If you help coordinate your church’s weekly services, you know how important the stage and lighting are to creating the perfect space. You want anyone who comes to worship at your church to feel moved by the experience. But how do you design church environments that make worshippers feel alive?

Keep reading to learn some excellent tips to design your church’s stage and lighting!

Use Materials to Create Texture

Do you want to create a warm and homey atmosphere, or are you going for something more contemplative? The materials you choose can impact the spiritual tone you create on stage at church. If you spend some time mapping out options, you can find the right texture for your stage.

Try fashioning together shiplap or barn wood to create a cozy vibe that forms the perfect backdrop for your church band. A warm spotlight will be enough to highlight the woodgrain. And you can keep the edges of your backdrop organic to create a more approachable setting on stage.

For more intricate texture, punch holes into a wooden backdrop and shine colored lights through those holes from the backside. Especially if you’re in a large space, this is a simple way to build a stronger focal point.

In any space, make sure to have a backdrop behind your speaker to help unite all of the elements on stage. For simple solutions to help frame the space, try hanging a cluster of balloons around the edge of your stage. Or as another option, string up bands of lights or hang curtains to frame the top and sides – and add eye-catching texture in the process!

Design Church Spaces around the Cross

The cross is one of the most important symbols in a church service, but you can find new and effective ways to display it in your space. Look into hanging your cross from the ceiling, projecting an image of a cross, or using unexpected materials to build a cross.

For a dramatic moment, shift the lights to focus on a cross suspended from the ceiling when the music starts during services. Or consider draping fabrics over and around a wooden cross for a beautiful scene. The folds in the fabric will catch the light and create a stunning visual.

While wooden crosses might be more common, you can turn to unusual materials to construct a cross, too. Use chicken wire to create an industrial and delicate cross that would look amazing against a clean white background. Or try using discarded materials from a nearby construction site to create something beautiful from the trash.

Try Projecting Imagery

A laptop and projector can do more than just protect lyrics onto a screen at the front of the church. You can enhance the meaningfulness of your service, too, with carefully chosen imagery.

Try playing videos of relevant imagery during the sermon to supplement the words being spoken. You can go a step further and use videos to add a sense of movement. The visual of a peaceful waterfall or burning fire can inject power and provide strong metaphors during mass.

Or try projecting the image of a cross or other important visual iconography onto a fabric backdrop. By using projections during worship services, you have the flexibility to change up the imagery more easily and frequently.

Use Lighting that Invites People to Participate

Lighting can make your church stage more dramatic or approachable depending on the tone of your service. So, use light to your advantage!

LED lights can add boldness to the stage. Wrap them around large columns to create abstract shapes in the background. Or weave them around fabric sashes, pieces of wood, or painted boards to create playful spaces that will keep your audience engaged during the service.

Choose cooler colors like blue to help people relax and focus on the space or turn to warmer colors like red to highlight critical messages. Use a fog machine to add even more ambiance. The soft texture of the smoke will look atmospheric and otherworldly as the light hits it.

And when in doubt, ask the professionals for help. Church stage lighting can help draw attention to speakers and emotions, so you want people with experience helping you map out a good plan.

Emphasize Words on Stage

Since words are such an important part of a worship service, you can use lighting and design to give them more presence and clarity on stage. Consider how you can highlight a particular phrase that’s critical to a sermon series or emphasize a word that can provide encouragement in dark times.

Use wood or plastic to create large, life-size cut-outs of letters. You can even opt for sturdy cardboard if you’re trying to keep costs low. Shine spotlights on them from the front of the stage or reach for the LED lights to wrap around the outside edges of your letters.

Another option is to use paint as a point of emphasis. Pour house paint onto your letters or use a brush to apply the paint in a gestural way. The textures of the paint will help the words comes to life from a distance.

Start Designing

When it comes to worship, you want your parishioners to feel engaged in the experience – and lighting and design can go a long way toward achieving that goal. With a little research and experimentation, you can design church spaces that are inspiring and inviting.

When you’re looking for the latest information on anything from religion to technology, check back with us for more great articles!