LAKELAND, FL – The stately brick building with the vaulted roof at 730 South Florida Avenue stood as a reassuring landmark for residents of the Lake Morton Historic District since it opening in 1925. A particular feature that was a favorite was the large rectangular, arch-topped stained-glass windows that lined the building’s sides, and the base of its belfry tower.

From the time Grace City Church purchased this historic site in 2013, the delicate colorful beauty of these stained-glass windows captivated worshippers and visitors to the church alike. Among the admirers was Dominic Lopenzo, Grace City’s lighting designer.

Like many at the church, Lopenzo missed the graceful elegance of the stained-glass windows after Grace City moved from the old South Florida Avenue building into a larger, more modern facility a couple of years ago to meet the needs of its growing congregation. This Christmas he created the effect of these beloved gems at the church’s services with the help of pixel mapped CHAUVET Professional fixtures.

“The stained-glass window look between our LED wall and the Chauvet lights is probably my favorite element of my design this Christmas,” said Lopenzo. “The massive stained-glass windows in our old building were special, so this look is reminiscent of that era in our new church. With the pixel mapping functions of the COLORdash Battens and the R3 Washes in our rig, I am able to create a more seamless look between the LED wall images of the stained-glass windows and the lighting fixtures by setting up color changing effects for each individual LED pixel.”

Using his church’s “regular year-round rig” for Christmas, Lopenzo relied on four Rogue R3 Spot, four Rogue R3 Wash, four Rogue RH1 Hybrid, and ten Rogue R1 Wash fixtures for his lighting He also used eight COLORdash Batten Quad-12 for backlighting in the center of the stage.

“The R3 fixtures are in the air on my upstage truss, while the R1 washes and RH1 hybrids are scattered around the deck,” he said. “The washes are used in a typical wash fashion for slower and lower dynamic parts of the songs, but when the big instrumentals kick in, they’re zoomed all of the way in to act as beam fixtures to complement the R3 spots and RH Hybrids. Both the R1 and R3 washes have pretty tight and crisp beams when they are at their narrowest so they complement the actual spot and wash fixtures well.

“For Christmas, I feel like Gobos are the best things to use to create vibes for the songs,” continued Lopenzo. “I usually have one of the Gobo designs set for the majority of any particular song. I love zooming the R3 spots all of the way out and having them move in the crowd enveloping everyone in light. In my view, this creates an incredible effect. Our room is fairly big, but the four R3 spots are more than capable of covering every seat at the same time.”

Although Grace City tries to keep its Christmas services close to the church’s normal Sunday look, it features some special moments on December 25, such as during the candle lighting moment when the congregation sings “Silent Night.” Through the service Lopenzo strives to reflect the mood of the moment in lighting.

“I always want to make sure my lighting programming matches the dynamics of the song,” he said. “This is true whether it’s a thoughtful contemplative Christmas song or something more energetic.”

This year he did that against a beautiful backdrop that called up Christmas memories of timeless stained-glass windows.