Tom Roepke - Review of Planning Center Online
Managing multiple tasks is second nature to those that lead student ministry so when our Worship Pastor invited me to add a software package to our weekly endeavor I was pretty excited. Planning Center (www.planningcenteronline.com) has made numerous administrative duties light. Our church was already using it to manage our multi-site campuses with four weekend services
Planning Center has lived up to its own promotional material. It allows you to develop a matrix that can track all songs used, track and notify volunteers, and give you critical control of all aspects of the service.
The biggest and most useful part of PC is that all the information regarding a service is located in one centralized place. Since it is web based it allows all users and participants quick and easy access anywhere anytime.
I found it especially useful with our youth praise team since they are all currently students and regular face to face communication during the week is complicated. I can add the plan for the next several weeks, plan the flow, songs and get feedback from the students at their leisure. Probably the most powerful component is the scheduling feature. You are able to manage a list of volunteers, email any and all plans that they be assigned and most importantly quickly find and conflicts. This is especially useful as several of our students also serve on the adult worship team.
Planning Center has a very clean look and uses a “drag and drop” editing feature which makes it very flexible. It handles multiple plans, service times and even rehearsal times. And I found that the learning curve is very short.
Beyond the weekly youth service, I have used it to manage our community events i.e. fall kickoff, SuperBowl party, even overnights. Planning Center gives you the ability to walk through an event from start to finish, provides a record to review for post-event critique. For productivity it is an essential tool in student ministry.
[This is a guest post by Tom Roepke , one of the excellent hosts for the Who Are These Guys Podcasts}
Episode 30: Keeping Balance in Ministry: The struggle between family, faith and kids farting in the front row
Show Notes
We are back with a new Who Are These Guys podcast episode! This week Tom Roepke and Scott Mullens both join me in talking about the struggle to keep balance in youth ministry, social networking and Macintosh computers. It’s a great show and we are excited for next week when we will be talking about what to do when dealing with competitive youth pastors and ministries in your area.
Be sure to check the blog for guest posts and practical tips in ministry!
Links
Simply YM
Simply Podcast
Josh’s Blog
Tony Morgan’s Facebook Death
Social Networking in Plain English
Contagious Solutions - Show Sponsor
MySpace vs Facebook
Tony’s Twitter
Tom’s Twitter
Scott’s Twitter
Andy Stanely Article: cheating the Church
Saddleback Services Live
Top Stand Alone Laptop for Ministry
TWIT [This Week in Technology] Podcast with Leo Laporte
VM Ware Fusion
37 Signals
Call Recorder
Planning Center Online
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