Southeast Christian Church Links Campuses Through Digital Signage
Southeast Christian Church has been living proof that “if you build it, they will come.” Less than 10 years after building an $80 million facility in the Louisville, Ky., area, its main campus now spans 1 million square feet and has an active congregation of over 25,000 members.
To accommodate a growing number of worshippers, Southeast Christian has decided to open several regional campuses in the suburbs of Louisville and across the state border in Indiana. The church looked to digital signage technology to keep the separate campuses and churchgoers connected.
The Main Network
Staff and leadership at Southeast Christian had always embraced technology in their church, including an internal IT Ministry staff and nearly 20 other technicians in various ministries.
“First and foremost, technology is only utilized to help us clearly communicate God’s message to our church community,” said Cary Meyer, Director of Communications and Creative Arts at Southeast Christian. “But our goal is for it to never take the first position.”
In 2006, Southeast Christian was using several older scrolling screens to disseminate information, but church leaders were convinced there had to be a better, more engaging way to reach its attendees.
During a remodeling phase of the church’s atrium, an elder researched several digital signage solutions. Southeast Christian approached Louisville-based audiovisual integrator and Scala Certified Partner CIM Technology Solutions to help them take the next step and integrate a digital signage network into its Louisville church.
“Southeast Christian knew that they wanted some form of digital signage, but they asked me to assist with the infrastructure and determining how to make the network work for their church community,” said Steve Bean, System Designer for CIM.
Southeast Christian spent several months testing messages and formats to determine the best way to integrate this new medium into its overall communication plan.
“After demoing Scala software to IT personnel at Southeast Christian, they were impressed by its flexibility, especially in terms of integrating third-party content, scheduling screens and developing custom content,” said Bean.
The initial installation was divided into several phases, and each year, the system continues to grow. Today, the main Louisville church building features 17 screens running on Scala software, including five players and Content Manager. They distribute over Cat5 and fiber optic cable. A matrix router allows for each of the screens to display different content even though there are fewer players than screens.
The church brought Rick Moore on board as Digital Signage Manager to oversee the digital signage network. He maintains all of the players that feed the screens and handles scheduling content for all of the church’s ministries. He is also tasked with continuously developing the digital signage network so that it helps continue to move Southeast Christian into the future.
“If the signage is managed correctly and updated on a daily basis, members will continue to view the screens and gather important information that is pertinent to them,” said Moore.
Once installed, the network allowed individual ministries to promote current and upcoming events to the church community. Members of each ministry were trained on how to create videos and graphics suitable for the network, and they were able submit content to Moore for posting. Additionally, the network made it possible to show live worship services on screens in any area of the church. This made it easier for volunteers and church members to follow worship no matter where they were in the facility.
Another advantage that Southeast Christian found was that the network made for an excellent communication channel in the case of emergencies. It can reach members and staff with important information quickly and safely.
Beyond Louisville
The latest addition to the network occurred in 2008 when Southeast Christian made the decision to construct a new regional campus, a 1,400-seat sanctuary in Jeffersonville, Southern Indiana.
“One reason people often give for not wanting to attend Southeast is, ‘It’s too big.’ Nearly every church our size in America has discovered that it is difficult to grow past its current size,” said Kevin Russell, Multi-site Team Leader for Southeast Christian Church. “People enjoy coming to a megachurch, but once it reaches a certain size, church growth seems to slow.”
Southeast Christian feels that the regional campuses combine the best parts of large and small church settings, and a digital signage network allows members of those regional campuses to stay connected with the main Louisville church community.
In essence, the regional campus members are able to receive the same content and information as those attending the main campus. That content can also be customized to make it more relevant to the regional campus.
With new advances in digital signage technology, the Southern Indiana campus was able to take a slightly different approach to its network than the main campus.
“The Samsung displays each have an integrated CPU, allowing each of the 10 displays to have its own channel player and for content to run locally on each display,” said CIM’s Bean.
This helped lower costs because there was no need to run wiring to each display, and additional hardware components such as transmitters and receivers were not needed. It also makes it possible for each individual screen to play its own content simultaneously.
As for next steps, Moore and the Southeast Christian administration realize the importance of understanding the viewers of their digital signage network and how the content affects them.
“There is continuing discussion on ways to improve upon this system,” said Moore. “The next stage may include some type of metrics or measurement analysis.”
