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Grace Church Creative Studio
Erie, PA
Grace Church, located just outside of Erie, PA, was founded in 1895. In their nearly 130-year history, Grace has outgrown their building a couple of times, embraced a multi-site strategy, and continued to adapt and change for the purpose of spreading the gospel. Their website states: “We’re constantly changing how we do church so we can continue to present the unchanging gospel to our neighbors. The scriptures demand it and so does our history.”
Mankin helped Grace develop a five-year strategic plan to identify their long-term goals, clarify a clear path forward, and activate a comprehensive plan with definable goals. The first phase was a dedicated studio space, complete with audio, video, and lighting systems. The space’s focus had to serve their top priorities: ease of use, being volunteer- friendly and creating consistent visuals with little to no setup time. The recommended physical space for capturing pre-produced video elements as well as live broadcast experiences for their online church services, which happen simultaneously over YouTube and Facebook.
Mankin worked with Grace’s staff and project architect to develop all of the necessary drawings including building infrastructure, electrical upgrades, structural requirements, and acoustical treatment for the refurbished space. The space was half gym, half youth space, and needed significant attention to turn it into a content creation space.
The studio needed highly flexible systems that could change and adapt to the needs as the creative needs shifted. The lighting grid with DMX-enabled lighting fixtures that could be adjusted both in color temperature and brightness from an iPad while standing on the floor, acoustical materials in the studio to tame the tall ceilings and parallel walls, and video systems to facilitate the routing and capture of video signals. This space also doubles as an audio monitoring location for live broadcast experiences.
Though online church is a point of contention for many churches, Grace views both physical and digital gatherings as opportunities for community, discipleship, and growth. Digital experiences are seen as outreach and Grace is empowering leaders to organize micro-sites supported by the resources of a digital on-demand platform as well as the educational opportunities created by the Grace Leadership Institute School of Ministry.
The creative studio includes: