Led by Pastor Chris Hodges, Church of the Highlands held its first service at Mountain Brook High School just outside of Birmingham, Ala., on February 4, 2001. Established as part of the Association of Related Churches (ARC, of which Hodges is one of the first members), the church has experienced tremendous growth, expanding to 14 campuses across the state. According to Justin Firesheets, production manager at Highlands, more than 41,000 people attended its 15th anniversary in February.
To unite all of these campuses, Highlands relies heavily on technology. “We wouldn’t be able to do what we’re doing without technology, which means that we must have great systems and teams in place,” he says. “We often say that the ministry need determines the technology response, so it’s up to our various technology teams here to ensure that we’re ready to adjust as the vision of our ministries grows and evolves.”
Multi-site Maneuvers
Two of its campuses are located on Highlands’ main Grants Mill site in Birmingham, which houses a broadcast auditorium that seats 2,400, a 400-seat chapel with a more traditional live worship experience, and an 800-seat overflow space that serves as a video venue. There are six additional campuses in the Metro Birmingham area, and then six more in outlying cities throughout Alabama. One of these campuses was previously a church that was gifted to Highlands, which expanded it as the congregation grew, while another is an [adaptive reuse] of an office building. The church built two campuses from the ground up, and the remaining locations are portable churches that meet in a combination of schools, community centers, and conference facilities. “All of our campuses really start portable, and then over the course of time we acquire land in that area,” Firesheets explains. The church is currently in the process of building another campus, which is slated to open sometime during the first quarter of 2017.
Live Design Group, an architecture and interior design firm based in Birmingham, Ala., designed the master plan for Highlands’ Grants Mill location, as well as its first phase of construction, and the overflow auditorium. “[Chris Hodges] wanted people to be comfortable, and he wanted it to look fairly modern, where the landscaping looked nice and the building was clean and simple,” recounts Aubrey Garrison III, architect and principal at Live Design Group. The firm also designed the prototype satellite campus for the church’s Riverchase location. Both projects feature a tilt-up concrete structure with modern “storefront” entrances, with high ceilings and open spaces inside.From there, Highlands took its architectural design work in house—a bittersweet development for Garrison. Ned Ruykhaver, the Live Design architect who had been involved in the Highlands projects, left the firm to work as architect for capital projects at the church.
“[When Ned came to me and told me that he was leaving,] I sent Chris Hodges an email that day that said, ‘I just met with Ned and got the news, and I’ve never experienced joy and sadness at exactly the same moment like I did this morning,’” Garrison recalls. “I said, ‘I’m sad because Ned is a great guy, he’s a great member of our team and I’m sad he’s leaving us, but I’m joyful that he’s going where he feels God is calling him.’” And, while he admits that at first Ruykhaver’s departure meant that his firm was losing a considerable amount of work, Live Design has since been involved in a number of projects for other ARC churches thanks to its involvement with Highlands. “It’s just the way God works.”
Technology Choices
To keep things consistent, Firesheets explains that everything originates out of Highlands’ broadcast campus at Grants Mill. Because the church does not hold Saturday evening services, “that means Sunday is game day—that’s your only chance to get it right,” he says. Currently, Highlands is using Haivision’s video software platform to deliver content from the main campus to the other locations. “That allows all of the campuses to take a live feed of the service. They can time slip a bit if they’re going to transition a minute or two later—they can pause and catch up when they need to so there’s not the pressure of having to go live at an exact moment on the clock.” If they are unable to go live, campuses can play back a service from earlier that morning: "After each service, we transfer a file of that service capture over FTP to every campus so that they can have a local version to play back if they need to. Then, if there’s an issue of some sort with the live service feed, they can transition over to that backup and still have the service continue without interruption.”
However, if it’s eight o’clock Sunday morning––the first service of the day––and there is an issue with any of the critical delivery system components, “you’ve either got to hope that things get fixed quickly, or your campus pastor may have to get on stage to buy time or finish the message locally,” Firesheets explains. “You don’t have anything else pre-recorded that you can lean on, like some churches would if they had a Saturday evening service. Fortunately, we are very confident in the systems we have in place, and an issue of that magnitude has been extremely rare.”
Highlands strives to prevent this from happening by installing their own Internet circuits at most of their facilities––even the portable ones. “That way, we don’t have to rely on any of the facility’s infrastructure––they can still do maintenance when they need to, they don’t have to open up ports or provide approval for anything we’re doing, [and] we have the flexibility to do what we need to for services and events.” Having control of its own network enables the Highlands technology teams to monitor the systems at the satellite campuses to identify any problems before Sunday rolls around. “By having our own Internet circuit installs, we’re able to minimize potential risk that comes from having more variables in the system. That, in turn, allows us to have a more consistent experience every week when we know exactly what’s going on everywhere.”
While Highlands’ main broadcast campus, built in mid 2007, has its own unique set up, the AV equipment in its satellite locations remains relatively consistent, depending on whether the campus is permanent or portable. Most of the locations are equipped with an Avid Profile audio console, Meyer loudspeakers and subwoofers, High End Systems lighting consoles (either Full Boar 4s or Road Hog 4s), and Martin lighting fixtures. For video, the church utilizes ProPresenter, and AJA Ki Pro decks for playback. The larger venues are outfitted with Barco projection, and for switching, Highlands uses a combination of Ross Carbonite and Sony switchers. “For as much as we do, and for as many campuses [as] we have, we try to keep things simple with our set-up and our processes,” Firesheets explains. This is paramount, he says, because many locations rely exclusively on volunteer operators; keeping things consistent facilitates training and allows volunteers to circulate between campuses when necessary.
The Big Picture
But for Firesheets, making people’s jobs easier is only part of it. In paying attention to details—details that can result in the success or failure of a service—he and his team members are serving to help Church of the Highlands in its growth. “There are a lot of principles throughout the Bible about stewardship: when you handle what you’ve been given, then you get blessed with the opportunity to do more. I feel like it’s up to our teams here to ensure that we are learning and improving through every season of growth that the church experiences. If I’m not learning how to do my job better, then I won’t be as prepared for the next great opportunity that the church is blessed with,” he says. As the church itself continues to expand, so too, will the area that Firesheets oversees. “If the vision of the church is multisite campuses, then from a production standpoint we have to constantly be searching for how to do campuses better, quicker, and more efficiently so that we aren’t slowing down the vision of the church. I’ve got to be ready for that next step before the opportunity ever presents itself.”
[Editor's note: This feature was originally published in May 2016.]
