Founded in 1962, Wheeler Avenue Baptist is a historic church in downtown Houston, TX. In 2020, Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church wanted to increase and improve the overall audio sound quality in the church offices and conference rooms. The church leaders needed a long-term solution that would address their growing need for hybrid meeting flexibility and higher quality audio in conference rooms, and the solution had to be easy to install and use for staff members. The Bose Professional’s Videobar VB1 all-in-one USB conference device met all the church’s needs.
Each week more than 15,000 church members gather for worship, prayer, and Bible study, led by senior pastor Marcus D. Cosby and his team. The church holds spiritual study sessions for children, youth, and adults in their 56,000 square-foot Christian Education Complex, which houses classrooms, a nursery, and a multipurpose meeting space.
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Chris McKinney, technical director of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church reached out to local Houston integrator Covenant Communications to find the best solution to meet the church’s long-term audio needs. Covenant Communication’s business development staff person Kundayi Musinami recommended Bose Professional’s Videobar VB1 to for the church.
“We have a strong history with Bose Professional products, and we knew the Videobar VB1 all-in-one USB device would be a superb and long-term option for Wheeler Baptist’s needs,” said Musinami.
Initially, the focus of the installation was to update the conference rooms and staff offices with the Videobar VB1. This ensured that church leadership and staff were able to meet together quickly and easily, whether meeting virtually or in person—allowing them to continue to build upon their vision of outreach and growth.
Video Bar Empowers Classroom Learning, Church Member Participation
In less than two months following the initial success of the Videobar VB1 installation, the church reached back out to Covenant Communications to help them incorporate the full features of the Bose Professional Videobar VB1 all-in-one videoconferencing capabilities in the classrooms of the Christian Educational center.
The church also anticipated the growth of and need for future hybrid meetings, Bible classes, and the present and future needs of remote members’ participation. Ultimately, over 25 Videobar VB1 units were installed throughout the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church campus.
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The Videobar VB1 ensures that church members who cannot attend a Bible class or a meeting in person, will have the next best experience by attending virtually. In those rooms, with every prayer and verse spoken among clasped hands, the focus and closeness of a faith-centered gathering needed to be at its highest level.
Bose Professional Videobar VB1 features include six beam-steering microphones and group autoframing, where pan, tilt, and zoom adjust automatically to keep everyone in the frame. Coupled with the high-quality Bose Professional audio, these attributes provide the natural-sounding audio and leading features the church needed to extend their community’s closeness.
In addition to customizing audio coverage for varying room shapes, the Videobar VB1 seamlessly connects to existing network infrastructure, making installation faster while allowing for easier system management whether monitoring system health or implementing remote updates.
“What truly distinguishes the Videobar VB1 from competitive products is the accuracy it offers in terms of room coverage, the ability to tailor coverage to the shape or orientation of the room, and the ability to zero in on people speaking in the rooms while delivering clear, crisp sound during meetings or events,” said Musinami.
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A Unified Connection with ‘Wheeler Wherever’
In January 2022, church leaders and congregants dedicated its brand new 80,00-square-foot, 2,800-seat cathedral and Christian Education Complex, expanding the gathering spaces available to the church and their surrounding community.
Since incorporating the Bose Videobar VB1 in the church education center’s classrooms, members at home are fully able to attend classes remotely. "The Bose Professional VB1 helps every student clearly see and effectively hear, and the camera coverage is wide, so our remote participants are able to see the entire class and actively engage,” said McKinney.
The Bose Professional Videobar VB1 continues to ensure the Church’s mission statement of ‘Wheeler Wherever’ to stay true. “We had an incredibly positive experience working with Covenant Communications and Bose Professional. Everything installed met our deadlines, the installation was clean, communication was effective, and this resulted in an extremely easy-to-use solution that has left a positive experience on church staff, members, and students,” said McKinley.
