Friends, brothers and sisters,

Being your pastor, I see enabling and equipping you for ministry as one of my top top priorities. This task involves a great deal of intentionality on my part to describe how I have been doing certain things and tasks. In this post, I will outline the process I go through to create a rundown for myself and the team to lead a worship session where we are worshipping Jesus through singing and playing of instruments (yes, it’s time to jam for Jesus!).

The rundown is like a map that tells the instrumentalists, singers, and the band where the set is headed, the sequences within each song and between the songs. It is an effective way of communicating a set of songs to the musicians. The rundown is to a group of musicians what the recipe is to a group of chefs working together. It is not meal itself, but it gives direction to what the group is trying to achieve.

It is not a prescribe way of doing it, it’s a process that I have developed over the years. It seems to work well for me and others I serve with. My hope is that you will give it a try, tweak it, and make it your own.

So if you’re ready, here we go:

  1. Choose your songs (since this is a technical post, I will leave out how I choose songs for another post)
    1. 4 songs max for a 20 to 25 minute session
    2. Use only a maximum of 1 new song as it requires a learning curve and therefore will inevitably take more effort for the worshippers to get into the mode of worshipping.
    3. Figure out the key signature to sing in; choose a key that both men and women are comfortable in.
    4. Write down the tempo you want the songs in
    5. Write down the flow of the songs. The numbers of times to repeat the chorus, what the mood of the song is to be and such.
  2. Put the above info on the rundown sheet. Here use this sample (you’ll need Excel): 2013.05.19 Worship Rundown
  3. Print out music for your group (https://ca.songselect.com/); Contact me to create an account for you. Song Select has all the chords and lyrics in different key signature. A great tool to use!

This is only one part of leading worship but a crucial part if you want to lead effectively and thereby making the whole process fun and worthwhile for others.

Let’s serve together.

Dave