty much sealed the deal. There was no other system that could provide the functionality and sonic quality that these two consoles brought to the table."
"I had never previously used the VENUE system myself," said Work, "but when you hear good stuff about it from a succession of people you trust-all of whom make their living in audio and aren't selling anything-you pay attention. And the more we looked into it, the more reasons we found to go with VENUE."
One of the major factors in their decision was the potential for running the service's entire mix using only the built-in plug-ins in the VENUE systems, without the need for racks of outboard gear.
"We've only been using the consoles for a couple of months, and we've barely scratched the surface of what we can accomplish," said Worship Arts pastor C.J. Bergmen.
Bergmen, who typically mixes monitors onstage, cites the VENUE system's intuitive user interface as an important asset. "I had never even used a digital console before we got the SC48," he says, "but it's really so much like an analog console, I was up and running right away."
With the church's largely volunteer technical crew, having a console that's easy to train on is essential. "The fact that both consoles share a common interface means that anyone who learns how to run one desk can run both," Bergmen said. "And we've just started experimenting with Virtual Soundcheck, which is going to be an incredible tool for training."
"With most digital consoles," added Ericsson, "the user interface is based on the concept of pulling up a single channel to access its parameters. Working with VENUE is much more of an analog approach. You can program a channel strip to do what you want it to do-there's no paging through menus. VENUE feels like it was designed from a mix engineer's perspective, rather than a console designer's."
Pro Tools integration is another feature that fits with the church's long-term vision. "We're not just creating a worship service, we're also creating new music," said Work. We're building a Pro Tools room behind the stage, and, ultimately, we're planning on recording and releasing entire musical performances. VENUE really fits with the vision we have for the church and for getting our music out there."
A prerequisite in designing the system was Mission Community's goal that it be able to support a national-level guest artist. "When we bring in a touring act or guest artist, it's great to know that our equipment typically exceeds what they have specified on their rider, and that we have people who know how to use it," said Work.
"We had a national act performing here recently, and afterward we were able to hand them a hard drive with a multitrack Pro Tools file of the show," added Bergmen. "It's a little thing, but the artists really appreciate it."
However, it's still early days for the crew at Mission Community. "We've only been in this building for two months, and we're still putting a lot of the pieces in place," Bergmen says. "But even at this stage, we can see that we're barely scratching the surface. The more I learn about the VENUE systems, the more blown away I am by what we can do."
Work says the VENUE systems have far exceeded everyone's expectations. "At the end of the day, it's not just about technology for technology's sake," he said. "These tools exist to serve the worship experience-not the other way around. VENUE has enabled us to not just create a mix, but to help create an experience."
For more information, please visit www.avid.com.
