This morning (09/13) I felt prompted to kneel down and pray during the first service while the bands were finishing their sets. I’m not sure why but I just felt nervous about the tech for this service, specifically something during the start of the message. As I got on my face before God and prayed hard that He would spread His love during this service, I felt like I needed to go upstairs to the Crow’s Nest immediately. I went up just in time to help my director trigger the recording for Stage 123 and immediately noticed something was wrong. At some point this morning a simple BNC cable for camera 4 died, leaving the camera dull and lifeless on screen (like a weird black and white). Quick action and some spare cables (which I bought for next to nothing on a whim) helped us minimize the effect and fix the problem. How strange is it to feel prompted by God? Strange. How cool is it to see prayer answered right before your eyes? Very cool. I hope and pray that God will continue to prompt me and that I will be still long enough to hear Him. Also, never forget to turn off your screen saver before the service.

vimeo -

Rock Bridge has recently been featured in Worship Facilities magazine. In fact Stage 123 has been featured in several trade publications regarding worship architecture. This just happens to be the first one I got ahold of. Check out some scans in the gallery below. [EDIT: Here's the link.] We have a great church!

I’ve been asked several times in the last week what I do. And while the complete description would bore even my wife, one of the most important things I do is manage the volunteers and equipment that make multiple venues (and multiple locations) possible.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Rock Bridge has two venues (of equal importance) in Dalton (edit: The Wink Theatre and Stage 123) and one venue (of equal importance) in Calhoun. While there will be posts that follow dealing with service planning and the vision of multiple sites, this will start a series of posts on the personnel and equipment involved in being multi-site and multi-venue. We’ll start with the Wink Theatre.

The Wink Theatre is a restored WWII era theatre house complete with neon marquee. The first venue, this is where Matt Evans typically preaches live. We are currently running a two-camera IMAG system with an iMac on ProPresenter and a Panasonic AG-MX70 video switcher. In addition, there is a JVC HD250 in the rear of the room for Stage 123 (but we’ll get to that.) Front of house audio is a Yamaha M7CL48. Lights are controlled by a Jands Vista I3 (mostly ETC source 4’s, ellipsoidals, and color scrollers although we do have 6 Coemar Prospot 250’s). We are currently using two primary projectors (@ 15k lumens) for IMAG and a secondary projector (@ 6.5k lumens) for set support. This is the venue that drives the video for all other venues as it’s the only one with permanent cameras. Up in the booth there is a MacPro running Windows and Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder for our live broadcast (available at www.rockbridge.cc). There’s also a Doremi MCS-HD and a bunch of Ensemble Brighteye equipment for Stage 123 among other random equipment.

To keep the show running smoothly, we have a Floor Director specific to this venue. Following his lead is the Video Director, Technical Director (on switcher), Computer Operator, Sound engineer, lighting operator and two camera operators.

Here are some pictures of the Wink Theatre in action.

Stay tuned for more details on our other venues.