BridgePoint Church

Doing ministry on a peninsula can impose some physical and psychological challenges for a church, as Michael Mishoe, creative arts pastor at BridgePoint Church in St. Petersburg, FL describes. “Real estate is at a premium, so growing in place is generally not an option. And people tend not to travel far beyond their homes on a regular basis—people typically work, shop, and attend church within a three mile radius.”
This played into BridgePoint defining their vision for the future. “We want to plant ten campuses in the St. Petersburg area over the next ten years, to be able to reach people where they live,” says Mishoe.

Starting as a portable church in 2006, they purchased their first permanent building in 2014, renovating a former fitness center into a house of worship. “We wanted to equip this building to not only serve the needs of those meeting at that location,” states Mishoe, “but also for serving the needs of our planned video venue campuses across St. Petersburg well into the future. We wanted to make sure our systems wouldn’t be out of date six months down the road.”
BridgePoint wanted to identify an AVL company that would understand their vision and work well with their architect and construction firms, not only in the installation phase, but in the brainstorming and design phases as well. “There are a lot of guys that can do AVL,” comments Mishoe, “but we wanted someone who could work at a higher level and do more.”
The church reached out to people involved in the Passion Conferences for recommendations on who to talk to, and Pendley Productions in Cumming, GA came highly recommended.

Michael Mishoe, Creative Arts Pastor
BridgePoint Church

Digital for Flexibility

To accommodate flexibility and growth, Pendley Productions proposed a digital infrastructure for audio, video, and lighting signal distribution. “Pendley Productions created a Dante audio distribution network throughout our facility that enables multi-channel audio signals to be routed to all the key locations,” states Mishoe. “All audio inputs in both our main auditorium and our student ministry auditorium are on the Dante network. Through Dante, we have access to virtual sound check technologies for volunteer training and band auditions. It also allows us to create custom mixes in overflow rooms, blending in the main band from the auditorium with live performers in the overflow space. By using multi-track recordings of previous services for training and auditions, the musicians don’t need to be present for these activities, which helps us as a church to value them, by valuing their time.”

Lighting control signals are also distributed digitally via Streaming ACN, a protocol that works over standard Ethernet cabling and routers. “This allows us to easily get lighting control data anywhere we need it in the auditorium,” says Mishoe.
To make their flexibility manageable, the building incorporates a “tech core” room containing all equipment racks that service the facility. A Blackmagic Design 72×72 matrix router handles video patching via HD–SDI cable runs to various points throughout the facility.

Brand Consistency for Volunteer Flexibility

In order to increase the flexibility of their volunteers as well as reduce training efforts, Pendley Productions and BridgePoint selected brands of equipment that would provide the appropriate level of capabilities for the space as well as compatible control experiences between their various rooms and campuses.
Allen & Heath iLive consoles were selected for FOH and monitors in the main auditorium, with Allen & Heath GLD consoles installed for broadcast, youth auditorium, and FOH mixing at their portable downtown campus. The iLive and GLD console lines have similar interfaces, making it easy for volunteers to step up from the GLD to the larger iLive consoles.
The all-LED lighting rig in the main auditorium, consisting of Chauvet fixtures for the stage and Chroma-Q Inspire fixtures for the house, is controlled by a Jands Vista S3 system. A Jands Vista S1 is also installed in their youth auditorium, providing an easy-to-learn lighting system for the youth and a steady stream of trained volunteers as they mature into the adult service. Jands Vista is likewise used in their portable campus, and the lighting rigs are set up such that the programming done in the main auditorium can be run with minimal editing in the portable campus’s lighting system.
The video system is no exception to the brand consistency theme. For-A switchers are used in all three spaces for consistency and cross-training purposes.

Support for the Long Haul

“It was a very good experience to work with Pendley Productions,” summarizes Mishoe. “They were able to capture our vision, and understand the end result we wanted to achieve. Their team was great to work with. They know how to do their jobs and they do it well. Our design/build team liked the thoroughness of Pendley as well. And at the end of the project, it wasn’t just ‘Well, good luck!’—they continue to support us now that the installation is completed.”