Why Crazy Amazing Designs Excels at Church Production Systems

Most church tech problems aren’t actually gear problems. They’re SYSTEMS problems. The microphone works. The console works. The livestream encoder works. But getting all of them to work TOGETHER — reliably, repeatably, with volunteers who aren’t engineers — that’s a different challenge. And that’s the exact challenge that Crazy Amazing Designs was built to solve.

If you’ve ever had a situation where “everything was fine last week and nothing changed,” or where your church tech seems to work perfectly when one specific person runs it and falls apart for everyone else — you have a systems problem. And that’s exactly what I love to fix.

What “Systems Thinking” Means in Church Production

A system is more than hardware. It’s the hardware, the software, the routing, the signal flow, the documentation, the training, and the workflow — all working together toward a predictable outcome every Sunday.

I’m Nathan Robb, founder of Crazy Amazing Designs, and I’ve been doing this work for over a decade. I’ve set up production systems in churches across the country, and the #1 thing I’ve learned is that complexity is the enemy of reliability. A system that has too many moving parts, too many undocumented “tricks,” or too many dependencies on one person’s tribal knowledge is a system that WILL fail at the worst possible moment.

The goal of every system we help design or configure at Crazy Amazing Designs is: any trained volunteer can walk in and run it correctly. Not just the tech director. Not just the one person who’s been there for 15 years. Everyone.

The Core Systems We Work With

Crazy Amazing Designs has deep expertise across every major area of church production. Here’s how these systems fit together:

Audio: Behringer X32 and Digital Consoles

Your audio system is the backbone of your production workflow. The Behringer X32 — one of our specialties — is powerful enough to serve churches of almost any size, with routing capabilities that can handle your house mix, IEM monitors, broadcast feed, and recording simultaneously. But only if it’s configured correctly.

I’ve done in-depth X32 routing training, covered AES50 stage box setups, USER input/output routing, and multitrack recording — all on the Crazy Amazing Designs YouTube channel. Our X32 Show File & Routing Master File Package ($43) gives churches a professionally configured starting point they can build on.

Video: ProPresenter, ATEM, and Camera Systems

Your video system connects what’s happening on stage to what your congregation sees — in the room and online. ProPresenter 7 is the hub for most church video workflows: slide presentation, lower thirds, stage display, screen output routing, and livestream integration.

I’ve built a library of ProPresenter training covering screen configurations, livestream outputs, chroma key and transparent outputs, themes and templates, stage display, and much more. Our ProPresenter Quick Start Template ($65) is a ready-to-deploy ProPresenter setup for churches starting fresh or starting over.

For live switching and streaming, the Blackmagic ATEM Mini is our recommended platform for most churches. I’ve covered ATEM Mini Pro setup and ProPresenter-to-ATEM integration with chroma key — the combination of ProPresenter and ATEM together is one of the most powerful and cost-effective church livestreaming systems available.

Control: Bitfocus Companion and StreamDeck

When your audio system, video system, and lighting system are all running simultaneously, you need a way to tie them together into a single, coherent workflow that a volunteer can actually operate under pressure. That’s where Bitfocus Companion and StreamDeck come in.

My Beginner’s Guide to Bitfocus Companion 4.0 is the starting point — and from there, the possibilities are genuinely impressive. One StreamDeck button can advance slides in ProPresenter, cut to a camera on your ATEM, mute channels on your X32, and trigger a lighting cue — simultaneously. This is the kind of integrated control that makes a multi-system workflow manageable for a non-technical volunteer.

We offer several Companion templates in the Crazy Amazing Designs shop: a pre-built ATEM Control Page template ($16.99), a full Conference Room Control System Template ($475), and the StreamDeck XL Controller hardware unit ($660) — a dedicated, PoE-powered Raspberry Pi 5 based controller that runs Companion natively without needing a separate computer.

Lighting: DMX, Art-Net, and LED Pixel Systems

Stage lighting is often the last thing churches invest in — and often the thing that makes the biggest visual impact when it’s done right. DMX and Art-Net lighting control, LED pixel systems, and integration with the rest of your production workflow are all areas Crazy Amazing Designs handles.

Our LED Pixel Controller ($165.99) and Full 8ft Tree Kit with Art-Net control ($356) are hardware products I’ve designed specifically for church and event use — designed to be reliable, configurable, and actually understandable without a lighting engineering degree.

Why the SYSTEM Matters More Than the Gear

Churches often think the answer to their production problems is new gear. And sometimes it is. But more often, the answer is configuring and integrating the gear they already have — correctly.

I’ve seen churches with $80,000 in audio and video equipment whose livestream looks and sounds terrible because the systems were never properly configured. And I’ve seen churches with modest budgets whose services look professional and polished because someone took the time to set everything up right, document it, and train their team.

At Crazy Amazing Designs, we believe that world-class church production isn’t about budget — it’s about knowledge. And that knowledge is exactly what we’re here to provide.

How We Help: Training, Templates, and Consulting

Crazy Amazing Designs offers help at every level:

One-on-One Zoom Training is the most direct path to solving your specific problem. We screen-share your actual system, look at your real settings, and fix what’s broken or build what’s missing. Most common issues can be solved in a single session. For teams, we offer group training that gets everyone on the same page.

Digital Templates and Products in our shop give you professionally built starting points — X32 show files, ProPresenter setups, Companion configurations — that save hours of from-scratch work and give you a solid foundation to customize.

On-Site Consulting is available for churches that want a deeper engagement — system design, installation support, workflow development, and team training done in person.

Let’s Build a System Your Church Can Rely On

If you’re tired of “it worked last week,” tired of dreading technical problems on Sunday morning, or just ready to take your church’s production to the next level — I’d love to help.

Book a one-on-one Zoom training session at CrazyAmazingDesigns.com/training

Explore all our free training at Youtube.com/@CrazyAmazingDesigns

In Christ, Nathan Robb