Michael Janetis and his wife, Jaime, were worship pastors for 20 years before moving to Destin, Florida in 2018 and founding Oceans Church a year later. They secured a building to lease and performed a full renovation.
“It gave us the opportunity to create the kind of environment we wanted in a church,” said Michael Janetis. That environment called for large screens to highlight content and encourage more participation among the audience during services. Their initial solution was hampered by thick bezels framing each screen,” Janetis said. “If we didn’t create our content properly, parts of the text could get obscured. Everything required graphic design work to ensure it would fit within the grid. It served us well for starting the church, but the end goal was to upgrade to LED technology.”
Understanding the benefits of what an LED video wall could bring, Janetis chose a nearly 16-foot-wide, 9-foot-high (8×8) Planar MGP Complete 217-inch LED video wall with a 2.5mm pixel pitch (MGP2.5). Janetis immediately began noticing beneficial changes across different facets of their service. “Seamless, high-quality imagery and video can really enhance the worship experience,” Janetis said. “You can be leading worship in front of beautiful drone footage of a mountain range and just feel the room’s energy come alive.”
The LED video wall provides a vibrant canvas for displaying dynamic visuals and videos that complement Oceans’ worship band. The church is also beginning to incorporate content with seasonal themes. “Heading into December it will be snow and holiday themes to help emphasize the message of Christmas and the meaning behind it,” Janetis said. Another important benefit relates to the church’s online presence. “Your live stream is now truly the front door of your church,” Janetis emphasized. “Generally, most people are going to check out your live stream—if you have one— before paying a visit in person. For us, the LED display has really boosted the quality of our live stream.”
The versatile video wall provides the church with a variety of uses for family events and promoting fellowship among the congregation, such as movie nights and a planned Super Bowl party. “It’s a great resource for creating a sense of community,” Janetis says of the wall.
Janetis also plans to start an immersive project that will involve presenting people’s stories on the LED video wall in special screenings for the congregation. “We will be capturing the testimonies from different people discussing their life changes since coming to Christ,” Janetis said. “When those stories are shown on the large screen, the message will undoubtedly come across much stronger. Those moments can be moving and powerful—they can inspire hope.”
