Whether you’re in an old cathedral, a traditional sanctuary, or a modern auditorium,
how you light a church service impacts the mood and how well people will
comprehend and retain what takes place. In this article, we’re going to discuss
lighting for the benefit of those attending the service. Lighting for broadcast (such
as television, webcast, satellite campuses) has somewhat different needs, and won’t
be discussed here.

The basics

Lighting serves several functions. First, and most obvious, is to simply make the
platform and the people on it visible. However, that levels at which you light your
platform makes a difference in how it affects those attending the service.

“First of all, it’s important that the congregation be able to see the preachers face,’
comments Pastor Matt Reynolds, assistant pastor at Jordantown Wesleyan Church in
Vinton, VA. “In some churches the platform is dark and the lighting is poor, so the
people have a hard time seeing the expressions on his face which can be important
in making points.’

When lighting is too dim, people strain to see what is taking place and can have a
difficult time locating where people are speaking or singing from on a crowded or
busy stage. This cuts down the amount of brain-power that they will put towards
paying attention to the actual service, as they are spending time locating those who
are speaking. It also is very tiring, and will cause people to start tuning out or
disconnecting from what’s taking place. Conversely, lighting that is too bright can be
painful to look at, and also causes people to disconnect or stop watching.

Focusing attention

People’s attention naturally tends to be drawn to locations that are brighter than
others. Lighting for the platform generally should be somewhat brighter than the
general seating area so that people’s attention is drawn to the stage and away from
the squirming children a few rows over.

Within the stage space itself, having the lights a little brighter in the areas where
the key ’action’ is taking place will draw people’s attention to that area. If there are
several people on stage who share leading worship for different songs, transitioning
the lighting during worship to highlight the person leading worship for that song
helps keep people connected with what’s happening on stage and allows them focus
more on worshipping and less on figuring out where the person singing is located.

A common response to this thought is “it’s a time of worship – people don’t need to
be watching the musicians.’ However, if the worship team is on a stage in front of
the congregation, that in itself tells people you expect them to be watching the
worship team, and trying to locate the ’primary’ thing going on is a natural instinct.
So, you can try to (unsuccessfully) fight that natural instinct, or you can eliminate
the distraction by guiding people’s attention through your use of lighting levels and
transitions.

Varying your lighting levels in the seating area as well as on stage can also help the
different parts of your worship service to achieve their goals.

“Dimmed lighting during worship sets a “mood’ where the focus is taken away from
self and others and redirected to God where it belongs,’ adds Monica Ravenstein,
worship leader at River of Life Foursquare Church in Great Bend, KS. “It helps the
congregation to shut out the world for a bit and just spend time in His
presence.’

Reinforcing a mood

Another purpose of lighting is to support and enhance the mood of what’s taking
place in the room. As Ravenstein pointed out, lighting intensity itself can make a
great start at setting a mood. “I like for the lights to be fully on at the beginning of
service because people need to see where to sit,’ adds Reynolds, “they need light
to read their bulletins, and also it’s helpful in being able to see others around you
and makes visiting a little easier. Also, a more brightly lit room can increase
energy at the beginning which I think is important. As the service moves into more
of a worshipful atmosphere from a more celebratory atmosphere earlier in the
service it can be effective to slightly dim the house lights creating a more intimate
and worshipful setting. This could apply to prayer times as well.’

The next step is to change the colour of the lighting that’s illuminating the overall
platform, and sometimes the side and rear walls and even the seating area of the
room. Colours impact one’s mood, and while your goal isn’t to be manipulative in a
negative way, colours can help create an environment where the natural emotions
that worship can bring out are supported and reinforced. Brighter colours such as
reds and yellows help reflect energy and excitement; colours such as deep blues
and dark greens reinforce introspection and peacefulness.

With LED lighting becoming more cost-effective and often more energy efficient, the
ability to change the colours used to wash your stage and room has become easier
than ever. But like any technology, there’s also potential to create a distraction.

Therefore, working with your technical team to determine what’s appropriate for
your church is also important.

Architectural lighting

Lighting the facility is one area where significant electricity is used, and
architectural lighting systems can help you save on lighting expenses by providing a
greater level of control. These lighting systems can allow you to have time- and
motion-controlled lighting, turning off lights in a room that’s no longer occupied.

They can also be censored to ’harvest daylight’, keeping lights off near windows but
on in darker corners of a room. Facilities built with architectural lighting control
systems can be programmed to ’sweep off’ the building at a certain time of day
(11pm, for example) to avoid lights burning throughout the church after it’s closed
for the night.

Think long term

There’s one other thought I’d like to leave you with. Think about the long term when
making decisions about what lighting gear to provide. The adage “you get what you
pay for’ usually applies to professional lighting equipment (not to mention video and
audio). If you buy the cheapest gear, expect to be buying it all over again in a year
or two. If you buy the better gear, it may last you a decade or two.

When it comes to more complicated equipment such as moving lights, you also
need to be thinking about maintenance. A moving light has many small moving
parts in them, and they do break. Unlike regular theatrical fixtures, performing
maintenance requires training and skill that most church volunteers (and even staff)
don’t have. Higher quality (and more expensive) fixtures will go longer before
needing repair as they are built better to begin with.

Greg Persinger, owner of Vivid Illumination, suggests budgeting for a lamp change
based on the rated life of the lamps and your expected usage, and then adding $100
to $150 per fixture per year to accumulate for repairs down the road. For example,
a new lamp for one moving light costs $150, and lasts 750 hours. If you use this
light for 20 hours per week (don’t forget rehearsal time and programming time for
your team), you’ll be replacing the lamp every nine months.

This comes out to budgeting at least $300 a year on maintenance for each of the
fixture types you own. If you don’t maintain them, you’ll likely find them useless
after a few short years. If you can’t afford to maintain them, then you really can’t
afford to buy them either. A reasonable alternative is to rent them occasionally for
services or events where they will make a significant impact, and do without the
rest of the time.

Terms and definitions

Professional lighting has a vocabulary all its own—here are some terms that
integrators should teach the church’s tech team.

• Lighting console: the device that is used to control a theatrical or concert lighting
system.

• Lighting software: software that functions as a lighting console but runs on a
computer you provide, and only requires extra hardware to connect the computer to
your lighting system. These often have the same power and capabilities as a
lighting console, but a fraction of the cost.

• Static fixture: a lighting fixture that does not move by itself and requires someone
to physically handle it, often with tools, to reposition it to light a different area or
have a different colour.

• Moving light (or intelligent light): a lighting fixture that has motors in it which can
be controlled from a lighting console or software. Moving lights can give you the all-
out rock concert look, but can also be used subtly to let a few moving fixtures take
the place of many regular fixtures by allowing the operator to re-aim them and
change their colour for different parts of a service.

• Dimmer: static fixtures are connected to dimmers to provide them power;
dimmers can be controlled by a lighting console or software to set the intensity
level. Dimmers come in packs that contain typically at least four, but as many as
96, dimmers.

• Lamp: in your home, this would be called a light bulb. But in professional lighting,
it’s called a lamp. The bulb is technically just the glass piece of the lamp. Changing
the lamp in a fixture is called re-lamping. The bulb part of a lamp should NEVER
make contact with skin, as they burn so hot, the oils left on the glass cause the
glass to shatter.

Story republished courtesy Commercial Integrator.