Sunday morning does not come together on Sunday morning. It comes together during the week when someone plans the order of service, assigns worship team members, uploads the sermon notes, and coordinates with the sound tech.
Gathrik includes service planning tools that handle this coordination. They are not as deep as dedicated worship planning platforms, and we will be upfront about that. But for churches that want service planning integrated with their member database and volunteer scheduling, here is what we offer.
What Service Planning Includes
Worship Services
Create a record for each service your church runs:
- Service name (Sunday Morning, Wednesday Night, Youth Service)
- Date and time
- Location
- Notes and description
Services are separate from events. An "event" in Gathrik is something people register for (a conference, a retreat). A "service" is a recurring worship gathering that you plan and staff.
Order of Service
Build your service flow with ordered items:
- Welcome and announcements
- Worship set (song 1, song 2, song 3)
- Offering
- Sermon
- Response/altar call
- Closing prayer
- Dismissal
Each item has a title, duration estimate, description, and notes. Reorder by dragging items up or down. The total service duration calculates automatically from individual item estimates.
Service Templates
For churches that follow the same general format each week, save a service as a template. Next week, create a new service from the template, change the specific songs and sermon title, and you are done.
Templates save the order of service structure. You fill in the week-specific details.
Participant Assignment
Assign people to roles for each service:
- Worship leader
- Vocalist
- Guitarist, drummer, keyboardist
- Sound tech
- Media/slides operator
- Scripture reader
- Prayer leader
Each participant is linked to their member profile. When you assign someone, Gathrik checks for conflicts: if that person is already assigned to a children's ministry check-in shift at the same time, you see the conflict before it becomes a Sunday morning problem.
Sermons
Track your sermon library:
- Title, speaker, date
- Scripture references
- Series name (for multi-week sermon series)
- Media attachments (audio recording, video, PDF notes, slides)
Over time, this builds a searchable sermon archive. Need to find that sermon on Philippians 4 from last fall? Search by scripture reference or title.
What We Do Not Include
We are direct about where Gathrik's service planning ends and where dedicated tools like Planning Center Services begin:
No song database. We do not have a built-in song library with chord charts, lyrics, or CCLI integration. If your worship team needs chord charts and set lists with key/tempo info, Planning Center Services or SongSelect are better tools.
No rehearsal scheduling. Service planning in Gathrik covers the Sunday service itself. It does not manage Wednesday rehearsals, practice schedules, or music preparation workflows.
No music transposition. If your worship leader needs to change a song key for this Sunday, that happens in a separate tool.
No congregation-facing service info. The service plan is an internal staff tool. It does not publish to a member-facing page or app (yet).
No team messaging within service planning. Communication with your worship team happens through Gathrik's general messaging tools (email, SMS, WhatsApp), not within the service planning module specifically.
Who This Works For
Gathrik's service planning is designed for churches where:
- The same person who manages members also coordinates Sunday services
- The worship team is small (5-15 people) and communication happens organically
- You need a basic order of service and participant assignments, not a full music ministry platform
- You want service planning connected to your member database and volunteer scheduling
If worship planning is your church's primary technology need and you have a large worship ministry, Planning Center Services is the better tool. It is more expensive and does one thing very well.
If worship planning is one of many things you need alongside member management, giving, communication, groups, check-in, and volunteer scheduling, Gathrik integrates it into the same platform so you are not managing two separate systems.
Getting Started
Service planning is available on all Gathrik plans.
- Create your first worship service (Sunday Morning, this week's date)
- Build the order of service (add items, set durations)
- Assign participants (link worship team members to roles)
- Save as template (reuse the structure next week)
- Add the sermon after the service (title, speaker, scripture, recording)