The Whole Sunday Stack: Every Church Production System We Can Work On

Before anyone books a training session, there’s a question they almost always want to ask first: “Will you actually know MY gear?” Fair question. Every church booth is different — a hand-me-down mixer here, a donated camera there, software someone picked eight years ago. So here’s the honest answer: the full list of what we work on, in one place.

Why one person can cover this much

Church production is my world. I’ve served in the local church since 2012 — including several years as a production director in Canton, Ohio, leading sound, video, lighting, graphics, and live streaming every single week. Along the way I directed live video in a 2,000-seat theater church, ran broadcast tech for NHL games, and grew up running lyrics in a 30-person sanctuary. I’ve also published hundreds of free training videos on YouTube covering this exact stack.

The reason that matters to you: your setup is almost certainly a combination I’ve seen before. Different room, same puzzle.

Audio

The mixing console is where most churches get stuck, and it’s where we spend the most time.

• Behringer X32 family — the full-size consoles, the Rack, the Producer, plus S16/SD8 stage boxes over AES50. Routing is the deep end here — start with our X32 routing guide to see how deep.
• Midas M32 family — same brain, nicer preamps; everything we do on X32 applies.
• XR18 and the X-Air series — the small-church workhorse, including USB recording and playback.
• Most digital boards — Allen & Heath, Soundcraft, Yamaha and friends. The brands differ; gain structure, monitor mixes, and signal flow don’t.
• Dante audio networking — routing audio over the network between consoles, computers, and streaming rigs.
• Ableton Live and multitracks — click, tracks, and playback for the worship team.
• In-ear monitors, wireless mics, and the “why does it sound bad online” problem — covered in why church livestream audio sounds bad.

Presentation

• ProPresenter — screens, themes, templates, stage display, lyrics workflow, lower thirds for stream. This is one of our most-requested topics; the ProPresenter training guide shows our approach.
• Coming from EasyWorship or older software? I’ve made that migration myself — twice.

Video and cameras

• ATEM switchers — Blackmagic’s whole line, from the Mini on a folding table to rack units in a broadcast suite. See the ATEM church livestreaming guide.
• PTZ cameras — placement, control, and making robotic cameras look human-operated.
• Manned cameras and IMAG — manual camera operation, gimbals, and directing volunteers on headset.
• NDI workflows — video over the network instead of a wall of HDMI extenders.
• Signal and cabling decisions — HDMI vs SDI vs fiber, capture, converters, and multi-cam builds.

Streaming

• OBS, Resi, BoxCast — encoders, bitrates, platform quirks, and which one actually fits your church.
• YouTube channel management — I run a real channel, so we can talk thumbnails, chapters, and why your stream gets 12 views.

Lighting and stage design

• DMX and Art-Net — consoles, dimmers, fixtures, and the networking underneath, per our DMX and Art-Net practical guide.
• LED pixels and mapping — WS2815 strips, pixel controllers, and scenic LED builds.
• Stage design and fabrication — I design and build real stage sets: CAD drawings in Fusion 360, CNC cutting, 3D-printed parts, soldering the connectors nobody else wants to solder.

Control and integration

This is the layer that turns five separate systems into one booth a volunteer can run.

• Bitfocus Companion and Stream Deck — one-button control across ProPresenter, ATEM, OBS, and more; our Companion guide is the starting point.
• Computer networking — my degree is literally in this. VLANs, switches, IP planning for Dante/NDI/Art-Net, and why everything broke when someone plugged the router in backwards.
• System design and integration — planning upgrades, spending wisely, and making new gear work with what you already own. I’ve sat on the church-staff side of budget meetings; I know the difference between a wish list and a plan.

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Don’t see your exact gear?

This list grows every year, and half the fun of production is that the principles transfer. If you’re running something not named here, ask Handi — our AI assistant knows every video we’ve made — or just book a session and put your setup in the booking notes. If I’m genuinely not the right person for your system, I’ll tell you straight and point you somewhere better.

That’s the stack. Whatever layer of it is fighting you this week — we can work on it together.