Willow Creek was one of the first churches to introduce a passion for the arts into the culture of their services. The philosophy is that in using modern tools of communication and production, they can minister to people who feel that church services have become outdated or irrelevant. Maybe it is the legacy of the Willow Creek name, which came from the rented movie theatre where the congregation first met in 1975. Or maybe it is because the church, located in the suburbs Northwest of Chicago, has created an environment where artists feel comfortable. In any case, the production approach has been wildly successful.

Every weekend 17,000-plus people attend six services featuring cutting-edge music, drama and teaching specifically designed to connect with people who do not typically go to church. The worship and arts crew is extensive: 50 vocalists, a 75-piece choir, seven rhythm bands, a 65-piece orchestra, 41 actors and a video production department — just to name a small portion of the volunteers.

Willow Creek Community Church began brainstorming with Goss/Pasma Architects back in 1997 options for expanding facilities to meet the needs of the church.

At the very first design team meeting for the new auditorium, Craig Janssen of Acoustic Dimensions stood in front of Willow Creek’s leadership team and wrote three words with a dry-erase marker: mission, activity, facility. The concept he presented was this: if your mission drives what you do, then what you do should drive what you build.

It was a concept the church had no trouble understanding. One of the defining characteristics of Willow Creek Community Church is its sense of mission. This core sense of purpose has remained consistent to the ministry from its early days in the rented movie theatre from which the church gets its name to its current position at the epicenter of the evangelical world.

Three days of meetings which included the leadership team, design team, management team, operations team, production team and artistic teams, the mission was articulated clearly. It wasn’t just about supporting the level of production for which Willow Creek is known. It was about connection. The space needed to be as much about people as it was about presentation. They wanted a space that would celebrate community and connectedness…between people in the seating areas, between the congregation and the platform, between the production team and artists.

Acoustic Dimensions took the first pass at developing the early design which took these priorities and translated them into a room that enveloped. Acoustics and sightlines were purposefully designed to create a sense of aural and visual community. Large LED screens were designed to break the limitations of vision and to bring facial expressions to the furthest seat. The result is a space that values a sense of togetherness.

From Acoustic Dimensions’ initial concept, Goss/Pasma Architects began to work on further development of the design, including the spaces outside of the auditorium. A comfortably oversized green room and kitchen was created as a space to build relationships between the production team and artists. Rehearsal rooms were created for small ensembles, instrumentals, vocals, orchestra, drama and dance. A loading dock, scene shop and storage room set free the set designers to be able to create things for events, conferences, and weekly services without having to limit their designs to the constraints of an 8’ door….the width of the stage door on the previous facility.

Goss/Pasma created lobby spaces with aesthetically beautiful places to gather and talk. A coffee bar and spacious atrium blend seamlessly into the flow of the original facility. Water features add visual and aural beauty. Even when the facility is filled to capacity, people flow easily through the circulation areas.

Inside the auditorium, Acoustic Dimensions designed two balconies with the furthest seating sections of the first balcony terracing down to the main floor. The ceiling was designed to reflect sound down to create an intimate acoustic environment—which should have been an oxymoron in a room with 7,400 seats. It was important that the space not feel like an arena, yet too much absorption would kill the sense of excitement and people worshipping together. Careful studies of sound energy, room volume, and surfaces led to an integrated solution for creating the signature acoustic of the room. The room has energy without feeling cavernous.

The auditorium features a stage house that includes a fly tower designed by theatrical consultant, Schuler & Shook, with a grid at 70 feet, and a forestage grid at 56 feet that allows for full rigging over the downstage area. The entire forestage is a lift that can park at stage level, thrust height, main floor, orchestra pit, or down to the scene shop under the stage.

Volunteers have constructed a series of wagons which allow sets to be rolled on and off the stage between scenes. In addition, there is a 90’ x 30’ door that separates the stage from the shop, so that work can continue even when the auditorium is in use. The Willow Creek production team was told that such a wall couldn’t be built. But, they designed and installed it anyway. The wall bears the signatures of the crew of volunteers that built it.

The Willow Creek production team took on an enormous task in serving as their own installation contractor for the performance systems. The installation was no small task. Catwalks, rigging, audio, video and lighting systems were installed over the course of two years by hundreds of salesmen, truck drivers, managers and tradesmen working evenings and weekends to integrate the systems. The endeavor has given a great sense of ownership to the hundreds of talented people who serve the church’s production ministry.

There are five 100-foot long motorized lighting bridges across the platform: two downstage of the proscenium over the apron and three upstage of the proscenium. The bridges can fly to any height and are easily lowered to stage level. The stage proscenium is 90 feet wide with a fixed height of 54 feet, though it is usually closed to 40 feet. The moving lighting bridges make that flexibility possible: an open, large operatic feeling for one event, and a small, cozy, more intimate atmosphere for acoustic sets.

Catwalks were designed so that lighting could be hung for both theatrical and broadcast angles maximizing flexibility in the use of the room.

A distributed dimming system was chosen for the theatrical lighting over a traditional SCR dimmer rack system. Distributed dimming power is fed to the grid and broken out to the dimmer strips. Control is via an Ethernet network. The church is utilizing dual networks, one for day-to-day control of the system, and the other for backup or alternate use. The lighting console supports multiple universes of DMX.

The architectural lighting control systems were designed in harmony with the theatrical lighting control systems. The system was much more aligned with a traditional theatrical house lighting system rather than a broadcast driven system and was designed at 35 footcandles. The main floor is lit with theatrical pars off of the catwalks and transitions into traditional recessed downcans in the balcony areas.

To achieve consistent illumination through the transition there are different wattage lamps. The high ceiling fixtures were strategically located close to the last catwalk to ease maintenance. The underbalcony uses lit coffers for architectural interest and to visually raise the ceiling height.

With valuable input from the church (supported by TC Furlong and Meyer Sound) AD designed a dual voice/music system (split mono) similar to Acoustic Dimensions’ design for Hillsong Church in Sydney, Australia.

Furlong encouraged the church to perform the installation of the speaker clusters. There were a number of quality manufacturers of line arrays to choose from, so a “shoot out” was arranged allowing the client to hear different product in the space, assisting the church in their selection.

Sub-bass speakers are mounted under the platform and in the speaker cluster area to support low frequencies. Front fill speakers cover the front rows and enhance realistic sound imaging.

Three existing digital consoles were reused at front of house, monitor, and broadcast mix positions. The digital consoles have built-in digital effects, and a MIDI sequencer is located at the front of house position to assist in productions.
There are 16 channels of stereo in ear monitors (IEM) and 10 wedge mixes.

There are three producer's desks at the main technical booth. Each position has a digital intercom, two video monitors and a router control panel. This set up is not only for production, but also so that new producers and volunteers can be trained.

Rear projection was not possible in the space due to the stagehouse and counterweight systems. Ambient light from the windows precluded front projection. The solution was two tracking 25'W x 14'H LED display panel systems. Though the LED screens were a substantial investment, image magnification (IMAG) video plays a significant role in supporting the connection between the people in the seating area and the people on the platform.

The tracking feature gives the church the flexibility to change the position of the screens or to remove them when needed. The screens can come together to form a 32 x 9 aspect ratio, then be split apart and moved off stage for IMAG. They also have the ability to move onstage to make it appear visually smaller by reducing the proscenium, or they can be used in the extreme wide position to make use of the full width of the stage.

Given the height to the room and the height of the speaker clusters and the off-axis angle of the far seats in the upper balcony, four video screens were added to the media bulkhead to enhance the visual experience for people in the side upper balconies.

There are two remote pan/tilt units integrated into the front face of the mezzanine level as part of the nine cameras that are integrated into the auditorium. There are 54 triax panels to serve the lobby, rehearsal and studio spaces in the video production area on the first level of the building.

Rehearsal spaces were a much needed addition to Willow Creek’s facility. Actors, musicians, voclaists and dancers now have spaces of their own.

The floors in the two largest rehearsal rooms are made of the same materials as the stage, so that the feel and sound is the same.

Excavation had to be done to set the ceiling height high enough to create the proper acoustic volume needed for orchestral rehearsal. In addition, large ramps are located at the entryway to make the spaces handicapped accessible.

Smaller rooms provide spaces for vocal coaching, solo and small ensemble practice.

In the end, the most outstanding feature of the room isn’t the level of excellence with which performance is supported. The most important achievement is the way the space works as a whole.