PLANNING CENTER ONLINE
[ BETTER BY SUNDAY WITH PCO: HELPING MULTI-SITE WORSHIP WORK ]
Tim St. Pierre
At the time of this writing, our church has over we were used to. Our Sites and Services leaders have been using Ableton to add tracks
600 volunteers actively using Planning Center Pastor works with the Pastoral Lead Team to their set, and they use that same system
Online. That’s a lot of people, all with their own to develop the overall service format, and to create a rehearsal track. Multitracks.com is
lives, areas of gifting, and individual needs. then our service coordinator creates the another good resource. The important thing
Having tools that make the administrative individual site plans for each week, with an is that there is a recording in the same key
grunt work easier can free leaders up to pour open framework for everyone else to fill in. The as what we are playing in so that individual
into their volunteers. Giving people resources worship leaders add their set-list to the songs musicians have something to practice with
to sharpen their skills can help them to serve section, and then the production coordinators during the week. The Services mobile app
with excellence, and not get burnt out in the can jump in and add lighting and projection also has the ability to download the audio
process. Your church may have very different cues, with each person adding more detail to recordings, so you can listen to the songs
needs than our church does, but no matter the plan for the volunteers that they lead. in the car or on transit. We also encourage
what size or style of church you are a part of, our sound mixers to listen to the songs
planning to make the most of the tools at hand beforehand, so they can take a more active
is always a good idea.
C4 Church is a multi-site church in Durham
Region, just East of Toronto, Ontario. In
addition to two services at the original Ajax site,
our Port Perry site routinely accommodates
200, and our recently launched Bowmanville
site has started at 200, with room to grow
from there. The church hosts 2,000 people
across the three sites, and a fourth site is now
in the planning stages.
Our model is one church, multiple sites. Each
site has its own local character, and typically
its own set of volunteers. Site pastors are
responsible to lead and care for our church
Giving people
resources to
approach to mixing. Music Stand is the other
app that is ubiquitous, and its built-in highlight
and annotate feature allows people to mark up
sharpen their
their charts as desired.
skills can help The band has 90 minutes to rehearse before
them to serve used, the band can save that time to fit their
with excellence, of just trying to learn the songs.
a service. When the practice tools have been
parts together and add some polish, instead
and not get While musicians are working through their
burnt out in the coordinators fill in the individual cues, and then
parts
during
the
week,
the
production
build media packages for things like lighting
process.
and projection. ProPresenter has an option
community, but we work as one church when
to directly import from Planning Center, and
it comes to worship services. We share a
the resulting playlist generally just needs a few
common teaching time through live video from We aim to have all the songs locked down and tweaks to be ready for Sunday. If the songs
our Ajax site, and worship leaders rotate from in the final key at least a week ahead of time. exist in the library, they will be slotted in their
site to site. This keeps our church together Our band members are all volunteers, and correct place, and placeholders will appear
in music and teaching, and allows every site because mid-week practices aren’t really an for all the other plan items. That saves time
to enjoy the diversity that different worship option, everyone needs to learn their parts on to do some quality control on everything, and
leaders bring. Each site has a production their own time during the week. In addition to takes a big load off of the volunteer operators
coordinator who works with the volunteers the appropriate PDF charts, we also need to on Sunday.
and takes care of the production needs at their include some media options that people can home site. use to practice. At a minimum, this is an mp3
recording of the song, maybe a YouTube link,
Becoming a multi-site church has meant but now we are starting to put practice tracks
sharing the work in a different way than what in the package as well. Some of our worship
26
March 2018
Tim St. Pierre
Site Production Coordinator, Port Perry site,
C4 Church / [email protected]
WorshipMusician.com