The Rock gets an upgrade

The Rock of Roseville is known for pioneering the use of technology in places of worship, so it's no surprise its gleaming-new 380-seat church auditorium is filled with Wi-Fi connected seats, high-definition TV screens and a state-of-the-art sound system. But one element strikes an incongruous note: a scratched-up old wooden chair, salvaged from the church's former location and reserved for its senior pastor."I kept the old chair I sat in, just to kind of remind me where we came from," Pastor Francis Anfuso said last week.Call it The Rock of Roseville, Version 2.0.Last month, the nine-year-old church moved into new digs on Vernon Street. Located less than a mile from its longtime Bonita Street home, the $7 million facility, at 725 Vernon Street in Downtown Roseville, was built from the ground up to satisfy the needs of a church that has built a reputation for innovation - despite the fact that its façade, which emulates an early Roseville elementary school that used to stand on the site, harkens back to the 1920s.In addition to technology upgrades, there are also a host of amenities that simply couldn't exist at the old site for space reasons, including a teen hangout area, The Rock Café, and "Rock" themed children's rooms: "Rock 'n Babies," "Rock 'n Kids" and "Rock 'n Jam." All include three-dimensional moldings, created by a church member, which lends a theme park-style atmosphere. "This was a very unique project for both the architects and the builders, especially when you throw the themed environments in there," said project manager John Vacarro.The new building is the first phase of a project that will also add a 700-seat auditorium to the site by 2010, church officials said.Thursday, members of the 1,400-person strong congregation will share with the community their new home at a worship service and open house scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at the Vernon Street site."It's a beautiful space and I think everyone will just love it," said six-year member Bonnie Gore. "At the digs before, it wasn't really exciting to invite people because it was old. At the same time, we realize the church is not about a building. People came for the experience."Still, first-time visitors will see a building that builds upon a founding principle of The Rock: For Christianity to reach more people, churches must become trendsetters in the use of media."Six million people go online every day looking for God, and 1 billion are online - 1 billion," Anfuso said, explaining the potential of using technology to reach people. To that end, the new facility features amenities more often associated with a multimedia production company than a church, such as separate sound and video studios for recording messages for distribution onto CD, DVD and over the Internet.The additions mean a more professional development environment for the church's heavy use of graphics and video, which are developed in-house. Soon, the church will launch a You Tube-style Web site featuring "best-of" segments of dozens of sermons, in addition to its existing stable of podcasts. Initiatives like those have resulted in a youthful demographic for the church - officials estimate an average age of 24-29.The building also includes major upgrades to its signature interactivity, including enhanced wireless responders at each seat in the auditorium to allow worshipper feedback to questions integrated into PowerPoint presentations during the sermon.It's all a big step up from the facilities the church has called home since the beginning."It was Spartan. We were camping," Anfuso said of the old facility, which had just 1,200 square-feet of office space, compared to 4,000 in the new facility, for the church's 37 full and part-time employees.The building is the realization of a dream for Anfuso, 58, a self-described former hippie and atheist who was born-again in his mid-twenties. Anfuso started The Rock of Roseville with 50 members from his Yuba City church after years of spreading the message to anyone who would listen that innovation was key to keeping churches relevant to people's lives.In 2001, Anfuso achieved his goal of making the church interactive - the result of 2 miles of cable and 30,000 soldering connections inside the Bonita Street church. It's believed to have been the first church to do so.The milestone meant questions posed to the audience during the sermon could receive accurate, quantifiable feedback from seat-mounted controls and be used to tailor the message. The experience is more than just eye-candy, Anfuso and other members said; it allows serious soul-searching on questions on subjects like abortion, sexual abuse and pornography."We estimate a quarter of the people here have been abused, and a third have had abortions," Anfuso said. "We're able to talk about those things and get people freed from the issues of their life. It's not to rub their noses in it, but to say, 'There's other people in the world going through the same things as you, and let's deal with it.'"Four-year member Timothy Downes agreed. "I think it forces you to be honest with yourself and to see that you're not alone," said Downes, who helps run the auditorium's lighting and sound system.The upgraded auditorium features responders with nine options rather than four at the old facility, and this time, everything's wireless - no soldering or miles of cable, Vacarro, the project manager, said.Still, members say the church is more than a building with a lot of high-tech bells and whistles."People still want relationships, so 500 people came out last night for small groups because they just wanted to talk to a human being," Anfuso said.The church also owns several acres of land in Uganda and has built a well and medical clinic there. It hosts an intern program, which this year has participants from Egypt to England working at the church and learning leadership skills. And it remains committed to growing its membership in the community: Several years ago, it launched a Rocklin church, The Rock of Rocklin.