Worship night
Creating With the Lord: A Worship Night Lighting Walkthrough
Tyler Vandenberg · December 12, 2025Part of leading worship (whether from a platform or behind the scenes) is about helping equip those you’re leading.
This year, after attending SALT 2025 in October, we felt called to start our November worship night with a quick teaching moment on some of the different Hebrew words for praise. A loud shout or hands lifted high aren’t the only ways to worship, but they give a starting point for learning how to truly worship the Lord. For me, sitting behind that lighting console in an empty sanctuary was my worship and my offering. I put all the other tasks and timelines to the side and gave the Lord my attention and my time, listening to Him for what the night should visually look and feel like.
I’ve been trying to be better at preparing my heart before work, and earlier in November, the Lord started laying some groundwork for what He wanted the night to look like.
Hebrew Words of Praise Teaching at North Way Worship Night, November 2025
Here’s the worship night on YouTube if you want to experience the night as a whole.
The Heart Behind the Design
Two weeks before the November worship night, we did a lighting and video wall reconfig. Below is a photo of the old config.
North Way Wexford stage/lighting config from before Winter 2025
This change was mostly driven by the need to be able to wheel out a grand piano for Christmas Eve (as well as a Christmas video shoot, see the photo below with the grand piano and choir).
Christmas 2025 Video Shoot at North Way Wexford, November 2025
The lighting and video wall design was a collaboration between a few of us on the Wexford Campus and Central Production staff teams. Justin Quinn did a fantastic job of putting all of our designs together in Vectorworks and laying out timelines and tasks that needed to happen. This was the first time we were this organized and prepared for a stage redesign, and we learned even more lessons to take into the next redesign (maybe Easter?).
I don’t usually plan ahead much for my programming as far as locking in exact colors or effects or things like that. I prefer to take my time and see what looks good in the room, trying to stick to presets as much as I can, and also compare colors on stage with colors on our camera and program with IMAG screens on. I definitely design with the room in mind first for worship, but I don’t want what the camera captures to be an afterthought. With the quick turnaround between the reconfig and the worship night, I only had a few simple presets ready ahead of time.
For the worship night, we also had a small choir on the stage. This was added after our experience at SALT 2025 too. It was a really powerful thing to be able to see people on stage putting the different Hebrew words of praise into action, not in a performance but in their genuine worship. This was my first time designing lights for a choir on stage. Some of the ambient lighting choices were made with the choir in mind. I also had some dedicated front lighting on a separate fader for the choir that I manually used throughout the night to highlight them in specific moments.
Setlist Walkthrough
November 2025 Worship Night at North Way Wexford
Walk In Look
I stuck with a simple gold/amber look I was playing around with during rehearsal. That color translated well on camera and captured a nice warmth for this time of year, when it starts getting cold outside. That was a recurring color through the night.
Welcome & Hebrew Words Of Praise Teaching
Instead of starting with a countdown or an opening video like we usually do, we went right into the night with Anthony, the Wexford Campus Worship Director, teaching on the different words of praise, their meanings, and their connection to worship. I designed some quick slides in Photoshop for the center LED wall based on his notes that matched the walk in look color.
Bless God
The end of the teaching led into the chorus of Bless God, inviting the room to worship. I slowly transitioned from the golden teaching look and added some light blue as the song progressed. It was a deliberate choice to slowly transition visually into the worship set on my part. I wanted to make sure the team on the platform led the room musically into that moment before I brought us there visually.
Worthy Of It All
After Bless God, Worthy Of It All was a bit of a lower energy moment. I wanted to match that and not take us too far from where we started. I kept the gold going in different ways with the blinders and brought some purple into the song to represent God’s worthiness.
We Crown You
I wanted to show some reverence with this song. I decided to flood the room with red using mostly our ColorStrikes. I kept the lighting pretty consistent through the beginning of the song. I wanted to add something visually though, and I settled on these icons to represent each verse of the song (there were four verses and we have four side banner LED wall sections with this new configuration). I went with a crown of thorns, nails, a lamb, and a cross. I had ChatGPT generate these four icons in a simple and matching white design. I arranged them on each banner section and had one fade in each verse. Then took them all off after the chorus before the instrumental breakdown. This song is also where I started to bring down the front lighting a little. I try my best to make sure there’s enough light for cameras to see something, but I love bringing down front lighting levels during worship when I can to help keep the focus off the team on the platform and onto the One we are bringing our offering to.
We Crown You photo showing icons on video wall - November 2025 Worship Night at North Way Wexford
Who Else
I love the lyrics to this song.
I am an instrument of exaltation And I was born to lift Your name above all names You hear the melody of all creation But there’s a song of praise that only I can bring
I started with this teal-ish wash in the room. I also kept the front light lower on this song. I wanted the words to take the forefront. When the bridge hit I started bringing in some pink-ish light and built with the song in light intensity and effects. I let the song lead then the lights follow.
Gratitude
I felt like Who Else was supposed to flow into Gratitude visually, so I kept the blue/teal-ish color. I used some gold/amber accent lighting as the song built.
The Heart Of Worship & Knowing You (Flow Moment)
We had an idea of what songs we were going to do for this section, but it was also pretty free flowing so we could follow the Spirit’s lead. We just had a click on a loop for this section, so I brought us back to a gold look. I brought up the audience wash intensity a little for this section too. Not to an annoying level, but so the room felt evenly lit and there wasn’t a difference between the team on the platform and everyone else. It was one room gathering to give glory to Jesus.
Worthy
Once again, I carried over some warmer colored gold/amber elements into this song and stuck with purple to represent the worthiness of Jesus. The instrumental after the bridge where things are big is a section where I brought in a faster intensity effect, hoping to match the energy visually.
O Praise The Name
I went with a blue/purple look for this song. On the screens, I was still getting used to the new screen config and what looks good visually behind lyrics, so I mostly stuck with gradients or things like that so far. But I felt like we needed a cross on screen for this song. I pulled one I had uploaded to the Hippotizer already and added it as a more subtle image behind the lyrics.
The Blood
I challenged myself to try a different color than I usually do for The Blood and ended up with a nice pink/magenta wash. I kept the beginning simple from a lighting perspective. This was the point in the set that I started to break out the flash button I programmed for the blinders (with a fader to control intensity of the blinder flash). I used it (somewhat subtly) on the big choruses after the bridge.
What A Beautiful Name
This is probably one of my favorite songs to program for. And Kyley does a great job leading this song in a powerful way. We did the whole bridge twice, starting low as we came out of The Blood and building the second time like normal. I kept the first time pretty calm then built visually the second time through the bridge.
I Know A Name
This was our first time singing this song at North Way. This was the big ending for the night! I kept the song pretty warm visually and had some red accent lighting. I used the blinders to manually hit them on the beat and build things big. I also went a little heavier than I usually do on the effects. By the end, the stage was looking bright like the glory of heaven with the white strobe section of the ColorStrikes at full brightness and the blinders near that too. A great way to end the night!
When A Planned Moment Gets Cut
And while that was a great way to end the night, it wasn’t my original plan for I Know A Name. I love the simple visuals in the original music video from Elevation Worship for I Know A Name. I saw there was also some content on StoryLoop for I Know A Name with a similar feel to what Elevation had done.
I planned to combine the content from StoryLoop with some content I was already working on to create a custom lyric video for our screens. I was excited about staying true to the original vision Elevation had for their song but making it fit our space visually.
That video ended up getting cut for time. I got a later start on programming because of a busy week with other things and the video still wasn’t finished the morning of the worship night. I decided to cut the video and program for I Know A Name without it and use the time I had left to clean up some other cues for the night.
The Lord didn’t need my video for Him to do what He was going to do in the room anyway. And as we were all singing along with I Know A Name to end the night, God reminded me of something from earlier in the month.
I’ve been trying to be better at creating a more consistent routine of spending time with the Lord at work. Earlier in November, I was reading through Exodus 31 about Bezalel being filled with the Spirit of God, wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and skills to create.
November 2025 Worship Night at North Way Wexford
Creating With The Lord
I asked the Lord to help me use the skills He gave me to create the designs He places in me. That I don’t want to copy, but I want to create for Him. A moment with the Lord I almost forgot about until the middle of I Know A Name during worship night.
God was preparing me to surrender my vision for His plan. It wasn’t an easy surrender, but I knew I had to let go of my vision and my plan.
The things we do and create and plan for should be an extension and result of the time we spent with the Lord. Not a reflection of our preferences or our vision. We are called to create with the Lord, not just for the Lord.