My Top 3 Essential Worship Tools
Planning Center®️ is my number one must-have worship leader’s tool. This online software, which began as a simple tool for planning worship and scheduling worship teams, has continued to develop to meet many other needs of our worship ministry. I honestly cannot imagine my ministry without it! Planning Center is budget-friendly and there are training videos available to assist our team. Here are just a few ways that our ministry utilizes Planning Center.
- Worship Service Planning
- Worship Team Scheduling
- Worship Team Communication (text and email)
- Online Data Storage
- Transposing Recordings
- Music Chart Building
- Integration of PraiseCharts, SongSelect, YouTube
- Worship Service Database
Planning Center has expanded its product line to include full church management systems, but Planning Center Services®️ is the primary product that we use for our worship ministry. Planning Center University (PCU) is a series of online tutorial videos for training purposes. Below is a PCU video on worship planning. Click Here to go to the Planning Center website for more information.
Playback®️ is an app designed by MultiTracks®️ that can instantly turn your iPad or iPhone into a simple, yet powerful MultiTrack player for all of your MultiTracks content. Playback also allows you to edit tracks. It may be as simple as mixing the sound level of stems, or adding or eliminating sections of the song. If a band member is not able to make a rehearsal, or is running late, no problem, just unmute that instrument in the track. Some of our worship leaders prefer using Ableton Live®️ because of its flexibility during live performance, but in my opinion MultiTracks is much easier to use and has made major strides to enable live flexibility.
Playback also has a team sharing option so that worship teams can access MultiTracks to rehearse at home. To me this feature was a game changer! Anything to encourage and enhance the home rehearsal process will make for a more prepared team for group rehearsals. This makes us better stewards of time and improves the overall quality of our worship music. Click Here to go to MultiTracks website for more information.
My iPad Pro®️ serves many functions in the worship ministry. There are Android tablet options as well, but the iPad Pro’s operational functions, creative apps, and accessory options are much more conducive for worship ministry needs. Another great reason to use the iPad Pro it that it saves trees! I remember the days of using so much paper in preparing music for worship team rehearsals. I also prefer the size of the iPad Pro, because it is equivalent to the size of a standard piece of sheet music. Most of our band members do not use charts during worship, but those who do use an iPad or iPad Pro. There are also bluetooth foot pedals available to allow for handless page turning while playing an instrument. My iPad Pro also serves to operate apps that we use in worship such as those mentioned earlier, Planning Center®️ and Playback®️. We have designated iPads for Playback and another to mix our worship singers’ in-ear monitors. This is accomplished via an app which synced with our front-of-house audio board.
Apple’s iPad Pro is available in the electronics departments of Walmart and Target, or electronics stores such as Apple Store and Best Buy. Purchase is also available online at apple.com. If you are considering buying tablets for your worship teams, you might consider buying in bulk at wholesaletablets.com.
