Ricky Perinchief is a two-time Emmy award winner with over 25 years in broadcast television, consulting and systems integration. Ricky also oversees technology for his father at NOW Church in Ocala, Florida. When he embarked on planning the church’s Legacy Building expansion, he brought his years of experience helping churches of all sizes to affordably achieve technical excellence in their lighting projects.
The new Legacy Building is located in front of the original building and was designed to address shortcomings in the original architecture. As Ricky notes:
“We never had a real lobby – it was basically a glorified hallway, with little room for people to congregate before and after service. We wanted to create a lingering culture so people could be at the church and connect in a warm and welcoming atmosphere. Having regretted the lower ceilings in our original building, The Legacy Building boasts 20’ tall ceilings in all common spaces.”
At the same time, Ricky knew that any technology incorporated into the new space needed to be smart and easy for the volunteer operators using it. Building projects that come about to address church growth are already stressful enough for pastors and leaders, so choosing systems that can be easily learned and operated by volunteers is key.
“With NOW Church, we can change the entire mood and lighting look of each space based on the sermon series, conference theme, or special event with the touch of a button.”
In addition to ease of use, affordability and energy efficiency were also top priorities for the project. Ricky explains the thought process behind their build: “Our new family life center needed to be economical and multipurpose… To be one of the most efficient, eco-friendly, creative and cleverly designed multipurpose buildings in the country, using the latest technologies, workflows, and automations.” He describes the advantages that LOGIC brought with its low-voltage Power Over Ethernet technology, and notes some of the specific choices made in their lighting design:
“With the cost of electrical wiring, components, and labor at an all-time high, Iluminarc’s LOGIC system brings the benefit of allowing an electrician to install circuits at a central rack. Then, low voltage Cat6 cabling connects groups of LOGIC fixtures to the LOGIC Drives. Our lobby, kids’ classrooms and banquet room have both Iluminarc Graze L, a compact wall graze luminaire designed to highlight smooth or textured surfaces with a throw distance up to twelve feet, which illuminates the white open ceiling; along with Iluminarc LOGIC AR111 downlight luminaires. With their high quality 4-color RGBW color mixing system, these downlights provide soft, pleasing accent light and indirect illumination of bright, saturated colors as well as white calibrated CCT presets.”
Beyond creating new interior spaces to meet, eat, and learn, an additional design intent was to use the view of the new colorful interior lighting to draw people in.
“With these vivid colors on throughout the night, everyone who drives by can’t help but notice the colorful glow shining from the inside out.”
NOW Church achieved a creative, complex, and multipurpose space that can handle just about any event and accomplished Ricky Perinchief’s objective to leverage new and smart technologies to draw people in.
“At NOW, we love multiple services and are very confident in the technology and worship experience we create each and every week, and always strive to keep things fresh.”
