The start of a new year provides the opportunity to start with a fresh approach to planning and organisation for your ministry team. The Planning Center has been designed specifically for music teams and the planning and organisation of worship services but it also has growing appeal for those who plan and lead the Sunday programs in children's ministries. Why? I'll list some of its features and you can check it out yourself to see if it has potential for your own needs.
Part of its appeal is the price. Planning Center is an online program and offers a Free Plan for those who operate one service type (or children's program) per week with up to 10 volunteers on roster. The paid plans range in price from $14/month to $99/mth for 25 services and unlimited people. And you can trial it free for a month.
Planning Center allows you to easily plan and prepare your weekly lesson and roster your volunteers and share the planning with them. Its clean, graphical interface makes it intuitive for you to edit your plans, and for your users to view them. You can link media (video, images) to items in your plan. It's easy to create your own categories for unlimited flexibility in organizing your lesson plan flow and scheduling and assigning your people to your plans. Contact details are easily added- email addresses, phone numbers, physical addresses and even a picture for each person on your team. Assign your people to properties that you create. Create one property for leaders and another for greeters and then simply tick the appropriate box in each person's profile. Send an email to all people or specific categories of people scheduled/rostered on your plan which include their customized times and links to get the lesson plan. Print customised reports/lessons to have hard copies on-hand.
Planning Center's Facebook integration has quickly become one of their users' favourite features. Volunteers with the Facebook app installed will receive a Facebook notification whenever you schedule them. Clicking the notification will take them to the Facebook application, where they can respond right from within Facebook.
Check it out at www.planningcenteronline.com
Part of its appeal is the price. Planning Center is an online program and offers a Free Plan for those who operate one service type (or children's program) per week with up to 10 volunteers on roster. The paid plans range in price from $14/month to $99/mth for 25 services and unlimited people. And you can trial it free for a month.
Planning Center allows you to easily plan and prepare your weekly lesson and roster your volunteers and share the planning with them. Its clean, graphical interface makes it intuitive for you to edit your plans, and for your users to view them. You can link media (video, images) to items in your plan. It's easy to create your own categories for unlimited flexibility in organizing your lesson plan flow and scheduling and assigning your people to your plans. Contact details are easily added- email addresses, phone numbers, physical addresses and even a picture for each person on your team. Assign your people to properties that you create. Create one property for leaders and another for greeters and then simply tick the appropriate box in each person's profile. Send an email to all people or specific categories of people scheduled/rostered on your plan which include their customized times and links to get the lesson plan. Print customised reports/lessons to have hard copies on-hand.
Planning Center's Facebook integration has quickly become one of their users' favourite features. Volunteers with the Facebook app installed will receive a Facebook notification whenever you schedule them. Clicking the notification will take them to the Facebook application, where they can respond right from within Facebook.
Check it out at www.planningcenteronline.com
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