Resurrection Life
Grandville, MI


Seat Count: 4,200
Project Type: Expansion
Opening: 2006
AD Scope: Audio, Acoustics,
Video Projection


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Resurrection Life is a rapidly growing church in Grandville, Michigan. With weekend attendance of about 8,000 people, the church walls had to expand as well.

Acoustic Dimensions was brought onto the design team by Holland Simpson, the broadcast consultant, to provide audio, acoustics and video projection design. Music is vital to the worship service, in addition, they incorporate visual artists and dance into their services.

One of the driving factors of the level of the sound system wasn’t merely the $1 million budget, but more the quality of the musicians and technical team themselves. The team at Resurrection Life operate at a professional level and required that type of a system.

In many ways, the system is more like a touring setup. The platform has a lot of multi-conductor snakes, stage boxes, and things that road shows use. The system enables set up of multiple bands without unpatching or disconnecting anything. Ken Reynolds, the director of Worship and Creative arts remarked that when the debut weekend was over, people commented on how “crystal clear” everything sounded. “It’s like they could hear everything, every little detail,” he said.

“This church has grown so much in the last few years, it’s just amazing,” said Cliff Rosenberg, technical director. Rosenberg served as the main audio coordinator for the expansion project.

Each console is a different size and makeup, geared to its individual space, but, from a user standpoint, operate in a very similar manner, for ease in training.

The consoles are capable of 160 channels of mix down and are interconnected with a fiberoptic ring as opposed to traditional copper snakes.

The control booth is centrally located in the worship center so that the mixer shares the same acoustic space as the congregation. In the original design, the room was acoustically dead. Now, acoustical panels hang from the roof deck to help provide some sound return to the congregation. By adding some reflection back into the space the sense of aural community and congregational participation is increased improving the worship experience.

“There are a surprising number of musicians in this church,” Rosenberg says. “You can’t do a big audio upgrade in a church that doesn’t have, as a part of its vision, to reach people through music, specifically church music.”