Probably one of the easiest things to overlook when planning your startup church is figuring out how much power you’re going to need, and where you’re going to get it from. Kids Church, mailouts, set up and tear down crews, signage, etc. are all top priority. At home, when you need to plug something in, you just plug it in. At worst, you throw a power strip in the mix.
When you’re considering power requirements for a startup church, especially in a portable location, it’s a whole different ballgame. So here’s some different points to consider:

1) Distribution
Running a church probably requires a significantly higher power consumption than your facility is prepared for. Most of the outlets on the wall in a movie theater are designed to run a vacuum cleaner, not a lighting system. A classroom distributes power to run lots of low-draw computers, not a powered speaker array. So your number one priority is to distribute the load, and not rely on the facility’s distribution.
Break down your power needs into the basic categories, eg.
i. Lights,
ii. Speakers/amps,
iii. Stage,
iv. Soundbooth,
v. Projectors,
vi. Nursery,
vii. Kid’s church sound,
viii. Kid’s church lights, etc.
Then figure out (google “Ohm’s law”) how much power each one of these categories will draw, then PUT EACH ONE ON A SEPARATE BREAKER CIRCUIT. Plan to have each of the categories draw less than 15amps. If it looks like your lights will need 20amps, split them on to two separate circuits.
Next, find where you can run the power from. In a movie theater your best bet is to drop power from the projection room. In a school or storefront, you may need to find a maintenance closet/room with the breaker box. Figure what your location does that draws a lot of power (giant movie projectors) and start from there.

2) Grounding
The next issue to consider is grounding. This is most noticable when you get the incessant buzzing sound in the speakers, and can’t figure out what’s causing it. This is called a “60 cycle hum” and is caused because US power is ~110 volts AC, and cycles at 60hz, and somewhere that is bleeding in to the sound signal. The number one way to lose that hum is by making sure that ALL the band and sound equipment are on the same circuit, thus having a common ground.
Another major factor in eliminating the hum is making sure the lighting power is on a totally different circuit to the sound power. Make sure the power cords don’t run along side each other, or near the sound snake.
One more grounding issue. It’s worth spending the $3 at Home Depot to get a circuit tester that will tell you if the outlets you’re plugging in to are polarized correctly, and grounded properly. Bad ground could be potentially very dangerous (electrified lighting towers, etc), and bad polarization can permanently damage equipment.

In my next post I’ll cover 2 or 3 more issues to consider when setting up power. Stay tuned.