PLANNING CENTER ONLINE
[ BETTER BY SUNDAY WITH PCO | Gabe Bondoc ]
I spent my entire adult life as a professional arrangements for Sunday morning worship can musician - writing original music, recording be a challenge - so many electronic samples, albums, touring, and fostering a budding layers, moving lines and more! For these songs, After finishing this “simplified” arrangement, I’ll
YouTube community, so it was incredibly fitting I call upon a simple four question technique record a quick acoustic guitar and vocal take
that God would save me in a musical, intimate for rearrangement: (to a metronome!) on my phone and upload it
moment of worship. I still remember that very
the heart of the song!
to PCO under the specified key (it will now be
morning. Tears filled my eyes as I felt my hands What is the heart of this song saying? available there every time we decide to play
go up on their own - the deepest depths of my What are the chords? that song!). The entire team can then access
soul teaching my body to reach out to God. In What is the melody? the recording from the same place as the
an instant, I learned that everything I thought Where are the dynamics? chord sheets and virtually “rehearse” with the
I had built alone had actually been built by a
arrangement from home - what a treat!
loving God that wanted to use my gift to share
His love with the world. What a morning that
was for me!
So, inspired by my own revelation of God and
a desire to share with others that same feeling,
I dove right into serving. After a couple of years
playing rhythm acoustic, rhythm electric and
providing support vocals in various worship
teams, I was offered an opportunity to lead at
a church plant in the California East Bay. It was
in this season that the true power of Planning
Center Online was revealed to me.
Planning Center Online, or PCO as we call it,
is a wonderful resource for growing leaders.
The “blockout request” feature is a great way
to honor your team members’ time and is such
a convenience when rostering! Team emailing
is a breeze - a few simple clicks will pull up all
the emails for any given team (worship, audio/
visual, etc.) for any given service time! I love
I love keeping
everyone
Finally, on Sunday morning, I will provide the
team with “road maps”. These are simple text
documents that have the song titles, keys, capo
details (for guitarists), tempos and song-forms.
Road maps keep us tight and together during
updated on
our Sunday morning run-through, saving time
events and and inspiring confidence, so that even as the
occasionally form behind, we at least have a foundation
Spirit moves and we decide to leave the song-
sharing my heart
- praying over
and chasing
upon which to build!
The dream that God put in my heart is a
simple one: share His love with everyone I
can. I want to be effective as possible for Him,
so being prepared with the necessary tools
after what God is very important! PCO is one of the tools I
wants to do atmosphere… where someone who doesn’t
next! intimate worship.
utilize in order to create an inspiring, musical
know God can be saved in a moment of
keeping everyone updated on events and
occasionally sharing my heart - praying over
and chasing after what God wants to do next!
The truth is that these awesome recordings,
while incredibly dense, probably started with
My favorite thing to do with PCO has to do an acoustic guitar, piano and single vocal. So,
with preparing customized song arrangements if we boil the arrangement down to its very
for the band. For example, when it comes to essence - chords, melody and dynamics - we
the EDM-inspired praise movement, creating can take it in any direction while still maintaining
38
April 2018
Gabe Bondoc
Creative Director at Exchange Community Church
in Walnut Creek, CA. When he’s is not at church
Gabe is either spending time with his awesome wife
and two adorable kids – or he's working on the next
video for you his YouTube channel. Visit YouTube.
com/GabeBondoc and its easy to see why Gabe
has over 300,000 followers from around the globe!
YouTube.com/GabeBondoc
WorshipMusician.com