St. John’s Engages and Enlightens Congregants

When it came time to upgrade the sound system at the beautiful St. John’s Lutheran Church in Santa Rosa California, Pastor Michael Schmid chose top-rate equipment.

 

His reason was simple. “Sound is vital,” the pastor said. “There is no point in being there if people can’t hear.”

 

For his parishioners’ assistive listening needs, he chose Listen Technologies Corporation. Listen provided the church with high-quality wireless sound that allowed those with hearing impairments the flexibility to sit in favorite or preferred locations in the sanctuary. That freedom can be extremely important to some in a house of worship.

 

“The system we had before was hard-wired to designated seats,” Pastor Schmid said. “But that wasn’t desirable. We wanted a system that would enable them the freedom to sit wherever they want.”

 

Utah-based Listen Technologies Corp. designs and manufactures wireless devices to help people hear better. Listen’s LT-800 transmitter, which was wired off of the main audio mixer for the church sound system, sends a clear, noise-filtered signal directly to parishioners wearing discreet battery powered receivers with headsets. The system also helps the church meet the requirements of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Greg Adams, chief engineer and systems designer at Sound Expressions in Santa Rosa, said the pastor and others at the church were delighted with the Listen system when they heard the quality of sound.

 

“The Listen equipment sounded so good in there, it basically blew everyone away,” said Adams, whose company sold and installed the system. “All the different options with speakers, the neck loops, the ear buds, made it real easy to accommodate any particular hearing impairment.” St. John’s later decided to extend the Listen system to the Cry Room by installing an LR-600 Wireless Speaker/Receiver. That way, parents of fussy children could still hear the sermon.

 

“You can just turn the Listen speaker on to hear the service,” Pastor Schmid said. He’s been very pleased with the system’s performance.

 

“We want to bring the best to the Lord and also the best to the people,” he said. “So high-quality sound is very important. It’s not an area that you want to skimp on.”