When Next Community Church in Schwanksville, Pennsylvania reached out to us about a year ago, they weren’t looking for just an AV upgrade. They wanted to completely reorient their worship center, moving the stage to maximize their space while updating outdated systems. What made this project particularly interesting was their philosophy: rather than expanding their building, they’d rather send part of their congregation out to plant a new church. That mission-focused mindset shaped everything about this renovation.
This wasn’t originally designed as a worship center. It was a commercial office space, which meant we were dealing with some significant acoustic challenges right from the start. The room had crazy reverb that would make mixing difficult and hurt intelligibility. On top of that, we had a very low ceiling to work with, which limited our options for both the PA system and stage lighting.
We started where we always start: with an impulse response test using a balloon pop. We measured the RT60 time and worked with the team at Primacoustic to determine the right amount of treatment to bring that RT60 down to about two seconds.
Throughout the space, you’ll see black acoustic panels—mostly two foot by four foot panels, with some larger four foot by four foot squares. We also installed cloud panels in the structure above. These Primacoustic panels completely transformed the room, making it suitable for both spoken word and live music.
Here’s where the low ceiling and stage design created an interesting challenge. The client didn’t want a stage high enough for ground-stacked subs, and we were working with limited trim height. Our best option was to fly everything in the center.
Subwoofers: We went with two 21-inch passive subwoofers by Fulcrum Acoustic. The low sub energy these produce feels incredibly musical. They fill the bass energy in pretty much a perfect circle throughout the room, so everyone gets that good sense of bass in the music.
Main Left/Right: The DX15 speakers by Fulcrum serve as our primary mains, covering the bulk of the center sections.
Outfills: In a space this wide, we needed the CCX12 outfills to reach congregation members toward the sides of the stage.
Front Fills: The Profile Piece speakers by Fulcrum Acoustic ensure folks in the front rows get great sound despite the odd stage shape.
Delays: We added 12-inch coaxial speakers by Fulcrum for the very side sections. As you walk around the perimeter of the room, pretty much every single spot is covered by either the mains, front fills, or delays.
All of this is powered by Powersoft amplifiers (UNICA 8M, UNICA 4L units) with built-in DSP, keeping our rack space efficient.
One of the most creative decisions in this space was the screen layout. We have a lyric banner on top and a center screen below. This took some serious 3D modeling to get right, but the end result is fantastic.
Bottom Center Screen: About 6.5 feet tall by 11.5 feet wide, displaying typical 16:9 content
Lyric Banner: About 1.6 feet tall and nearly 20 feet wide, running across the top
Side Displays: As you move to the sides of the room, you lose line of sight to the center screen. That’s why we mounted flat screen TVs on the sides—they mirror the content from the center screen but can be independently controlled through ProPresenter.
This flexibility means we can map which screens get lyrics and how those lyrics are formatted, which we’ll talk about more in the ProPresenter section.
We’re using six ProWash Max fixtures and four Pro Spots by Pro Church Lights for front lighting. The low trim height creates some challenges—the angles are a bit shallow, so we get quite a bit of wash on the back wall. This actually made LED screens even more important, because we’re not fighting with a projector image that would get washed out.
Back Lights: Four Pro Church Prokick Lights create excellent hair lighting and subject separation.
Floor Lights: Four Pro Bars provide nice backlighting and wall wash effects. With the light-colored walls in this room, these create beautiful ambient color that can shift throughout worship.
One of their members is a fantastic carpenter, and he built this custom stage with a circular center section. The stage is only about 14 inches tall in the center and 12 inches on the lower portions. They wanted that communal feel—people on stage shouldn’t feel distant from the congregation.
We installed custom Whirlwind FP2 floor pockets with connector plates labeled according to our cable schematics. They include:
There’s also a larger FP4 pocket toward the back for all the drum mics.
One of the biggest debates on this channel is acoustic versus electric drums. In this case, Andrew had a strong opinion: acoustic. And he was right. It looks great, sounds great, and feels great for the drummer.
We went with the Goplin G3 enclosure—eight feet tall with a hard-treated back and beautiful doors that swing open. Inside is a Gretsch drum set with Lauten Audio microphones throughout:
They’re also using the Vertical Raw cymbals by Red Cymbals. These are thin with a warm wash that won’t be super piercing in the mix. Dylan Redman, who designed these, has played for churches and knew exactly what worship environments need.
The tech booth is incredibly well-constructed with an angled front ledge so nobody’s putting coffee down where they might spill it. Under the desk, the cable management is immaculate—this is what you get when you use KVMs properly.
The Avantis has honestly become my favorite console recently. It fills a nice sweet spot between M32s and Yamaha DM7s. While this is the Solo version with one set of fader banks (due to booth size), it’s incredibly easy to switch between fader bank pages. Really flexible board with tons of buses and auxes, and it sounds fantastic with this Fulcrum PA.
We’ve got them set up with virtual soundcheck using Logic, though you could use Live Tracks, Audacity, or any number of options. The Avantis makes it really easy to switch between live and virtual sources, which is perfect for training audio volunteers.
This is a more in-depth ProPresenter configuration than usual. We’ve got:
During pre-service, the lyric strip runs a welcome message via a prop, while the main display shows slides. But as soon as you trigger a worship song, the lyric strip matches the background content. When lyrics start:
We have a deep dive on this setup available on the Altitude website.
All lighting is automated through macros and MIDI in ProPresenter. Even without movers or haze, we’re creating depth by having slightly different lighting cues for each section of every song. Some movement on the back bars with intensity and color changes, subtle shifts in house lighting—it’s not a huge distracting light show, just very subtle changes that give each song its own feel.
One cool feature: each house light is on its own DMX channel, giving us individual control. In the current setting, we transition from red at the front of house to pink at the back, adding enormous depth without using many channels.
The Wall Panel Pro by Pro Church Lights lets them call up preset looks without touching a computer—perfect for when there’s no lighting operator available.
We’re using the ATEM Constellation 2ME with three PTZ cameras and a Blackmagic camera in the drum booth. The Stream Deck setup makes it incredibly easy to recall camera presets and cut between preview and program. One operator can position cameras, call shots, and switch video—all from the big multi-view screen.
For you integration nerds, we have two very tall Middle Atlantic BGR series equipment racks in the rack room.
The Bittree patch bays give complete flexibility for patching any mic or line source to any input on the GX48. Normally stage pocket 1 goes straight to GX48 input 1, but if you need to change routing, you just use patch cables on the front panel. High-quality analog patching made simple.
Powersoft amplifiers aren’t inexpensive, but you can pack so much power into such an efficient amount of rack space. For powering the subs, mains, delays, and front fills in this system, we’re only using three rack units total.
What I love about this project is how Next Community Church prioritized their mission over their building. They could have built new or expanded, but instead they maximized this space and continue sending people out to plant churches. The renovation supports that mission by creating a welcoming, technically excellent environment for worship without being over the top.
The challenges of the space—low ceilings, awkward shape, commercial office construction—became opportunities for creative solutions. The result is a worship center that sounds great, looks clean, and serves their volunteers well.
Want to see the full walkthrough? Check out the complete video tour on our YouTube channel where we dive deeper into the acoustic treatment strategy, ProPresenter configuration, and equipment rack integration.
If your church is facing similar challenges—whether it’s low ceilings, awkward room shapes, or converting non-traditional spaces into worship environments—we’d love to talk through solutions with you. Every space has unique challenges, and we specialize in turning those constraints into creative opportunities.
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