It’s 2025 and we just found a 576p video switcher.

Not in a museum. Not on eBay. In the tech booth of a church five minutes from our warehouse. Sitting right next to a stack of VGA cables, a DVD recorder, and a dual 31-band EQ that hadn’t been touched since the Obama administration.

Graceway Free Will Baptist Church in Melbourne, Florida reached out to us because they knew something had to change. Their tech booth was overflowing with gear from three different decades, and their volunteer team was doing their best to hold it all together every Sunday.

Here’s what we walked into — and exactly how we fixed it.

The “Before” Was Rough

Let’s paint the picture.

The tech booth had multiple old PCs, a handful of monitors, and cables running everywhere. The video system was pushing a 576p signal — which, for reference, is less than half the resolution of standard HD. They were still running projectors with VGA connections. Their shut-in ministry was recording services to DVD.

The lighting? Controlled by a Chauvet Obey 70 — a board Sean hadn’t seen since 2011.

And the audio rack was full of gear that wasn’t even plugged in anymore. Old CD players. A tape deck. A recorder. An amplifier nobody was using.

When a new volunteer walked up to serve, they were greeted by a wall of mystery equipment and a tangle of cables going who-knows-where. That’s not a setup that says “you can do this.” That’s a setup that says “please don’t touch anything.”

What We Actually Did

Here’s the thing — Graceway didn’t need a $100K renovation. They needed someone to walk in, figure out what was actually necessary, and strip everything else out.

Video: Sean replaced all the old PCs, monitors, and that 576p switcher with one small rack. An ATEM 1ME, a Mac Mini M4, and a Sonnet Echo Express for a simple DeckLink input. One camera feeds into the ATEM alongside ProPresenter graphics and a Chroma key for lower thirds. The output goes back into ProPresenter for livestreaming to YouTube and Facebook.

The church had already installed new Vizio 100-inch displays to replace their old projectors. Smart move. We upgraded them from EasyWorship to ProPresenter — and here’s the best part: the pastor had their church graphics loaded into ProPresenter before Sean even ran a training session. That’s how intuitive the setup is.

Lighting: We replaced the Obey 70 with LightKey, a software-based lighting controller running off the same Mac Mini. Right now it’s just controlling their front wash fixtures through a DMX USB Pro adapter. But the church has already purchased some new LED fixtures, and Sean pre-built those into the LightKey show file so they’re ready to go when the church is ready to install them.

Audio: Their X32 Compact was in great shape — no reason to replace it. We added an S16 stage box connected via shielded Cat6 so their growing worship team has 16 more channels of input on stage. We created a new scene file, built a broadcast bus for their livestream, and cleaned up the rack by removing the gear they weren’t using.

Their new Shure SLXD wireless mics sounded great out of the box. Down the road, we’ll probably get those into a rack with an antenna distributor to clean up the RF picture, but for now they’re working perfectly.

What We Took Out

If you don’t believe we removed a lot, here’s the pile: three or four old PCs, old projectors, DVD players, monitors, that unused EQ, and a mess of cables.

All of it was replaced by one small rack and a clean desk.

Why This Matters More Than You Think

Here’s what this is really about.

Graceway is a growing church. New families are walking in. Some of those families want to serve. And when someone says “I’d love to help with production,” the first thing they see is the tech booth.

The old setup? Overwhelming. Intimidating. The kind of thing where a well-meaning volunteer takes one look and quietly decides to join the greeting team instead.

The new setup? Clean. Simple. A couple of screens, a straightforward board, and a system that makes sense in five minutes. That’s a tech booth that turns curious visitors into confident volunteers.

And that’s a huge deal for a church this size.

What This Means for Your Church

If your tech booth looks anything like Graceway’s “before” — old gear piled up, cables everywhere, systems from three different eras duct-taped together — you probably don’t need to burn it all down and start over.

You might just need someone to walk in, look at what you’ve got, and help you figure out what stays, what goes, and what needs to change.

That’s exactly what our Pre-Design process does. We’ll look at your space, your gear, your team, and your goals — and give you a clear plan before you spend a dollar on equipment.

Book a Free Pre-Design Consultation

No pressure. No 47-page proposal on the first call. Just a conversation about what your church actually needs.