Best Worship Planning Software/Site

[Kloon]

I'm a new worship director in California. Currently evaluating what would be the best worship planning software or online sites. Is anyone aware of software that works off-line (meaning on my computer without internet connection) AND could upload to an online site for access by team members? Everything I've found so far is either one or the other.

Thanks.

[centerpointeworshipper]

Our team uses 1Chrstian.net for our worship planning b/c i couldnt find anything like you are wanting to use. I love it, its very user friendly. its $19.99 a month.

[stephen_can_man]

I highly recommend Planning Center Online. It is internet based and we use it for scheduling our musicians (typically 8 a week) our tech positions (typically 5 a week) and the Youth is learning to use it now. I really like this program and it's chord chart/mp3 system. It works great and they are open for suggestions for improvements. Check it out:

http://www.planningcenteronline.com/

We currently are on the $50 dollar plan. It is kinda overkill, but I have uploaded 250MB of mp3s in just the first month. So far the only two features I am waiting on are text messaging reminders and text download for the entire chord chart database.

[dtpuga]

Planning Center Online
PLANNING CENTER ONLINE
PCO
www.planningcenteronline.com (http://www.planningcenteronline.com)

[gen426]

I'm actually new worship director in CA too and I'm shopping around for planning software... Has anyone tried the Lincoln Brewster's program called Worship Kitchen? I also looked at Worshipplanning.com too. Any thoughts on these?

[stephen_can_man]

As far as I know worship kitchen doesn't have a scheduler for musicians. Worshipplanning.com I don't think has the chord chart transposer function. PCO has it all, including text messaging and they are adding a feature soon that will allow you to transpose and mp3 to any key.

[gen426]

Thanks. I'll have to check out PCO. As I was using the worshipplanning.com free trial this afternoon I noticed the lack of chord and mp3 usage. Thanks for the quick reply. I'll have to check in here more often! What a great resource to have a community of worship leaders who want to keep moving forward.

[mslaney]

I'll add to the recommendations for Planning Center. It is wonderful. I've used it at three different levels (free, lite, and gold) for three different groups. They are also amazing if you need support. Once I found a bug, that was due to some crazy Mac/PC Safari/Firefox/IE issue, on a Wednesday afternoon trying to do last minute planning. I called their support number, and instead of getting someone who didn't have a clue, it actually forwarded my call to Jeff Berg's cell phone. He was driving down the road at the time. He pulled over, got out his laptop, and re-coded the site on the spot to fix the issue! I was in awe to put it mildly.

You can't lose if you go with them.

Matthew

[stephen_can_man]

They just added the ability to transpose mp3 files and a new stage layout feature that allows you to setup your band. Pretty cool.

[Steve Lowe]

I notice this topic's a year old. Is PCO still the favorite? Any other recommendations? I'm compiling a list of what I can find and plan to do a feature comparison, which I'll likely blog about in the not-too-distant future.

[yankeewifey]

Resurrecting this thread.... (It is that time of year, isn't it?? To resurrect something? :p)
I just received an email about another planning service:
Quick Worship (http://www.quickworship.com/index.php?p=Home)
Have any of you seen or used this?
Of these 3: quick worship, planning center online, or worship planning.com, would any of these work for a church that doesn't use lyric sheets or chord charts?
We use full arrangements from a variety of sources for our vocalists, piano, keys, and guitars.

{Stuff like: the Word "More Songs for Praise and Worship" series,
various artists songbooks (Travis Cottrell, Hillsongs)
choral arrangements of contemporary songs (The 30-min Choral book)
etc.}

When I make practice packets, I had out about an inch worth of paper to everyone. I'd love to be able to just link pdfs.
Any thoughts?