COCOA BEACH, Fla. — The Pointe Church in Cocoa Beach is used to having people gather inside for worship, but now people gather to check out an immersive Christmas display.

It was an idea that was brought to life by Emily Verrelli and her husband Jonathan Myers. 

What You Need To Know

 A nativity themed Christmas light display was banned in Satellite Beach due to its light ordinance

 The Pointe Church in Cocoa Beach contacted their city and invited the owners of the display to showcase it on their church walls

 Dozens of people now visit the church every evening to check out the display, which is controlled by a cellphone

The show will continue to run every evening starting at 6pm up until December 31

“It comes from my husband Jonathan, he’s the artist. He started off simply selling the equipment, the projectors, and then one day realized that he would to be more a part of artistic masterpiece as you called it,” Verrelli shared.

The idea first became a reality at Jonathan’s business, Immersive Beach, in Satellite Beach. 

And while it looked great, the display went against a Satellite Beach light ordinance.

“The nativity scene, he took that outside to the building in satellite and unfortunately we found out that due to certain regulations in satellite, we could no long do that there,” Verrelli said.

The ordinance requires beachfront properties to turn off or shield artificial lights between 9pm and 7am in order to protect the sea turtle population.

So, they had no choice but to comply.

But just as they were about to shut their display down for good, The Pointe Church reached out to them and to the City of Cocoa Beach to bring their show on the road to their property where they could freely boast their display.

“Being a church right in the heart of downtown Cocoa Neach our whole job is to be a light for this community,” explained The Pointe Church Worship Psstor Sharrett Henderson. “And so when literally a light display wants to come and be a part of it, we were doing everything we could to help make a Christmas dream come true for Jonathan as well.”

And since then, the display has been a hit. The display lights up the church’s wall with a program that can be controlled directly from a phone.

Dozens of visitors from downtown Cocoa Beach and surrounding areas, including Orlando, have made their way to The Pointe Church to check out the unique display that lights up each night starting at 6:00 p.m. and capturing the hearts of those passing by.

This includes the McCrimmon’s who came down from Michigan for the holidays.

“It looks like it’s painted on there. Like it doesn’t look like a projector, it’s like so cool,” exclaimed Izzy McCrimmon. “And I like that there’s separate different screens that he can change it to each evening or multiple times throughout the evening,” said Kerri McCrimmon.

Those words bring to light a sense of togetherness and support that Verrelli says means the world to them.

“I think it gives us a lot of hope to not give up and to keep moving forward with this and to take the art to a different canvas,” Verrelli said.

The show will continue to run every evening starting at 6 p.m. until December 31 but the Verrelli and The Pointe Church say that they have big plans for next year.