On average, I sit in the Producer’s seat twice a month at PC3. This position has changed in many ways over the last 3 years and over the last 6 months I have began to fine tune it personally even more so. And with many of you most likely involved in some sort of church production I thought I would share with you what producing a Sunday service (or four) at PC3 looks like on my end of things.
So I decided to share with your five different post throughout the week with the first post beginning here on how I use Planning Center Online as a Producer.
1) Planning Center Online
2) Meetings
3) Prep Work
4) Software Use
5) Final Thoughts
It all starts with Planning Center Online for me as the Producer. And at PC3 we use Planning Center to schedule our entire Production Team and Band Members throughout each ministry. We currently have over 250 production/band members registered in the system and this makes life much easier on the volunteers and the staff.
Now as the Producer for an upcoming weekend I use it in 5 main ways… 1. Setlist 2. Volunteer Positions 3. Email 4. Rehearsal Tracks 5. PCO Live
1. Setlist

Click to Enlarge
We meet each Tuesday morning for our WSP (Weekend Service Programming) Team meeting. In this meeting (more on that later) we spend about 30 – 45 minutes running through the upcoming Sunday service and layout out about 90% of the service. I keep up with adding each service to PCO whether or not I am Producing, but the week I produce I take the lead on being sure each segment, transition, video, prayer, etc. is added and labeled in PCO. Once the meeting is finished I should have all songs finalized, videos decided on, stage talent (individuals speaking, welcoming, interviewing, etc.) confirmed. The set list also will contain a rough estimate of times for each segment. This is a key element for us so we are able to determine the length of the service and helps us decide if something needs to be cut from the set or shortened. With children’s ministries happening at the same time and the next service crowd filling up the parking lot we must stick to around a 60 – 65 minute service time.
2. Volunteer Positions

Click to Enlarge
Since Planning Center Online’s largest function is scheduling volunteers this is where we plan who will be where and when. Since we have just moved to four services with a AM (9, 11) & PM (4,6) block we now have to schedule a morning crew & then a new evening crew. So I have decided to split up the teams into groups PCO. For example we have: 1| Audio AM & 1| Audio PM ; 2| Video Room AM & 2| Video Room PM. Each Tuesday we I look through our the positions that are either still Un-Confirmed or Declined. This is a very simple aspect in regards of the Producer role, but it is key. The goal is to have each position filled and Confirmed, and if it differs from that we begin making phone calls. My goal as Producer is to have each position filled and Confirmed by Wednesday evening, but sometimes I may not get that last mobile camera position until Saturday.
3. Email

Click to Enlarge
Planning Center Online provides an incredible email option that I have started using about 3 months ago. We have been using PCO for almost 2 years I believe and up until 3 months ago I have been combing through my Address Book and sliding contacts over to Apple Mail to email about updates and weekend service information. Then I discovered how easy the email function of PCO is and have not turned back since. But to keep this short I will focus just on how I use it as the Producer. At any point that I need to contact the entire volunteer team by email I head to the specific weekend service plan and choose the “email” option in the top right hand corner of the screen. This allows me to choose to email the Confirmed, Unconfirmed, Undecided or any combination of the three. The biggest help here as the Producer is I am guaranteed to reach each person by their correct email and will not miss a person between two different applications (Address Book -> Apple Mail).
4. Rehearsal Tracks
This is very simple and short. Nick Warkentien uploads each rehearsal track from the Wednesday night band rehearsal to PCO and from there I do two things. I am able to find the exact times of the songs to put back into the set list. And then I continue to download the tracks to listen to or stream them live within PCO.
5. Planning Center LIVE

Click to Enlarge
And the last aspect of PCO that I use personally is PCO LIVE. This is a feature that many do not take advantage of, but I absolutely love. Within PCO there is a option to take LIVE Control of the service. Once I activate this a interface shows up with the first step of the service. This is where those times we inserted earlier come into play. I follow along with each segment of the service through each service that we have. Once the day has finished we have just recorded the times that we started and stopped each song, welcome, offering, message, etc. throughout the day. This allows me to go back and review the service with the exact times recorded compared to the times we had planned on. This feature also has a green screen capability which I hope to utilize in the next year so we may pipe the service flow and time clock to multiple rooms including the Green Room, Video Control Room and Children’s Ministries.
**So that is Part 1of 5 of my role as a Producer @PC3. I hope that was not too boring for many of you, but may have been very helpful for some.
Recent Comments