This Easter, I was given the opportunity to head up the production of the Good Friday and Easter Sunday church services at The Salvation Army – Hills. This is a fairly small church, located in a public school hall. The budget was low, but I think the results were big. Here’s what I did:
Good Friday
Good Friday is about Jesus crucifixion on the cross. As such, we wanted to strip back the services so the cross was the main focus for everyone in attendance.
We places a large wooden cross centre stage and lit it with a combination of LED Par64s and conventional MFL Par56s. The LEDs provided the colour (mainly red, but we transitioned towards purple as we neared the end of the service) and the conventional fixtures cut through the colour with clear, warm light. This looked beautiful when we filled the stage with a light fog.
As we wanted to minimise the use of the screen and keep the focus on the cross, we printed song sheets. There was a small video screen off to the left, which remained black except for three monolog video segments from The Skit Guys. The preaching and worship leading was done from the floor to the right. The PA consisted of 2x QSC K12s, located on the steps of the stage either side of the cross. We don’t have a worship band so the main inputs were radio mics and computers.
Run Sheet
Pre-Song: Worthy is the Lamb
Video: The Skit Guys – The Last Supper
Song: How Deep the Father’s Love
Video: The Skit Guys – The Garden
Song: Lead Me to the Cross
Video: The Skit Guys – Golgotha
Message Part 1
Bible Reading
Message Part 2
Song: Amazing Grace / My Chains are Gone
Prayer
Announcements
Song: Nothing But The Blood (Andy Cherry version)
Benediction
Photos
Here are some photos from before the services started. It’s not quite finished here, but you can get the idea.
Easter Sunday
Easter Sunday is the opposite to Good Friday – it is a day to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. The tomb was broken, death conquered and our sins forgiven. To reflect this, I took a different approach with the production design. The cross was cleared from stage, and in it’s place we put two big projection screens and a banner proclaiming “He is Risen”. We also lit this with a similar combination of lights and fog, although with slightly different positioning and a lot more use of colour.
The result was a very ‘big’ look, filled with plenty colours and yet a very clear focus on the meaning of the day.
Ordinarily when you want a couple of screens one would go and buy/rent some Fastfold screens. I was looking for a lower budget approach, so I purchased two pieces of Corflute plastic from Bunnings. The biggest size they had was black, so I painted this white using ceiling paint. I reinforced the back with wooden strips, and then used gaffer tape to create a black border around the edge. The size in the end was roughly 2.17m x 1.22m. They only just fit in my station wagon. As they were incredibly light, I was able to safely hang them using some sort of thick black cotton.
Originally I planned to have the same image on both screens, but in preparing the service we realised it could be beneficial to show different images on both at certain times. To achieve this I used two computers, a VGA splitter and a seamless video switcher/scaler. One computer ran the bulk of the presentation and hooked into the VGA splitter, which ran directly to one projector and also to the switcher. A second computer ran directly into the video switcher, so we could pick between the two PCs for this second screen. It was all achieved using equipment I already owned or could easily borrow.
Run Sheet
Video Opener (Audio by myself, video by James Eden)
Song: Risen – Israel Houghton and Covenant Church
Responsive Reading
Song: Stone’s Been Rolled Away (Geoff Bullock – Master Trax 1)
Video Testimony
Congregational Activity (we took photos of people acting out parts of a bible verse)
Song: One Thing Remains (Your Love Never Fails)
Prayer Time
Message Part 1
Bible Reading (showing photos taken earlier)
Message Part 2
Song: Holy Spirit Rain Down
Prayer
Song: Happy Day
Benediction
Photos
Here are some photos from the night before, when we bumped this in.
Overall I’m incredibly pleased with the results. Although it was time consuming, I felt it was worth the effort. A special thanks to all that assisted, especially my wonderful family who were incredible at helping me design, setup and operate this.
If you are interested, also check out some recent graphic design work I have completed for this and other churches.