BETTER BY SUNDAY
[ WITH PLANNING CENTER ONLINE #6 | Mitch Bohannon ]
As a worship leader in a medium-sized church, not have more than one electric guitar player email and text, and they can save their own
I personally put off setting up a Planning to choose from for any given Sunday, I was still preferences. Once they mark their calendar, I
Center account for a long time, and now I able to post the list and his “acceptance” of the get a warning that they are unavailable if I try
completely regret those years! For many years, position was his communication to me that he to schedule them. This has been extremely
I had worship teams that had zero rotations… will be there and he was on top of things. Each helpful, especially now that my team is finally
everyone was on platform every single Sunday. member can be set up with different viewing growing!
I remember having two people on sound that permissions… only viewing when scheduled, or would swap weekends, and a group of folks able to view all the time.
I asked one of my tech guys, Edwin Patrick,
that would set up their own schedule for
to share his experience with Planning Center
running lyrics. Everything seemed to work Once songs are set up… my charts import Online. “I really like using Planning Center. It
smoothly and I felt like the “expense” ($14/ directly from Song Select and each song can allows me early access to the music to worship
month) for Planning Center was unneeded have YouTube links and other files/links directly with all week long. It is very easy to use and I
against my budget.
Back in those days, my process was to
create a set list, copy/paste YouTube links
for each song, and then email that set
list out to the team. Pretty simple! Once
Facebook became the norm and all the
team was on it, I would create a private FB
group where I would post the set list with
those same YouTube links. In that group,
members could have discussions about
songs, make comments, or even post other
songs that they were connecting with.
The problem that I was facing, which I was
just treating as “par for the course,” was
a lack of communication. I could not be
certain that each team member received
the set list unless they replied to my email
or clicked “like” on the Facebook post. In
would recommend it to anyone and I have
recommended it to other church friends
[ When I finally
for their worship teams.” Please note that
committed to Planning
Center, it was a complete
game changer. I saved so
much time… now I totally
realize how much time
I wasted doing the old
process over and over
Edwin is one of my tech guys. It’s really
encouraging to me that those guys are
paying as much attention to the worship set
list as my platform team!
I see Planning Center as a unifying tool for
the entire worship team. In addition, I have
set up my lead pastor as a viewer so that
he has access anytime to see what songs
are on our list, or to look back at lists from
recent weeks.
There are optional apps from Planning
unnecessarily and it was Center like “Music Stand” and “Projector”
inefficient too. ] Stand will make the charts ready and
which could be really helpful as well. Music
available for viewing on a personal devise,
fact, that became my requirement… that
and Projector will send lyrics for display.
each member was to click “like” simply to show attached… it is simply a drag and drop effort We opted not to use “Music Stand” (only $2/
me that they saw the post. It’s very frustrating to setup each service’s set list. This is so much month additional) because my three musicians
to not know if you’ve communicated well with simpler than what I had been doing for so many who use iPads were already using OnSong for
your team! years! It’s just as easy to schedule musicians this feature. It is fantastic that Planning Center
and media tech members. Once members are will export charts directly to OnSong! It’s really
When I finally committed to Planning Center, it set up, it only takes drag and drop to place them user friendly, and supporting other apps like
was a complete game changer. I realized how on a Sunday morning schedule. Members can this are merely a bonus. We’re totally pleased
much time I wasted doing the old process over then go onto their own account and mark days and, rotating members or not, we’ll not rotate
and over, unnecessarily and inefficiently, and that they will be out of town, they can select off PCO!
now I save so much time. Even though I did their
32
communication
October 2017
preference
between
WorshipMusician.com