Introduction
The pastors and church leadership place great priority on the safety and well being of all attendees at Church For All Nations.
Within a multicultural church there are many preferences as it pertains to comfortable listening volume during worship. Over the years we’ve worked diligently to find the delicate balance with the wide demographic of attendees at CFAN.

Standards & Safety
The church leadership and staff of CFAN are not research experts. We are thankful for agencies such as OSHA that have done much research in the area of hearing safety.
OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) is a government agency responsible to provide guidelines and standards for safe working environments for employers in the US. Our audio operation standards have been developed using what they call “permissible noise exposures”.

Permissible Noise Exposure Chart
To summarize the article, OSHA standards for permissible sound levels, given various lengths of time within a day are the following:dBA = decibel (A-Weighted) Slow Response

How We Apply These Standards
The OSHA “permissible listening standards” give us a baseline of what levels and how long the human ear can be exposed to specific decibel levels before hearing damage may take place.
Our audio technicians focus and heart is to set the audio levels where attendees feel comfortable in participating in worship.
During our worship services, our audio technicians target volume levels from 87 – 95dBA.
Our audio technicians determine what volume to set  based on the crowds participation. Safety is a priority to them and they are diligent to ensure that the congregation is never exposed to dangerous listening levels.

Safety, Comfort and Preference
What we have most often discovered is that one’s personal preference for musical styles affects their appreciation of the volume level. One might love a domineering, body-shaking pipe organ at 100dB, but be irritated by a worship band at 95dB.
We acknowledge that even though we operate at levels that are considered safe, it isn’t just about hearing safety science. As a church we are here to serve people.
If you ever find the audio levels to be uncomfortable please come to the information center at your campus for a set of free ear plugs.