Planning center for worship leaders
Plan your services, lead your community
From the first verse to the last chord, Planning Center helps organize everything you need to lead your team and worship with your church.
OVER 85,000 churches
powered by Planning Center
scalable system
Churches of all sizes and denominations use Planning Center to lead worship.
Every church is unique, and there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to worship planning. That’s why our worship planning software offers the flexibility to plan, organize, rehearse, and lead in the ways that are best for your church.
Whatever your music style, denomination, or church size, you can create the right experience for your congregation.
We've been using the Planning Center platform for years, starting with Services, and then expanding to all the products offered. Having all these services under the same umbrella has made our team more effective in ministry by closing gaps and streamlining communication.
Worship set planning
Plan your church’s setlist
Build a custom library of songs your church loves to sing. Then use the songs from your library for your worship planning.
You can even see the top songs other churches are singing during their services.
SERVICE STRUCTURE
Arrange the service order
Create a step-by-step flow of the service so your team is in sync and knows what to expect. Include songs, media, and other service elements, then sort your items with timestamps.
Easily rearrange items on your plan until your service flow is dialed in. Then when you’re ready, you can keep everyone in the loop by sharing the service details with your congregation.
VOLUNTEER ORGANIZATION
Stay months ahead of volunteer scheduling
Eliminate the stress of volunteer planning and create a sustainable schedule that works for you.
Plan ahead
Schedule your volunteers as far out as you need, and view multiple services all at once.
Block out dates
Let volunteers set their availability and mark any days they won’t be able to serve.
Auto-schedule volunteers
Fill in needed roles automatically if someone cancels at the last minute.
Send reminder emails
Remind people automatically of their upcoming serving dates.
Plan ahead
Schedule your volunteers as far out as you need, and view multiple services all at once.
Block out dates
Let volunteers set their availability and mark any days they won’t be able to serve.
Auto-schedule volunteers
Fill in needed roles automatically if someone cancels at the last minute.
Send reminder emails
Remind people automatically of their upcoming serving dates.
Planning Center is instrumental in scheduling and communicating with our bands and creating and organizing set lists for our ten weekly services.
Go from band to community
Bring people together to form a team where relationships deepen and community is formed.
PRODUCTION TEAMS
Build out a worship team that feels supported
Create teams of musicians, vocalists, and supporting roles like sound techs and light operators. Customize, change, or add team positions based on your church’s needs.
Assign team leaders to schedule, manage, and communicate with team members so everyone feels connected and cared for.
VOLUNTEER MANAGEMENT
Help pace volunteers for long-lasting service
Schedule your team only around their preferred availability so they also have opportunities to fully engage in the services.
With a sustainable rotation of volunteers, you can help prevent burnout and retain volunteers for the long haul.
VOLUNTEER PROMPTS
Remind your team when they’re serving
People have a lot going on. With weekly auto-generated reminder emails, text, and push notifications in the Services app, your team can stay on top of when they’re serving and anything they need to know for the service.
If something changes in their availability, they can easily decline the serving request so you know what roles you still need to fill.
THIRD-PARTY TOOLS
Connect your favorite integrations to access more resources
Whether you need chord charts, lyrics, audio files, sheet music, or presentation tools, integrate with the resources you need so you and your team can learn the music and lead with accuracy.
music stand
Prepare your entire team to rehearse, then play
Use Music Stand, our worship software app, to practice songs in the right key and arrangement, or modify things quickly.
With this worship planning app, each musician can annotate their sheet music on the fly and move through songs with the tap of an optional foot pedal. Plus, keep your whole band in time with a click as you rehearse and during the worship service.
Calendar
Align with other teams to reserve rooms and resources
With a central church calendar, you can coordinate with other ministry teams which space and resources you need for your worship service.
tasks
Keep your worship planning organized
There are a lot of moving parts when worship planning. So why not make a to-do list to keep all of your tasks in the right place?
Our worship planning software helps keep your tasks neat, tidy, and visible so you never lose track of anything that needs to get done.
Save time on administrative tasks. Pour that back into your team.
Tasks behind the scenes take up a lot of your time. We cut that time down so you can focus on what matters most: worship.
Get started for free
Recruit volunteers
Chat with your team in-app
Connect with other ministries in your ChMS
Email your team and volunteers
Create an order for your service parts
Share the service plan with your team
Build service plan templates
Send scheduling notifications
Auto-report your songs to CCLI
Import songs and charts
Rehearse through a media player
Manage your tasks and to-do lists
Coordinate services on the mobile app
Frequently asked questions about worship planning
Have more questions? We’re here to help. Contact Support.
How do I get started with your worship planning software?
We recommend watching Planning Center University to get your started. These detailed video tutorials will help you get the most out of our products. If you’re trying to do something specific, our Getting Started articles are a great place to find answers as you work.
How big of a worship team do I need to use Planning Center?
Any size! Planning Center will help you plan your worship services—whether you’re a team of 4 or 40 people across multiple campuses.
What style of church and worship is this best for?
Planning Center’s worship planning software helps all churches of any worship style plan their services. We know there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to planning worship, so we’ve made our worship software is flexible to meet the needs of your specific church.
Does Planning Center Services come with a music bank already? How do I add songs?
Planning Center Services doesn’t come with music, but you can add individual songs to your song library. If you get audio from RehearsalPack, PraiseCharts, RehearsalMix, or SongSelect, you can integrate with them to pull your audio directly into your Services account.
Where can I get chord charts?
You can import chord charts from MultiTracks, SongSelect, or PraiseCharts directly into Planning Center Services. If your charts are stored on your computer, you can also add PDFs to your service plan.
Want to learn more? Watch a demo!
Here’s a 1-hour overview of how you can get started with worship planning in our system.
Talk to support
Access to support is free, even if you’re not a customer yet. We’ll get back to you in ~1 business hour.
Learn moreSee the latest update
We are constantly improving our products. Check out the most recent update to see what’s new!