Broadway Christian Church sits at 910 Broadway in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It’s a historic building with deep roots in the community, and is home to a diverse, nondenominational congregation that gathers every Sunday at 10 a.m. for worship. The church runs one of the city’s most active outreach ministries, and offers a full Deaf ministry with professional ASL interpreters at every service.
Over the years, Broadway had shifted from traditional worship to a more contemporary style. The heart of the church had evolved. But the technology hadn’t kept up.
Broadway’s challenges weren’t unusual. In fact, they’re some of the most common things we hear from churches that have grown and adapted over time: the systems that once served the space are no longer matching the way the space is actually being used.
Their worship style had become more contemporary, but the stage was still running floor monitors. This design created bleed that muddied the mix and made it harder for both the congregation and the broadcast to hear clearly. The audio system lacked low-frequency support and speech clarity, two things that directly affect whether a message lands or not.
The video situation was even more fragile. During COVID, like so many churches, Broadway had put together a livestream setup quickly that included camcorders on tripods in the balcony, multiple HDMI switchers and splitters daisy-chained together. It got the job done when it needed to. But years later, it was still the primary system, and it was complicated, unreliable, and difficult for volunteers to operate with confidence.
And that’s the thread that connected all of it: after years of updating pieces of audio and video one at a time, nothing worked together. Each fix had been well-intentioned, but the result was a patchwork system that didn’t communicate, workflows that were fragile, and a volunteer team that had to work around the technology instead of with it.
On top of all that, the budget was tight. Broadway was working with a combination of a grant and a specific donation, which meant every dollar had to be accounted for. There was no room for excess. And whatever was built had to be volunteer-friendly from day one.
We started with the church’s highest priority: video.
The entire HDMI-based system was removed and we started from scratch. We installed three Panasonic PTZ cameras with a dedicated camera controller, plus a fixed camera to support Broadway’s sign-language ministry, a non-negotiable for a church like Broadway. All video inputs and outputs were cabled with SDI, replacing the HDMI runs for significantly better durability and signal consistency. A Blackmagic Constellation video switcher with an Advanced Panel gave the team broadcast-grade switching capability, and a Web Presenter encoder streamlined the livestream workflow.
For audio, we took a strategic approach of reusing some existing audio equipment to stay within budget and—just as importantly—to keep the team on infrastructure they already knew. We added a new Midas M32 console at front of house and moved their existing one to the broadcast room, giving both positions dedicated control. We added wireless in-ear monitors and expanded their personal mixer inventory, which allowed us to pull the floor monitors off the stage entirely. That alone changed the feel of the room. We also enclosed the drums, giving the audio techs more control over the stage volume.
Then we retuned the speaker system. During the process, we discovered a crossover point had been set incorrectly which accounted for the low-frequency problems they’d been fighting. It wasn’t a broken speaker. It wasn’t a missing subwoofer. It was a setting. Once corrected, the low end came back and speech intelligibility improved across the room.
Finally, we built out a complete network for all equipment, connecting FOH in the balcony and the broadcast room off stage so the team could control and monitor systems from multiple positions. And we conducted separate, dedicated training sessions: audio training for the sound techs, video training for the broadcast team, and personal mixing training for the worship team members using in-ears for the first time.
The first Sunday Broadway went live with the new video system, a church member reached out to say they could immediately see the improvement in quality.
In the room, the difference in clarity for both music and speech was noticeable right away. Broadway’s pastor was, by his own admission, skeptical going in. He wasn’t sure there would be much improvement but trusted the science. He was pleasantly surprised with the difference it brought to the services.
The pushback the church expected from worship team members about switching to in-ears? It wasn’t nearly as bad as they’d feared. The training made the difference. When people understand the why behind the change and have someone walk them through the how, resistance drops.
Volunteers now feel like they have better tools and the training they need to take the next step in raising their quality and capabilities. The systems work together. The workflows are clean. And the team isn’t working around the technology anymore—they’re working with it.
Broadway is already looking ahead. The next phase? Updating their stage lighting.
Broadway Christian Church didn’t need a gut renovation. They didn’t need the biggest system or the latest everything. They needed someone to look at what they had, figure out what was actually wrong, keep what was working, fix what wasn’t, and build a path forward that their volunteer team could own.
That’s the science behind the art. Not every project is a ground-up build. Some of the most meaningful work we do is helping a church get more out of what they already have; giving them a system that finally works the way it should.
If your systems have been pieced together over the years and you’re not sure what’s next, we’d love to have that conversation, click here to connect with us.
- Team CSD