Article

Church reaches membership with digital signage

IT guys Greg Oldenburg and Travis Wurges have most of the same challenges as their techie colleagues: make information bold, compelling and easily accessible for sophisticated customers. But these two don't work at a Fortune 500 company. They work for their church.

July 1, 2003

IT guys Greg Oldenburg and Travis Wurges have most of the same challenges as their techie colleagues: make information bold, compelling and easily accessible for sophisticated customers. But these two don't work at a Fortune 500 company. They work for their church.

Oldenburg, director of live production; and Wurges, video producer for Grapevine, Texas-based Fellowship Church, coordinate a digital signage project complete with plasma screens, LCD displays and regular old televisions.

The cornerstone of the project is an eight-sided structure in the church atrium, with 42-inch plasma screens on each side. Content on the screens changes every 10 seconds, and offers "teasers" to get visitors' attention. The church also has eight table-mounted kiosks with 15-inch LCD display screens around the atrium. Visitors can sit at the computers and access Fellowship's intranet to learn about the church or to sign up for events or classes.

Wurges said that interactive touchscreens could be in the future, especially in the church bookstore, where visitors could select music videos they want to see, for instance.

"We are just now pulling our network infrastructure together, but we're always looking to the next steps. It's not in our nature to stay stagnant," he said.

Plasma screens in atrium of Fellowship Church. (Photo courtesy of Anthony Coppedge).

Details, details

The project was developed in-house with assistance from Fowler Inc., a multimedia technology integrator. The screens are from NEC and Panasonic. The computers are Dell. Oldenburg declined to discuss the cost of the project, since members offered donations for some of the expenses.

Besides the eight plasma screens in the atrium, there are 13 plasma screens and eight LCD displays in the church bookstore. In one section of the bookstore, the screen runs sermons by Fellowship's pastor. In the children's section, child-appropriate DVDs are running. There are also music listening stations in which people can view music videos from Christian labels.

Oldenburg said content for the atrium screens is created in a Photoshop file, and the flattened image is then put in PowerPoint. The images get resized on the network before reaching the plasma screens.

Each ministry, or department within the church, has responsibility for creating its own content. But there is a system of checks and balances. The media department can tell, for instance, if something won't work well on the plasma screens.

Anthony Coppedge, a church media consultant, said Fellowship Church is way ahead of its time in terms of the technology.

"Take the word `church' out and put `company' in. The technology applies," said Coppedge, who has also worked on a digital signage project for the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport. Fellowship is his home church, so while he did advise church leadership as a volunteer, he did not coordinate the project.

Sophisticated viewers

The congregation at Fellowship Church averages 16,000 people per weekend. On Christmas and Easter, that number can swell to 32,000. Thirteen years ago, the church had 12 members.

Coppedge noted that the church has a certain demographic, and that it is important to reach that group in the right way.

"We have a tech-savvy congregation. Members like to browse and learn about the church at their own pace," said Coppedge.

He explained that some people are more comfortable learning about the church in a self-service manner, instead of talking with someone. Of course the church has plenty of human touch available, as well.

Coppedge pointed out that most of the public is tech-savvy, and expects perfection in terms of what they are viewing. "Think about it; we see million-dollar TV commercials all day long. We have high standards. The format of the day for communications is digital," he said. "So why not use that technology to reach people? They don't even think about it, they just accept it, and the message gets across succinctly."

Wurges added, "We want to stay on the leading edge of technology. And what's hot right now is plasmas for digital signage.

Making a connection

The digital-signage technology may be the same as that used in other vertical markets, like retail. But Fellowship's leaders hope the outcome is much different.

 "We want people to act, to be here, to check us out. When they go online they can see that we have ice hockey leagues, basketball leagues, intramural soccer. We offer a way for people to wrap their lives around church. This is the purpose-driven church model," said Coppedge.

In the children's building on campus, there are four classrooms, each with two plasma screens outside. The screens scroll information about the age group in that room and the lessons planned.

During the week, Wurges said, the classrooms hold adult Power Surge classes. "With the screens, we just shoot a message across the network, and there is the information on that class. It sure beats carrying around foam poster boards to each room," he said.

Asked if Fellowship is monitoring the success of the project, Coppedge said no. "We're not tracking hits or anything. Members will rarely say, `I learned about this on the plasma.' It's just another way to touch people."