1 of 4
2 of 4
Images courtesy of Freedom Church and Firefly LED.
3 of 4
4 of 4
Some people may ask, “Does a small or medium-sized church even need an LED wall?” Long thought of as eye candy reserved only for megachurches, that perception of LED walls is no longer accurate. “Improvements in image quality, reliability, customer service, and price now make an LED wall viable for almost any sized environment,” says Will Dickey, founder, and CEO of Firefly LED based in central Tennessee.
Learn more about LED Walls at FireflyLED.com
Freedom Church, located in Gallatin, Tennessee is no megachurch, and until recently was priced out of the LED wall market. But when their projectors needed replacing, they began shopping for the latest LED displays and were pleased to find a local provider with an affordable solution.
Founded in 2002, by Pastor Terrell Somerville, the church moved into its current facility—about 20 miles outside of Nashville—in 2016. The new location seats about 750 and the church hosts two Sunday morning services.
Just seven years later, they found their projectors were past their prime and needing replacement. Somerville wanted to upgrade his place of worship to offer the same video quality and vivid interaction people are getting on a daily basis from their phones and devices—a goal that led them to Firefly LED.
“LED screen vs a projector, even a laser projector that we had, LED hands down makes the whole worship experience much brighter. It’s taking service to new heights for us!”
—Pastor Terrell Somerville, Freedom Church, Gallatin, TN
The church’s new D Series LED screen from Firefly measures 25 feet wide by 14 feet tall, with a pixel pitch of 3mm, creating an immersive backdrop for Pastor Somerville. “Whatever background we put up there, when I am sharing and doing the teaching, being in front of it makes it so much more real for people,” he says.
“LED screen vs a projector, even a laser projector that we had, LED hands down makes the whole worship experience much brighter,” says Pastor T, as Somerville is affectionately known. “It’s taking service to new heights for us!” he says when describing the new Firefly LED display. “A lot of the church family has commented that [the LED screen] has made a huge difference in their visual worship.”
Because of LED technology and how content is sent to the screen, the production team now has the capability to swap out entire backdrops for songs and sermons. Pastor T says, “The way we can plug the artwork in, is really easy and user-friendly."
The church’s new D Series LED screen from FireFly measures 25 feet wide by 14 feet tall, with a pixel pitch of 3mm, creating an immersive backdrop for Pastor Somerville.
Having the new Firefly D-Series has also created unexpected benefits for church functions. This year, they hosted their very first movie night event on the LED display, which created a new opportunity for attendees to invite families and friends to the church.
Learn more about Firefly LED video products at FireflyLED.com.
The church’s Creative Director, Chloe Pedigo says they’re already hoping to add on to their LED display system. The Firefly LED wall is only operating at 40 percent brightness, which can overwhelm the surrounding projector screens currently in place. She says they don’t play the same graphics on the side screens as the new LED display because it makes the quality difference so glaringly obvious. "But since we got the center LED screen, it has been further confirmed for us that our end goal would be having the side screens be LED as well. This would help to create an even more cohesive environment in our space," she adds.
Freedom Church Production Director, Carlos Sanchez agrees and adds that the difference in what they can do production-wise with the one large center screen is dramatic. “Just a couple of weeks ago, we did a song with a backdrop that made you feel like you were in the woods with sunlight shining through. And then the way we had our stage lighting working with that, we actually received a couple of comments and feedback from people, like they said that they actually felt like they were in the woods praising the Lord. It really felt like the whole room was the forest that the wall was projecting.”
Sanchez and Pedigo agree Firefly LED was fantastic to work with. Their shipping and installation timeline fell during the post-pandemic supply chain crisis, like many businesses, but both say the Firefly team worked hard to make it all work. “Just the whole process of dealing with them through the planning phase, through the installation phase, they were very communicative—really easy to work with. On the fly, if we had any kind of requests or little tweaks, they were very accommodating,” Sanchez explains. “They were sure to be here on site, obviously that first Sunday… and made sure that we were good with the system for our media pieces and all of that," Pedigo adds.
Pedigo is Pastor T’s daughter. She’s grown up at Freedom Church and has watched the production transitions over the years, even at one time served as production director. She says adding the new D-Series LED wall from Firefly was a wise decision. “I think that it is a good goal to work toward, but now having it, it has been a really good asset for us,” she explains. “We exist to reach people to know God. So, whether you know God, you knew him at one time, or you've never met him, we want everyone to feel that they're welcome here. We love to engage people in the visual aspect of worship and try to honestly just customize our services in a way that people have an opportunity to meet him and to engage in worship.”
