Now that we have addressed the importance of the heart, I want to talk about a few external aspects we as drummers bring to the table in worship. The main thing to remember is that we are also and always WORSHIP LEADERS (which pertains to any musician on the team). Other than the theological reasoning behind this concept, another simple factor to remind you that you are leading in worship is that you are the loudest instrument on the platform. (At our church we call it a platform, not a stage. We believe a platform is for influence and the stage is for performance.)

Your ability to translate to the congregation where the song is going in terms of dynamics, rhythmic phrasing and tone, as well as being a lead worshipper in your expression (singing & nonverbal communication) plays a major role in worship. Your passion makes a difference. Something we tell our team often is that in worship, we are all communicators and everything we do verbally and nonverbally is communicating. If we want our church to passionately worship with their body and their voice, we too must be singing and worshipping as we play.

Another area we are leading in as worship drummers is always being aware of what is going on around you, as well as where the Spirit is leading. With that being said, let me make this statement as well: God is not a God of confusion. So, make sure you are submitting to the worship leader and pastor and not heading somewhere the leader doesn’t feel the song/service needs to go. You can’t be a good leader if you do not know first how to follow. Again, because you are the loudest instrument, people will automatically notice when you are making good leadership choices and when you are not. Learn to set the example. You will make your leader’s job a lot easier.

The worship leader needs to trust that you have their back, and the little things do matter. For example, when we take too long transitioning from one song to the next, the congregation doesn’t look at the drummer, they look at the worship leader. What in reality may only be 2 or 3 extra seconds of getting the next song started, feels like an eternity to the worship leader who has to cover for the delay. Being aware of what you are doing and where you are going next during a set will help keep these moments to a minimum and will build trust with you, your team and your leader.

Making sure as a drummer that you are well prepared (knowing the songs, transitions and the leader’s signals) allows your worship leader and pastor to relax and just do their job of leading. If you as the drummer set the bar for excellence in these areas, the rest of the team will likely follow and you will grow not only as a musician, but also as a leader. Check back next week as we talk about spiritual warfare: the how and the why.

In the mean time:
Keep worshipping. Keep warring. Keep pursuing. Keep drumming.

-Caleb Miller

At a very young age I began to realize that my ability to play drums was way beyond myself, and I embraced that. In worship, my desire and role has always been different than simply playing and enjoying what I do. My desire is beyond being excellent in craft and beyond being recognized for talent. To me, it is spiritual warfare.

Growing up in a Pentecostal church in Southern California, I was raised in an environment that was very focused on the leading of the Spirit in worship. I was fortunate to have great leaders and drummers in the faith that took me under their wing and developed me in the area of worship and drumming. Being exposed to this type of worship at a young age allowed me to grow beyond learning the songs and playing them with excellence. I began to understand how to lead a team on drums and still submit to the worship leader. I learned how to decipher the moments in worship for example, where the entire band knows exactly where to go without saying a word to each other. These skills and type of sensitivity to the Spirit is something that has to be learned and it is something that needs to be taught to this next generation.

I have learned a lot of things over the years when it comes to worship drumming, some easy and some not so easy. For this reason, or the next two weeks or so, I want to share with you my thoughts on the subject of worship drumming, that you may be encouraged to take action in your local church or develop the drummers around you. We have all been in those places where the drumming has caused “exit ramps” as we call them (distraction) for the congregation to disengage in worship. My desire is to see drummers in the church not only support the worship musically, but start to realize that they themselves ARE WORSHIP LEADERS.

I remember my parents saying as a kid “Caleb, it’s not about the talent, but it is about your heart.” This is something that is shown in scripture in 1 Samuel 16:7, “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” Therefore, I can’t talk about worship drumming and not talk about heart first.

Your heart is what comes before anything you do on the drums. One saying that helped me put this concept into context was, “Heart before Beat.” The Word of God says in Psalms 24:3-4, “Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god.” Approaching worship with cleans hands a pure heart is our goal first and foremost, which means motive is important. Who wants to ascend the mountain of the Lord? I know I do!

I have truly come to believe that your heart will either limit you or allow you to go into those deep places of worship. As the saying goes “You can’t lead people where you haven’t been yourself.” This means that your personal times in worship (whether that be on the drums or on your face) will dictate your ability to lead people into worship as well as your ability to follow the leading of the Spirit. Some of my greatest times of worship and warfare have come from my personal time of worship on the kit. I can remember spending hours upon hours in my parents garage in high school just worshiping and crying out to God. I would ask God to bring people to my mind or situations in my life that I could do warfare for. Hear me, it does make a difference in your personal life and in the lives of the people in your congregation when you put heart first.

As worship drummers, heart has to be our passion before we are ready for warfare on the drums. However, I won’t be the first to throw a stone, because I can think of plenty of times when I wasn’t spiritually ready to lead people into the presence of God on Sunday morning. The day-to-day stress, care, concern, rut and routine of life can often bring the mental fog of distraction. However, the pursuance of pure motive must be in the forefront of your mind, even if you aren’t there yet emotionally & physically.

We should all desire to have a heart like King David, who was a man in which no matter how many times he messed up, he still pursued having a pure heart and right standing with God. He wasn’t concerned with independence, but always remained dependent on the Lord. When approaching our talents, we must have the mind-set of dependance on God and a heart of gratitude for the opportunity to lead people into His presence no matter how big or small that opportunity may be.

Now that we’ve touched on our heart as worship drummers, stay tuned for next week’s post where  I will unpack more of the external aspects of worship drumming along with digging deeper into what spiritual warfare on the drums looks like, the how and why.

In the mean time:
Keep worshipping. Keep warring. Keep pursuing. Keep drumming.

-Caleb Miller

In Part II, we talked through the details of our run-through and how we try to do as much as we can prep wise to ensure our worship & tech teams are taking care of. With that being said, let’s pick up where we left off and go over our first service: the Connector’s service.

9:00 AM: Connector’s Service
At Connect, we always want to make sure our volunteers are fed, appreciated and taken care of. Part of this is making sure they are not missing out by not being in the service for the worship and teaching. We don’t want anyone to not get involved because of them possibly missing the service. Also, preventing burnout is important. Therefore, we do an abbreviated 45 minute service for our volunteers at 9:00 AM. Typically, we do our normal countdown & welcome video, along with our opener and one more down song. In the past, it has consistently been our first and third song. Following the worship, Pastor Devin does a shortened version of his message, about 25-30 minutes. Our Connectors also have the opportunity to give in this service and take communion together if we are administering it in the main service that morning. This is also the time when we announce anything that is going on specific to the Connectors as well as general announcements.

9:45 AM: Team Prayer
At the conclusion of the Connector’s service, all of the teams (Connections, Worship, Kids) gather together and have a time of prayer, where we give individual requests and pray over the service. This is also a good time to give any last minute reminders to our teams before sending everyone out.

10:00 AM PreService Stations
Once prayer is over, teams dismiss to man their posts, whether that be parking, greeting, etc. The worship team at this point is encouraged to mingle around the sanctuary and lobby talking with new people or assisting in whatever way they can before the service at 10:30 AM. At this point, we do not have a green room or hang out space for the team because of our limited square footage. However, even if we did, I would still encourage the team to be doing this. We really believe in having a platform team that is touchable. The only time people see/interact with the platform team should not be when they are ministering/leading on Sundays. We never want to foster an “us and them” mentality. People are more likely to engage in worship if they trust the motive of the people leading worship. Remaining “touchable” to the congregation is one way to help build trust and continue to bridge the gap between the rows and the platform.

Being spiritually prepared for services on Sunday, as well as doing the proper preparation needed to take care of your volunteer teams is so crucial in order to do effective ministry. Although it can be tedious at times, preparation always pays off!

This is a continuation of last week’s post, where I began the process of sharing with you my morning routine and preparation for the services on Sunday morning. If you have not yet read Part I, I would encourage you to do so to help connect the dots. I left off with the idea of us making sure our minds and hearts are right and ready to lead the team and that by establishing a positive, healthy routine in the morning, it would give confidence and peace of mind as we step into those leadership spaces. With that in mind, let’s continue…

7:00 – 7:15 AM: We Arrive at the Church.
When we arrive in the morning, we basically hit the ground running because we have such a short time before our band and tech meeting at 7:45 AM. Because of this, any prep work we can do in advance is important. If we can eliminate any item from being done last minute, we will. On Wednesday evenings, I try to make sure all number charts are correct and loaded in the iPads, the in-ear systems are set and the order of service is printed off and ready to go. The only items I really want to do on Sunday morning is turning the systems on (audio, iPads, computers, lighting, etc.) I think it’s really important to take care of your musicians and volunteers. Having their stations ready is just a small thing we can do to make their time more enjoyable and show them that we care and appreciate the time they give.

7:45 AM: Band & Tech Meeting
Once all the systems are turned on and the stations set, we pretty much just chat with our team and help them set up anything they need before our meeting. Again, show your team that you care. With our team, we are all really great friends off the platform as well (this is called community), so that makes it really easy for us. We love anytime we get to spend together.

In our band and tech meeting, we are basically just going over the order of service in detail. I have two different orders of service I print out, one for the platform team and one for the tech team. The platform team’s order has the basic order of service along with the band notes, which includes the transition notes  and any special instructions needed for particular songs. The tech team’s order has the order of service, but also includes all the audio notes (who is singing what, who is speaking when, what songs we are using multitracks on, etc.) and the video/lighting notes as well.

During this time, we are talking through transitions with band, lighting, audio, video, etc. We talk through response time, any edits or tweaks we need to make, and answer any last minute questions. This time is so crucial to ensure that for our morning run-through everyone is on the same page. We then conclude with prayer and break for about a ten minute turnaround time before our service run-through.

8:00- 8:45 AM: Service Run-through
For service run-throughs, we make sure the talkback mic is in the monitors for the vocalists as well, since our vocalists are still on floor wedges as of right now. This way, everyone can hear the transitions and direction. (We take the talkback out of the wedges for service, of course.) We typically run the opener and stop so everyone can make the proper adjustments to their in-ears and monitors. Then, we run the whole service top-to-bottom starting with the countdown, with the exception of the sermon. We do this so every volunteer can run their parts and transitions (lighting, audio, video, ProPresenter slides, & the platform team).

It is so so so crucial that you have a top-to-bottom run-through before your services. We make sure we are always reiterating to the team that Sunday morning is not a rehearsal (a time to learn your parts), but it is a run-through. Being consistent in this area will encourage your team members to come prepared, because they know they will only have a short-time. Also, we all know how fickle technology can be, and the more moving parts and transitions you have, the more you should run them. This also gives a last minute buffer and opportunity to make any little changes or corrections you need to make.

As I am “finishing up” writing this, I am realizing I have about five more paragraphs of content to go. Therefore, I have just decided to make this a 3 part series. I don’t enjoy reading extremely long blog posts, so I am just assuming you don’t either. Check back next week as I break down our Connector’s Service we do at 9:00 AM, what that is and why we do it. Also, I’ll go over more team preparation before our main 10:30 AM service. Thanks for being patient and happy prepping!

One thing that has always interested me is people’s prep routines (personal and team wise) for services. How do they prepare? Why do they do those certain things? Some steps and answers are just common sense, but others I find are helpful in understanding outcomes. I also believe it helps us understand why or why not people may be successful in what they are doing and how we can take steps to improve. Some details I give may be unnecessary, but that’s just how I roll. This will Part I of a two-part post. This post will simply be my personal morning routine, and the next post will be my prep and the team’s prep for service once we are at church. With that being said, I would like to share with you my personal Sunday morning prep routine for service. Feel free to email me yours or share it in the comments below.

4:45 AM: Wake-up & Drink a Full Glass of Water. (hydration people…getting that mind & body going)

4:50 AM: Eat Breakfast. (usually oatmeal…the new breakfast of champions) At this point my eyes are hardly open so I’m usually eating in the dark. : )

5:05 AM: Get Inwardly Ready. (Devotional Time)
This is probably the most important time for me on Sundays and something that I have learned I absolutely cannot skip. You have all heard the saying, “You can’t lead people somewhere you haven’t been yourself.” My number one job is to come to church spiritually prepared to lead the team and the congregation. If I am not filled, I will have nothing to pour out. We have all had those moments where we’ve been running on empty, and it usually leads to a very dry outcome. Now, I will say there is a difference between being physically exhausted and spiritually exhausted. I’ve led plenty of times physically tired and because I have filled myself up spiritually, the Lord has done some pretty amazing things in my weakness. Obviously, your best scenario is being rested in both areas…but let’s be realistic.

5:30 AM: Get Outwardly Ready.
Since my devotional time mainly consists of me reading and mediating on a verse or passage of scripture along with just sitting in silence listening to the Lord, I take my getting ready time to extend my devotional time. I will put on a more contemplative worship playlist and pray for the service, our team, the worship, etc. My husband doesn’t wake up until 5:50 AM, so I have a bit of time to worship, pray, think.

5:50 AM: Caleb Gets Up. 
Once Caleb wakes up, he is full-force. Unlike him, I am a slower developing morning person. When he wakes, he turns over and immediately opens the Planning Center app and goes to the media player to listen to that morning’s set. This is a good refresher for us before run-through. We go over transitions again and make sure there aren’t any last minute adjustments we need to make.

6:10 AM: Vocal Warm-Ups.
Once we have gone over everything, I open my vocal warm-up playlist on my phone, while I finish getting ready. (Caleb loves this…not.) It is very important that if I expect the rest of the team to come prepared with their instrument, I come prepared with mine. One of our worship core values is Craft, which means we are committed to the continued pursuit of excellence and growth with our gifting. I must model this. Also, it’s really not the best for the long-term care of your voice to sing the amount we do on Sundays on unwarmed vocal cords.

6:30 – 6:45 AM: We Leave to Head to Church.
I put a 15 minute window because it just depends on if there is any extra/special prep we need to do once we arrive at the church. On our 25 minute journey to the church, we put on a worship playlist and together pray for the service and for the team. Caleb usually leads the prayer and I will close us out. We have recently made the rule that our ride to the church is set aside for prayer and worship. It would be the enemy’s great joy to divide us and get our focus derailed right before we minister. It is such a short ride and being united on this really helps keep the atmosphere focused on the Lord. Making sure our mind and heart are right and ready to lead the team is essential.

Getting some sort of a positive, healthy routine down before you minister will give you more peace of mind and confidence as you step into those leadership spaces. Make sure you check back next week for Part II, where I share with you what our personal and team preparation looks like for service once we arrive at the church.