It's been about 2 years since I was introduced to the awesomeness that is Planning Center Online (henceforth called PC). I honestly don't remember what I did before PC, probably because I was so unorganized that there was nothing to remember. What I do know is that I had a massive folder sitting on my desktop full of really poorly formatted chord charts and a master .doc file that listed songs I had used. Ok, fine...some of that is still there, but it's just as useless to me now as it was then. 

Even though PC was wonderful 2 years ago, just as with any tool, we are most effective when we learn how to best use it. Now, I will readily admit that I don't use PC to it's full potential, but this is primarily because I don't have a use for some of the functionality. What I do use has made a big difference in the way I plan for practices and services. 

Matrix View

The most recent overhaul of the "matrix" view has changed how I plan for the long term. For those who are unfamiliar with the matrix view, it essentially allows you to see the basic outline of each service for the next 6 or so weeks (it will allow more but you have to scroll right to see them all). Also available in this view is the ability to drag items within each week, between weeks, and add music, media, or people to each plan. For people like me who love seeing the big picture, this tool is amazing.

Reports

Another tool I use often is called "reports". For this you can select a time frame and see every song that you have use and how often within that specific window. This is a real eye opener to me sometimes. It's easy to get carried away with a song and use it too much (as you can see, "Our God Is Love" did this to me recently) or sometimes to forget about a great song that you forgot about.

What are the biggest features you use and how do they make your life easier? Comment, email:justinjeremias@gmail.com or @reply your answer!

As a noted in an article from the blog about what I've learned so far, organization is key to being successful. It just flat out makes things easier. I struggled with this horribly during school and undoubtedly suffered because of it, but I've been doing my best to get things under control. Throughout this process I've tried a few different tools that have primarily been found upon the suggestion of friends and others that I respect. 

White Board

I tried this after hearing many people singing the praises of this medium. If found this, like any other organization tool is only going to work if it is used properly. You can't put it somewhere that you won't look at it frequently. It can't be so small that it won't allow for random notes about anything that comes to mind. It has to be somewhere that you actually spend a good deal of time. For me, my office was the most logical place to put a white board. I used it pretty heavily for about 2 months. I split it into two major sections; short term and long term. I would also make special sections if I was working on a heavy load of loops or charts so that I could check them off as they were completed.

In the end, I can see how this would work for some people, but the biggest drawback for me was that I didn't have it everywhere I went. I would consistently think of things that needed to be done, but if I wasn't near the board I would probably forget about it until it was too late. I forget things easily, so this was a problem.

Evernote

This was also a suggestion from friends and many blogs. It did take quite a while for me to actually start using Evernote though. I started using it just to keep lists for groceries or movies I wanted to see, but after I got it set up on my Android phone, it wasn't a stretch to use it in keeping track of tasks for work, things that needed to be done outside of professional life, and even brainstorming and writing for this blog. These very words are being typed into Evernote where they will eventually be copied into the text editor of the blog for formatting and publishing.

Where a white board fails in my memory problems and constant access, Evernote succeeds with flying colors. I almost always have my phone with me for quick notes or reference, the desktop app is great for heavier note taking, writing, or organization, and the internet interface insures that even when I don't have my phone or my computer I can still get to my information. If you haven't tried it, you definitely should. That goes doubly if you have a smartphone.

Mail+iCal

I have a mac and use Mail and iCal for email and scheduling. Both are synced with my google account so that I can get the same info on my phone. Before I dove into Evernote I used these apps in tandem to schedule tasks and reminders. This worked ok for a while, but I basically decided that it was useless unless a task was more than a month away. For instance, I need to remember to start recruiting for new Welcome Team volunteers in September so that we can make schedules before the current 6 month schedule runs out. If I put that in Evernote, I would probably forget about it and not look at it until it was too late. For these uses it works great to make a calendar event that will send me and email on September 1 to begin recruitment. At that point, I'll add it to my to do list on Evernote where I will see it constantly until it's complete.

Notepad

Some people swear by just plain old paper in the form of a planner or just an ordinary blank notepad. I can definitely see how this would work really well for some people. There's something equally pleasant and exciting about turning to a completely blank page and taking advantage of the empty space. I've tried this various times in my scholastic career and ultimately decided that the drawbacks far outweigh the benefits. The two overwhelming truths of this medium are that my hand hurts like crazy after writing for 2 minutes and that it's kind of a pain to keep a notepad with me everywhere I go when I already have my wallet, keys, and phone. I can certainly see some people loving this, especially for specific note taking like bible study, but my person uses lead me to other options.

Conclusions

The truth of the matter is that I still use all of these things to differing degrees. I still have a white board in my office, I use Mail and iCal for long term scheduling, and sometimes I use plain old paper, but the best option for me is Evernote. Its many features, constant accessibility, and ease of use makes it a game changer for my otherwise horrible organization skills. 

What are your favorite tools for organization? I like Evernote, but there's always room for improvement and I'm happy to try something else if you think it will work better.

This is a little bit overdue, but about a month ago I married my best friend and the love of my life! Grace and I were married on June 4 at her family's farm in Macon, Georgia. We were so blessed by all of the love from friends and family that we spent time with at the blessing in Wilmington as well as the wedding in Macon. We are truly fortunate blessed to know each and every one of you and for you to be a part of our lives.

For those who have not yet seen our wedding pictures, you can find them at our photographer's blog. www.kelseytice.com

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

- Justin and Grace Jeremias

 *Disclaimer - This website is not intended for political use, but I didn't have anywhere else to put this. This post will be the only politically based post...ever.*

There is a destructive concept that has grown to engulf the core of Christian Conservatives across the country. This concept relies on a serious departure from the purpose and principle of true liberty and contradicts what we so boldly embrace in the freedom of choice to follow Jesus. My point is not to argue the morality of social issues, but to discuss the ability or even wisdom in legislating these issues.

I grew up in the church and have seen first hand respectable leaders fall prey to sin. This is expected because we are human. What I don't understand is the notion that we should apply the social morality of the bible (which we have trouble upholding even with the Holy Spirit) to people who don't follow Jesus. It is clear to me as a follower of Jesus, that our ability to do good is not possible apart from God. We're honestly just setting people up for failure by expecting them to do just that. I understand as much as the next Christian that you can't give up on something because of imminent failure, but it should certainly lead us to question this method of legislating social morality.

For years the Christian Church relied on a "thump you over the head with the Bible" bully tactic that lead many people to believe, but even more people to see the Church for what it had become, a hateful, judgmental, self-righteous group of pretenders. Some people still do this, but most of us understand that it is love through service and an honest representation of the Truth that most accurately portrays the love that God has for each one of us. It's about time we extend this concept into the political arena by supporting legalization of social morality such as Gay Marriage, Drugs, and Prostitution (among others). This is not to say that we should support these things. Quite the contrary. I do not personally endorse any of these practices and in the event of legalization would certainly support healthy regulation and penalty at the state level to avoid infringing the rights of children and other adults.

God placed the one forbidden tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden and therefore supplied a choice. He also supplies us a choice today through the blood of His Son. Who are we to make this choice and yet deny others a choice of their own just because we think we are more capable of making it for them . Don't you think God could have made our choice for us and just been done with it? The beauty of the love that we find in God is twofold, that He loves us regardless of our choice and that our love for Him holds greater capacity because it is freely chosen. So let us likewise love those who desire a choice to defy the morality of God and return to them the capacity to make the better decision on their own. In the process, perhaps we will have an opportunity to tell them about the love of God. It's pretty hard to do that when a person is fighting for the right to just to make his/her own decisions. Changing someone's heart by changing their life style is contradictory and ineffective. Lets deal with issues of the heart before we expect to see a difference in the outer appearance of that issue. After all, someone could certainly force themselves to act a certain way without ever making that change in their heart. We see that in church all the time.

The problem with Social Conservatism in it's very definition is that you cannot stand for Liberty and the right to govern yourself in one area and deny that right in another. This even extends into fiscal conservatism where the core principle is that if we embrace individual responsibility and allow people to reap the consequences of their financial choices, they will be forced to stop relying on other people to fix the mistakes they made. Liberty and responsibility go hand in hand. If we want to see increased responsibility, we need only to return Liberty and wait for the natural consequences to correct poor decisions. There are many more practical arguments for the legalization of these three issues, but all are pragmatic and inferior to the principles of liberty and personal responsibility that are firmly rooted in the God given liberty that this country was founded upon.

Too Long/ Did Not Read Version

It's contradictory and ineffective to expect non-Christians to act like Christians. God lets us choose and as long as people aren't infringing on the rights of others, we ought to let them choose as well.

I've been at CBC for about almost 6 months now and these are some random things that I've learned so far. Most of these I knew before, but I know them now from experience.

• The most important part of the day is the part where you spend time with God. I'm terrible about being busy or distracted. 
• Be clear about what is expected of you and what you expect of your team.
• Don't leave things up to interpretation or think that something is "understood".
• If you set an expectation, hold yourself to it.

Example: If rehearsal time is 6:30, be ready to go at 6:30 instead of having to run around setting up your gear or making copies of charts. If they see that you have prepared then they will respect you more instead of questioning what you do all week.

• Being organized makes everything easier.
• It can be tempting to sit in my office all day.
• It's really hard to recruit new team members. Be grateful and treat the ones that God has given you well.
• If you keep your mouth shut more often, people will listen when you have something important to say.
• Don't be afraid to say something because it is uncomfortable or awkward. (email me if you want to hear some fun examples!)
• People have a hard time thinking big. Don't be afraid to pray big prayers. Don't be afraid to ask other leaders to do the same.

Last year this church baptized 5 people (up from 4 the year before that). I asked the worship commission to pray about a goal for baptisms this year (keeping in mind that God's growth in a church cannot be perfectly quantified in such a way) and we came back with a goal for 50 this year. We're at 9 so far with more on the way and we're still praying for life change in more lost souls.

• It's hard to do your job when people think you're horrible at it. It's also hard when people think you're good at it because the expectation gets much higher.
• It's tough to be musically excellent week after week. Sometimes I'm tempted to be intentionally mediocre so that I can one up myself. This thought always ends in a reminder that I am a crazy person.
• I'm almost always unintentionally mediocre and that's ok. As long as what you do is centered on the truth of God's Word, mediocre can be used to change someones life. I'm all for excellence, but sometimes it's not attainable in the traditional sense because it can mean many different things depending on the situation. For instance, if your entire team backs out on you at the last minute, excellence is no longer about the same things. Character is in the trying, not the success.

Doing too much

Recordings are usually pretty complex with many layers. It's very tempting when creating a loop for a song to try to emulate every single part of the song. This can be some good practice to help you get better at doing this, but sometimes the song just doesn't need all those pieces. Especially if you are running your loops mono, thing a little bit about what you really want to be heard once it's all mixed together with the live instruments. Sometimes it's better to drop a track or two and loose the muddy sound. Clarity rules.

Being too much of a perfectionist

I have a slight bit of OCD about some things. This mainly comes in to play when things are uneven or out of place that have a clearly defined measurement or place to be in. Enter the looping world where every track is broken down across time into perfectly divisible increments. It is incredibly tempting to spend as long as it takes to go through every midi note and snap each piece to the appropriate line. I've done it way too much. To be fair, there are some situations where this is pretty important and can provide a cleanliness to the sound. For instance, if you have an instrument that is a little bit sloppy and is also run through delay that is meant to be rhythmic, you might just go crazy when the repeats start hiccuping all over themselves. Gross. So, be perfect when it matters, but don't when it doesn't. This will save you time as well as sanity.

Not mixing for FOH (including eq)

I absolutely love IEM's. They satisfy my ears like nothing has before. Everything is clear and has it's own space in the sonic spectrum. The only problem is that they aren't really an accurate representation of our worship space. Our room is pretty boomy, can only be run in mono because of speaker placement and room shape, and is all around less clear than my IEM's. Because of my laziness I rarely adjust for this, but I really need to because the sound coming from the loops during the service is nothing like my IEM's. I'm going to try firing the loops in the sanctuary during the week before the final mixdown.

Using the same patches

Did I mention that I can be lazy? When I need a pad in a project there are about 4 pads that I generally choose from. Sometimes I get motivated and start searching through other patches, but it doesn't last long because I get tired of hearing things that I don't want. Because of this, I rarely branch out unless it is for a very specific sound. It can be said that using the same tools over and over can be beneficial because you learn how to manipulate them more effectively, but it seems like a better patch would remove much of the need to manipulate. So I'm going to start an extensive favorite list for string pads, synth pads, and synth leads. Hopefully I can generate enough of a list so that I have a larger usable library without having to search every time I need something different.

Well there you have it. Maybe you've been struggling with some of the same problems as me and here's your chance to get break the habit. Or not. 

With a mono signal, this doesn't matter because the sound is the same everywhere, but with a stereo signal this becomes a problem. The sound is not the same everywhere so panning can essentially loose anything that is not already panned to that side. Now for the utility tool. This is not magic and cannot deliver a stereo signal through a mono channel. What it can do, however, is move everything in a signal to one side. So when you send the channel left, even the distant string sound that was previously panned right will be heard. To be clear, when using utility for directional purposes, there is no need to use panning.

Utility can do a number of things and I self admittedly don't know all there is to know about it. That speaks to both the depth of Ableton and my own lack of knowledge. From what I have found so far, here are some cool applications for this tool.

Say you downloaded a track that was only provided in stereo and you only have one channel for click and one for the loop. They gave you the bpm, but are leaving the click up to you. Without Utility you would loose many of the sounds by panning to one side. Now, you can drop the track in like you normally would and put the "mono" utility tool into the effects rack.

The width is at 0% (0 is mono, 90 is the full specrum, and 180 is only far left and right) and stereo is selected as the signal to be processed. All that's left to do is to change the Panorama in the device to 50L or 50R. The downside is that this can pose some interesting mix situations because our ability to hear is much better with stereo music. With mono music, the levels need to be much more accurate because the audio is on top of itself. This is still much better than missing whole parts of the loops with panning. 

This principle can also be applied to a single track as well. I frequently use stereo synths and pads from Reason. They achieve their sound by oscillating between left and right in pulses. When you pan a track like that to one side, all you get is an awkward pulse and half of the intended sound. With a Utility in the effects rack, you can pan to one side and still hear everything.

Another interesting use of this tool is to automate the track volume using the tool's gain knob. Sure, you can automate the master track volume, but then you have to go back into the automation to make small adjustments instead of just nudging the slider up or down. I don't use this very often, but this could be invaluable for those never satisfied fiddlers who are constantly adjusting the mix. This should work for any gain knob on any plugin. Gain is similar to your standard track volumes in that you really don't want to push them past 0db when you automate, so do your best to work with 0db as the max. To avoid a complete rewrite of automation, you can always use -3 or so as your max and compensate with the track volume.

There are of course many other uses for this tool including phase inversions as well as isolation of either completely mono or completely panned instruments. This is especially useful for dance music where the low end is typically dead center to prevent the needle from skipping. 

If you have any other uses for this tool, please feel free to let me know in the comments! If you have any questions regarding this or anything else I will be happy to do what I can in getting you answers. I also highly recommend Will at Loops In Worship for all things Live. You'll learn a ton from his blogs.