Mercy Road Church Northeast: Scaling Reliable, License‑Free Connectivity with UniFi

Background

Mercy Road Church Northeast is a five‑year‑old church plant in Fortville, Indiana, within the four‑campus Mercy Road family. As attendance reached roughly 800–1,000 and weekday ministries (“outposts”) expanded, the team added a preschool facility on the same campus, leased to Lionheart Preschool. Reliable networking became essential for livestream production, staff workflows, security, and parent communications.

Before UniFi, the church ran on consumer‑grade gear — a single Netgear switch and a router/Wi‑Fi combo — plus Arlo wireless cameras that frequently disconnected and missed recordings. There was no centralized visibility, limited capacity for livestreaming, and no consistent path to scale.

Volunteer Tyler Hendricks (an IT manager by day) began a phased migration to UniFi: first stabilizing the network, then standardizing on Protect for video and Access for doors. When the preschool project launched, Brandon Le(Production & Creative Director) endorsed the direction and prioritized planning and stewardship — delivering a campus‑wide design that would scale without recurring license costs.

The church partnered with a member‑owned telecom company for at‑cost cabling and fiber; volunteers handled device mounting and onsite tasks. The result: enterprise‑level outcomes on a nonprofit budget.

Organization Requirements

• Stewardship & Cost Predictability. Choose a platform that avoids ongoing per‑device or per‑user fees while remaining enterprise‑capable.
• Scalability Across Ministries & Facilities. Support livestreaming, weekday groups, staff workflows, and a new preschool — with a clear upgrade path for more doors, cameras, and APs.
• Simple, Remote‑First Management. Enable a volunteer IT lead to manage the environment via a web UI with templates, alerts, and multi‑site visibility — no scripting or CLI.
• Reliability for Critical Operations. Ensure stable connectivity for production, staff access control, and classroom/parent needs with rapid troubleshooting and minimal disruption.

Why UniFi

License‑free platform with enterprise headroom. Eliminating recurring device licenses aligned directly with stewardship goals. As Brandon notes, door access and cameras often carry per‑user or per‑camera fees with other vendors; UniFi’s model removed that burden while delivering robust capability.

Unified stack, one interface. Gateways, switches, APs, cameras, and door readers are managed from a single UI. New devices auto‑discover for quick adoption — practical for volunteer‑led rollouts.

Design‑first planning. UniFi Design Center translated vision into actionable layouts and budgets — from camera fields of view and Wi‑Fi coverage to rack space, power, and data drops. The exports guided architects, builders, and the cabling vendor, reducing rework and speeding approvals.

Incremental, low‑disruption deployment. The team could stage hardware as funds allowed, re‑using the same blueprint across spaces and adding features (e.g., AI Key, additional readers) without forklift changes.

Deployment & Key Features

Standardized Network Stack & Fiber Backbone

• Church MDF: UniFi Dream Machine Pro (gateway/router) with a USW‑48 PoE core switch.
• Aggregation: 8‑port 10G SFP+ aggregation switch for high‑speed uplinks.
• Campus Interconnect: 8‑strand fiber run to the preschool provides bandwidth headroom and redundancy options.
• Preschool IDF: Two Pro Max 48 PoE switches power dense edge devices (APs, cameras, door readers).

Benefits: Predictable performance, a clear growth path (additional fiber pairs/uplinks as needed), and uniform hardware that simplifies volunteer work and troubleshooting.

High‑Performance Wi‑Fi with XGS Access Points

• Preschool Wi‑Fi: Five XGS‑class Wi‑Fi 7 APsstore serve classrooms, corridors, and pickup areas.
• Church Wi‑Fi: Currently NanoHD APs; a planned refresh will move the church to XGS for parity and capacity.

Benefits: Consistent, high‑density coverage for staff iPads and classroom devices, with headroom for guests. Design Center heatmaps avoided over‑/under‑provisioning, aligning AP count with actual usage.

UniFi Protect: Campus‑Wide Video with AI‑Assisted Search

• Cameras: 31 at the preschool — G6 Bullets, G6 Domes, and AI Pros at key entrances — plus a G6 Instant in a children’s worship room. The church side currently uses G4 cameras with plans to upgrade to G6 for feature parity.
• Monitoring & Walls: Two ViewPorts provide simple, curated viewing: one in the preschool lobby (parents can see classrooms while waiting), one in a shared office on the church side (outside/inside situational awareness).
• Search & Insight: An AI Key enables natural‑language queries (“find a blue backpack”) and face enhancement, accelerating incident reviews.

Benefits: Stronger child safety posture, faster evidence retrieval, and consistent coverage without per‑camera licenses.

UniFi Access: Simple, Scalable Door Control

• Scope: Seven doors secured at the preschool; the church is adding readers for production/network rooms as part of a workspace refresh.
• Operations: Role‑based access tied to staff and volunteer schedules; outpost leaders get time‑bound access during weeknights.
• Administration: Users are added from the web UI in under a minute; changes propagate instantly.

Benefits: No per‑user/door licensing, rapid onboarding for rotating teams, and centralized logs that support safety and accountability.

Volunteer‑First Management with Site Manager

• Multi‑site view: Tyler manages several environments professionally and can see Mercy Road alongside them in one pane of glass.
• Proactive health: Devices auto‑discover; unplugged gear or pending updates trigger alerts.
• Change at scale: Templates standardize SSIDs/VLANs/policies and speed safe, repeatable changes.
• Benefits: Fewer truck rolls, faster mean time to resolution, and a system volunteers can help maintain without deep CLI expertise.

Additional Solutions & Expansion

Design‑Led Budgeting & Execution

UniFi Design Center became the project’s common language across leadership, builders, and vendors. Brandon and Tyler uploaded blueprints, placed cameras/APs, mapped the network room, and specified rack units, power, and data runs. Exports went straight to the cabling company, who executed without additional design effort.

Outcome: Faster board approvals, fewer miscommunications, and significant cost savings by combining at‑cost cabling with volunteer device installs.

AV + Network Room Modernization

The church is consolidating networking and AV into a purpose‑built room with a 42U rack (replacing a 12U closet). UniFi Access readers on production‑area doors will secure equipment while keeping workflows efficient.

Display & Signage Quality‑of‑Life

Two Display Cast units replaced manual, ladder‑based USB updates to TVs. Content changes now happen from the desk — safer, faster, and more flexible for ministry events.

Future Enhancements

• Wi‑Fi parity: Upgrade the church to XGS‑class APs.
• Camera refresh: Move from G4 to G6 at the church to enable enhanced AI features campus‑wide.
• Access expansion: Add readers to interior/back‑of‑house spaces as rooms are renovated.
• Pre‑wired voice: The preschool is pre‑cabled for UniFi Talk in each classroom; although the tenant uses iPads today, Talk can be enabled later without new runs.
• SD‑WAN ready: If inter‑campus apps require private connectivity across Mercy Road locations, Site Magic offers a simple, license‑free SD‑WAN path.

Conclusion

Mercy Road Church Northeast transitioned from a single consumer‑grade switch and unreliable wireless cameras to a standardized, license‑free UniFi platform that spans a multi‑building campus. A fiber backbone, Pro Max PoE switching, and XGS‑class APs deliver performance and headroom; UniFi Protect brings campus‑wide visibility and AI‑assisted investigations; UniFi Access secures doors with instant, role‑based provisioning; and Site Manager keeps it all manageable for a volunteer IT lead.

The deployment met the organization’s requirements:

• Stewardship: predictable TCO with no recurring device licenses
• Scalability: repeatable blueprint for new rooms and buildings
• Simplicity: web‑based operations, multi‑site visibility, and volunteer‑friendly workflows
• Reliability: stable, fiber‑connected foundation for production, classrooms, and staff access

With a clear, design‑first plan and a unified platform, Mercy Road can expand ministries and facilities confidently — keeping people safe, services running smoothly, and operations sustainable for years to come.