First United Methodist Church in Waco, Texas already had a multimedia system installed, but they felt something was missing. “We wanted that ‘Wow!’ effect when people came in”, says Mary Meadows, Multimedia Director for the church. “When people come that are new to church, it gives them a comfort factor,” she says. “We didn’t buy the plasmas for our people. We bought them for our visitors.”

The church installed 42” plasma screens in the foyer that serve a couple of different purposes. “Before the service we’ll show pictures of the youth group or photos from a mission trip so visitors can see what goes on at the church,” Mary says. “We have other things we run for special occasions like Father’s Day and Mother’s Day.”

For example, this past Mother’s Day they had a “Worst Mother’s Day Gifts” countdown showing on the screens. “We had all these guys saying ‘Oh I gave that once.’ or ‘My Mom couldn’t believe I thought that would be a good idea.’ it was a lot of fun.”

"...we couldn’t have done any of this without Fowler’s help."

Digital signage is just one use FUMC has for their plasmas. When the service starts, they switch the signal over to a live feed from the sanctuary. “When someone needs to leave the sanctuary, like a mother with a crying baby or someone that doesn’t feel well, they can go out to the foyer and still be a part of the service by watching it out there.”

The church has only had the plasmas for about 2 months, but they’ve already seen a huge impact in the way they’re connecting with people. “We got into multimedia to connect to the younger generation. The youth and children of today see the world different than they used to. We’ve studied it and people retain more when they see, hear, and read than when only one of those occurs,” Mary says. “It enhances our worship more than anything.”

A great example of the difference multimedia makes was seen at FUMC’s annual conference. “We had our annual conference two weeks after we purchased the plasmas. With roughly 1500 members we’re the largest church in our area, and several smaller churches came in for the conference. They had never really seen multimedia being used in church, so we used as many different backgrounds as we could to show what all can be done. We heard so many comments about how moved people were by it and we had tons of people tell us how impressed they were,” Mary says. “It was a great example of how you can affect so many people when you use good media versus bad or none at all.”

As for the installation of the plasmas, the church had the Fowler Installation team come down and take care of everything. “We had a bunch of firewalls that caused some big problems in running the wiring. I was so impressed by the installer’s tenacity; they even stayed two extra days so they could get the job done right instead of rushing it. I felt so bad for them I even offered to wash their clothes!”

Mary says it was a huge step in the right direction for the church to purchase the plasmas. “We wouldn’t have the impact we’re having now without this technology. And we couldn’t have done any of this without Fowler’s help. They made it easy from start to finish and their tech support is awesome!”

Established churches aren’t the only ones that can benefit from the addition of multimedia. Inspiration Point, a retreat center located in Clitherall, Minnesota, currently hosts over 8,000 people each year for camps, retreats, reunions, and special events. They wanted to renovate their worship facility and update the use of multimedia in their services.

“We had been limping along for a while using a portable projector but our facilities just didn’t lend themselves to that,” says Executive Director Greg Anderson. “The ceilings are really low and we couldn’t get anything to project high enough to go over people’s heads. We really needed to renovate, so we called Fowler to see what could be done.”

After running through several different options, it was decided that one 50” and two 42” plasma screens would be the best solution for their needs. “I’d only thought of using plasma screens as a supplement and not a solution. But they’re working out great!”, Greg says.

The center usually has about 200 people in attendance every week, and they’ll meet once or twice a day for a worship time. “For any children’s worship we usually have a couple of guys on acoustic guitars up at the front, but for the older youth and adults we’ll have a whole band leading. Now that we have the screens we can display song lyrics, illustration points and so on.”

Greg says his staff was able to install the screens without any problems or glitches at all. “It’s pretty amazing actually. I couldn’t believe we didn’t run into anything that would be a major problem for us.”

"People’s jaws just drop when they come in and see what we’ve done"

How Greg found out about Fowler in the first place is a bit of a unique story. “I heard about Fowler around 10 years ago when I received a mailing from them. It looked interesting to me so I held on to it. When we started looking at getting a multimedia system, I remembered that flyer and called Fowler. I’ve kept in touch with them over the past four or five years about purchasing a system. I felt really comfortable with Fowler and even though I didn’t buy anything from them for so many years, they still kept me on their mailing list, which I know takes a lot of effort. I never felt pressured to purchase anything and Fowler always answered any questions I had in fine detail.”

Based on the overwhelmingly positive response the displays have received over the past two months, Greg says he is confident the decision to move forward with a multimedia system was the right one. “People’s jaws just drop when they come in and see what we’ve done. Inspiration Point is here to help folks get away from everyday life and draw closer to God. And because people learn in so many different ways, multimedia helps us bring the Gospel to them in a manner that anybody can learn.”

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