 My name is David Whitworth and I am married. I have a little baby boy. He is seven months. I don't know if they're in the room. They're not here yet. Are they here? Yeah. There he is. Hi there. Kind of here. I see him. Ali, and then that's my wife, Ali, and my son, Duke Wyatt, he's seven months. He's got the metallic-ish shirt on the way. Nice. Little rebel. He also turned on the alarm. We all heard an Anna's message. So he was playing with keys and the alarm. Making our mark. Yeah. So today, I just wanted to talk a little bit about my story and the pursuit of excellence and why I'm even talking about it. And I come from a very, if you know anything about me, I spent a lot of years at the International House of Prayer. And I'm at Bethel now. And it's spontaneous galore. And so why would I be talking about pursuit of excellence and making things really refined and awesome and how that even works? And so yeah, I just want to talk a little bit about just my background and how I came to be that I even am here. I was never really a dream to be a worship drummer or a musician in this sense. I honestly never thought it would be this awesome. When you're younger, you have dreams of being a rock star or this famous musician that plays state games or something. But it took a completely different turn in my life. And so just a little bit about myself, born and raised in Texas, a little town called Bastrop. It's like 20 minutes outside of Austin. I grew up on a goat farm, believe it or not. OK, can you help the revert, veer, veer, veer, veer? In the delay? Hey, dude! What was all the audio guys you gave me? No! Oh my god. I guess you should have prepared more. So yeah, so I grew up on a goat farm, believe it or not. Both of my parents, my mom and dad were veterinarians. And it was an awesome childhood because I had times of animals to play with. A lot of goats. I muted a lot of goats, believe it or not. It ran effect about me. You probably didn't care to know about me. But yeah, so I grew up on a goat farm. As any drummer, at least a lot of drums I met, when you're a baby, you just start banging on stuff, pots and pans, whatever. And my mom was like, OK, quit taking my pots and pans and just brought me a drum set so I could beat on that. So I started playing when I was like six. I just had a kid set up in the garage and I was just in between feeding goats or whatever. As a little kid I just go in and hit the drums. But when I was about 11 years old, someone gave me a Hillsong United CD. And so I just, I mean, you know, the Dismans, I'm in my 30s, so get the Dismans and put it on the headphones and get to play. Hope it didn't skip. But I would play the Hillsong United for hours. That was just like, I mean, that early stuff. So it was my, I started feeling like the presence of God when I was playing drums. It became addicting. I fell in love with the presence of God on the drum set, listening to worship music. It's dry, sorry. So at an early age, I just fell in love with this idea that like, wow, I can play drums and feel the presence of God and this is cool. Like, I don't know what that means, but this is awesome. So I would, I mean, you know, like growing up on the farm, doing all the chores, everything, my parents were so kind. They like ended up giving me a nicer drum set and I started playing in church and getting really involved. And we had a kids praise team, which was sick. It was like drums, flute, and a keyboard. But we did our best. And from there, you know, it's like, I remember the day that I got, I think I was 13, or 12 or 13, and I got that sweet call to play main service at church. You know, I lost my mind. I played terrible, you know, sped everything up. But that was the big thing back then that you could play, you know, big church. So I grew up in the church playing church music and I still like, from that marking moment at 11, like fell in love with the presence of God on the drums. So I was addicted to it. So I had this thing in my heart. I don't know what it was. It was just like playing in there from an early age. So, but when I was 13 years old, these are just kind of giving me a little backdrop to my story. And it'll all play into Bethel music tours and all the things. But when I was 13, my mom passed away. She had a brain aneurysm. And it was very, very like shocking. I don't know where she was like the classic, like, you know, take the kids to soccer practice. She did everything. Like she was just like one of those all American moms. And I remember my, I have an older brother, older sister and they, they were in public school. I was still in like this Christian school thing. And they, when this happened, it was, I mean, obviously it's, you know, traumatic. And I remember like immediately I felt like the single Lord, like the life is but a vapor like the whole scripture. What's going to mean? Yeah, James 414. But this, there was this another impression made that time is precious. We're fragile. Life is short. Eternity is long. Like growing up into Texas, like culture, like everything is like, go to school, get a job, like nine to five. You know, nothing wrong with it. But it was just like in this moment, I know that man, like life is really fragile. Like my mom, who was a veterinarian, like had three kids and the whole, like living this American dream, whatever it looked like, like she, it just ended like that. And so I knew from that moment on, it's like, man, I'm going to live my life. Like, so what the Lord has put in my heart, like I have to go after it no matter what, like no matter the cost, no matter what life is but a vapor. And, and so from that moment on, it's a very marking moment in my life. And I didn't know what it looked like obviously, but I just knew that like, it wasn't like, I'm not going to school. Like, you know, forget all that. It was more of a just like I have to follow the passion in my heart and I have to follow my dreams. And that was no matter the cost. And so that was, I mean, not to get all down and sad, because I just had to put that in the story, but later it's crazy because later on I, like we got her journals, like we were reading through her journals and she had been praying, her best friend had all of her journals and she had been praying, she would go into my room and pray over my jump set that like my drumming would reach the nations and I would travel the world and stuff that I had like never knew until I was in my 20s. She was a praying mom, so really grateful for her. And as ironic that I ended up at the International House of Prayer for many years. So anyway, so fast forward, you know, go through high school, still have this burning desire for drumming and worship and I didn't know how to express it. I'm in Texas and it's like, and close to Austin, there wasn't like a great worship scene per se, whatever that looked like. But I was just, I was serving where I was in that church and being faithful, but I still had this thing of like, there has to be something more. And a lot of our friend groups were, it was like just kind of mediocre Christianity and like go to church on Sundays and Wednesdays and you play worship music, but the rest of the time, you know, it's just whatever. Not really loving God that much. But yeah, so I'm getting to the, so after, I'm getting there. I don't want to spend too much time on this part. So yeah, so fast forward through high school, I'm two years into college and I'm just, at this point, I'm like, you know, God, I'm just going to do this on my own because I don't know how to like, I don't even know what it is that I want to do, but it has to be bigger. What is it? I was just so frustrated. They're all high school and college, like, with this thing. And two years into college, I'm doing like music production at this college in San Antonio. And one of my buddies, he said, hey, do you want to come to a one thing conference in Kansas City? It's like this worship conference. And I was like, yeah, like, he's playing, like Chris Tomlin, like Passion, like what big names are there? So that was big in the worship music. But, and he was like, no, they won't be there. And I was like, all right, so. But I thought, you know, I needed something to break in my life. I needed a breakthrough. And so I said, yeah, I'll go. So we went to Kansas City. And as we're going there, you know, I'm like reading about, I like, about this conference. And I don't understand it. Because I'm like, why would there be, you know, 24 seven worshiping prayers? Like this is crazy. But we go to this conference and I put my fleece out before the Lord. I said, God, like I need breakthrough. I need answers. Like why did you put me here on this earth? Like why? Why do I have this burning desire in my heart for worship and for to play drums and to like do all these things? And I can't do them. Why? Why? Why? And I put it before the Lord. And I said, I know you're a faithful dancer. I think you're faithful dancer. And so I'm asking you where you show me. And so yeah, put up my fleece. I also tried fasting for the first time. You know, one thing is a four day conference. And so I was like, I'll fast for these four days. I need answers. You'll show up. So my fasting was no food. Just chocolate milk. That was like, I mean, it was kind of fast. He knew my heart. So I drank a ton of chocolate milk. It was probably the worst, like four days straight at the top of the milk. So I went with like my friend, his name is Robert and like six other people from our church back home. And a lot of them were, they weren't, they were there for the conference. You know, they were excited to worship. I was there like, I had to have answers. Like there was, there was, there was nothing else for me. Like I had to figure out what this was in my heart and I had to figure out why he put that there. So four days into this thing. It's the last day, 1145. They go until midnight the last night. It's 1145. I'm there like, dear God, I have 15 minutes, like, show yourself. Because my, my thing was, if you don't answer me in these four days, which is a terrible thing to do, you know, but I was young and I was just like, I know your faithful answer me. Like what is this? And this band, Merchie Band was playing. It's Tim Reimer and Marcus Meyer, great songwriter guys. They were playing a delirious song and the, the youth group guys that I were with, they had all went home. Like everyone, like everyone in our group had left and I was like, no, I'm staying till midnight. Like I'm just going to do it. So I'm just there. We're speaking all of a sudden it hit me like a flood. Like I had chills thinking about it, but it was, I've never had an encounter like this in my life. Just, this is, and this is the only one. It was layers deep hit me like a flood. Like I felt the father's love for the first time. I felt him like he was with me the whole way through and my mom's passing and why he put those dreams and desires in my heart. So you have this, like this is probably like a 10 second encounter at the same time these four screens pop up and he's showing me exactly where to go in the next season of my life. And it was like there's this sweeping shot of a sea of people and I was on the drum set and there was like another shot of me on this table with these cool looking kids like reading the word. Like there was, it was layers deep of like it's okay to be passionate about me. It's okay to be passionate about worship music. I put these dreams and desires in your heart and here's the next steps to take. And so it was in Kansas City, here at the International House of Prayer and I was like, I had no idea what it meant. It was crazy like these, try to imagine this. I would see the words like I love you but it was every word I had like 10 meanings. Love had 10, it was like layers. Every word had like different meanings. It was crazy. It was wild. But I was marked from that day forward. It's like I know what I'm supposed to do. I know where I'm supposed to be. So like two months later I quit school and quit my job in the church back home and said I'm moving to Kansas City and they were like you're crazy. I was like I'm just doing it. So I went and I'm trying to make this too long. So I go to Kansas City and I apply for their, I think I was there for their worship school and they had like a music school and I was there for maybe six days and I was like doing the process and I said hey I'm here to play drums and be a part of your worship school. And they're like oh no you can't play drums for the first year. And I was like what? And I was like no. They just had like this encounter and I was just like what are you talking about? They were like I heard from God. So I was like no you have to like you have to be here for a year do an internship and then you can audition to be on one of the teams. So I was like okay great. So every day for a year I would sit in a prayer room and watch these worship teams lead and I had to deal with so much stuff in my heart. Like identity as a drummer like is this like my identity? Like what? Like why do I feel all these weird things? Like I feel like oh I'm better than that guy here. I should be up there. I could do that. The hair like they're terrible. You know all these things like you know all the things we have. But he slowly broke down these walls in my heart of like my identity being in a drummer and like these pride issues and like all these things like that I kind of conjured up myself and it's kind of where it picture it like he put a dream in my heart and then I surrounded it with my own stuff and it felt like a little bit like corroded and like weird. So he had to break all that and it just made it pure again. And so it took about like a year detoxing and then like from that moment I remember so a year passed and I was finally in a really good spot in my heart. Yeah I remember going to the auditions and it's like Misty Edwards and Jess and Rizzo and all these big time I have worship leaders and I was like sweating. I was like oh my gosh. But I auditioned. Next day I got a call to join a worship team and I joined and then like two months later I got asked by a merchant band who I had this encounter with at one thing to travel the world. So like to do all these crazy things. So imagine the things that I saw in this vision I was actually living them out. Like so I went in for the next like two years I was reliving that encounter that I had. So I went with merchant band and we traveled to Asia and Mexico and all these places. But it was crazy because it was there was no pride. There was no like playing in front of thousands. It was this place of like use worthy. This is the greatest thing ever to happen to me. I'm so happy. So it was he fulfilled the dreams that I had like within like a year period that he's like dream bigger. So but it was it was a wild season. So so after that I joined Corey's team probably like a year into IHOP. Corey Asbury and Caleb Culver. We had a lot of history at the International House of Prayer. Yeah, but my time at IHOP it taught me so much. Like I wouldn't be able to do probably none of us be able to do what we do today without that season had IHOP. And we had to learn how to the awakening happened like Ann was talking about this morning. And we had to learn how to play while people were getting healed and to play while people were getting prayed for. And one guy got on the wheelchair like what do you play while a guy is getting out of a wheelchair. So I prophesied like what? So there was a thing learning here throughout the whole awakening. We learned how to do corporate. We learned how to do you know times of just waiting. There was a patience that we had to learn and all this plays into like the pursuit of excellence because the season that I spent there it taught me that patience and that's one of the main key things that you have to have when pursuing this thing called excellence. You know when you're making your set list and you're getting your things dialed if you don't have the know how or the patience to say hey like he's doing something different like if you don't have the patience to like go that way that he's going then like you can kind of just bulldoze and just do the same thing over and over again and it gets a little watered down and mundane and flunky and mcdonkey. Okay so excellence, let's talk about it. Excellence is essentially bringing your collective, wait, sorry, wrong notes. Awakening, talk about that. The reason I left IHOP is because Caleb and Corey they left because they left. They all moved to Colorado and I was there defending for myself. So I ended up meeting Jeremy Riddle along the way and he invited me out to Bethel. He said hey would you want to come and be a part of our worship community and be ahead of the drummers and just kind of be a part of what we're doing and this is really before Bethel Music Even took off it was 2013 so I went and I just started dating Ally so it was a lot happening but yeah I said okay let's do it. I didn't have a big encounter to say hey let's go I just felt peace and excitement on something so I felt his pleasure being like I trust you to make this next move so I did it and I also asked Ally to marry me and to move to California so she was like yeah why not. So we went and it was quite the journey there. Okay so the pursuit of excellence and why do we worship? Because he is worthy and what is our response? It's excellence and surrender. Eugene Patterson says worship is a strategy by which we interrupt our preoccupation with ourselves and attend to the presence of God. I love this quote because it paints the picture that as we take our eyes off ourselves and focus them on God our worship becomes a powerful strategy a force for good changing the environment around us. These are just a few points on worship and why I feel like it requires excellence. Excellence it might look a little different than what we think like it's not perfection it's bringing your best every day. So here's a few points. Romans 12-1 exhorts us take your everyday ordinary life your sleeping, eating, going to work and walking around life and place it before God as an offering. As Christians we are the lead lives of worship eager to always be head of the worshiping crowd. Don't make worship about your worthiness or about what is wrong with you but instead focus on what is right with him. It's easy to approach the throne in worship when we are focusing on the character of God. He is good, he is kind, he is worthy of all our praise. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due to his name bring an offering and come before him worship the Lord and splendor of his holiness. So I'm just throwing out some stuff for you guys. And writing songs like there's such a temptation to write songs about our feelings, our seasons and the ups and downs of life. And there is a place for these songs yet. What I know is that songs that speak to God's unchanging nature His holiness and the glory due to His name are songs that seem to shift the atmosphere and cause our hearts to focus on who He is despite our circumstances and once again allow us to take the focus off ourselves and honor Jesus. Worship is about him and only him. So I don't know why. I think I'm just a country kid from Texas and I just said yes and I said yes and I went through some doors and I found myself in the craziest places. We did this worship event a few months ago in December with Jeremy Riddle and Stephanie Gretzinger and Amanda Cook and we're playing and it's in Orlando and Benny Hench shows up just in the back room. And I'm like, you know, what? It was really cool because Benny now, he's such a father. He was so kind and he just came over to us. He actually said, I don't, it's like I don't love your music but he's like don't change what you're doing. And he talked about writing songs from the scripture. He said, stop writing from your diaries and write from the scripture. He's like, these are the songs that will shift generations. He also talked about not losing the trust of God. This really marked me because he said, don't lose his trust, don't lose his trust. He said, I almost lost his trust and caught up in ministry and money and all these things. He's like, don't lose his trust. So those are two big things that took away from it. But yeah, on the idea of just writing songs from the scripture and about just these high praise songs, I'm a big champion of that because I love it. I mean, there's place for all the journal songs and the process songs for sure. Bethel does a lot of them. But yeah, worship is about him and only him. So I'm talking a little bit also about how worship is led not only from a platform but in the congregation as well. This is another thing on the excellence side that I'll get into in just a minute is lighting. You wouldn't think about it, but I don't know why that has been placed. I have this every detail. I'll talk about the Bethel Music Tours and how everything is so intentional and how lighting actually plays a massive role, not only on the stage but in the audience. Being able to see one another, worship and lift their hands. Jen Johnson always encourages us to sit on the front row and worship with everything you have because you're actually leading the people behind you. And so there's this chain reaction where you're giving permission for the people behind you to, oh, I can lift my hands too. Like, okay, oh, I can dance, I can spin. And if you can't see one another doing that, then it's like, you're just kind of like doing your own bubble. So anyway, it's okay. So about worship is led. The Somersonsong424 says, I was always at the head of the worship crowd right out in front, leading them all, eager to arrive in worship, shouting, praising, singing and Thanksgiving. So what does it mean to be out in front of the worshiping crowd? I believe that worship cannot and must not just be led from the platform, but must be an environment we cultivate. A culture that we encourage from the furthest seat in our sanctuaries to the worship leader at the front of the crowd. So not only on the stage but in your seat, like I was saying. Does that make sense? Like, it's very important. I think even as we're leading our worship teams to really encourage people that aren't playing, like, hey, you're leading even though you're not on stage. Like, be there in the front row, and just go for it, act crazy. Time to go ahead. You might have to skip some goodies. How much time do I have? 12.15. 12.15? Okay, we're good. So, like I said, we're still on these points about just kind of overall worship and fires through crying, our response. So worship changes the atmosphere of your life. We know this. We're worshipers. Have you ever walked into a service where there is praise and worship and you can just sense the presence of God? There's something tangible in the atmosphere of a room where people are worshiping in song. In the same way that worship can do that in a room, it can do it in your life as well. Worship is a unifier. Worship unifies and brings blessings. It's a stake in the ground, an unfutable truth and a testimony to the glory of God. Worship breaks down walls of divide that have seemed impossible. You can see age-old denominational divides that have been set aside for the sake of a worship song. I truly believe that God uses worship and worship leaders and teams to go to many places where perhaps pastors and preachers may not ever be able to go or be invited to. Our churches must be environments of worship, but most importantly, let us never forget who it is we worship. We worship a risen and reigning king, a powerful God and a personal savior. He is worthy of all of our praises, all of our adoration and all of our worship. So just kind of putting that out there to kind of set the tone of why the heck our response should be excellence in this. I mean, duh, you know what I mean? Why? I get in this battle sometimes with worship leaders about like, you know, I don't want to make a set list. I just want to like, let's just see what the Holy Spirit leads us. And I'm like, that sounds lazy to me, because yes, let's see what the Holy Spirit leads us, but our default should be excellence. Like, if we don't have a set list, if we don't have a roadmap, then if the Holy Spirit doesn't show up how we thought he would, you're just kind of stuck there, meddling on your part. So that's something that I've preached to our guys about just being prepared, being prepared to the utmost. So my job, titles, I wear a few different hats in Reading, California for Bethel Church. I'm over our Friday night worship teams. I am a drum section leader, and I am our live events director for Bethel Music Tours. And so it's something that I'm really trying to preach. Like, our default should be excellence. Our default should. We shouldn't come to soundcheck and learn our parts. We shouldn't come to or like show up and make a set list, you know, like being unprepared. Our default should be excellence. We should put everything that we have, so much preparation on the forefront. And if he does something else, great. We have to have that know-how to put our sales on the okay, let's deviate, let's leave it all. But it's not wasted worship. We have to know that. Like everything that we put into this, like I make so many tracks. I do so much in Ableton and step prep. And then we get to the set and we don't do any of it. And I had to come to the realization. I couldn't be mad, but I had to come to the realization that this isn't wasted worship. Like just because we didn't use the song or do whatever, it's not wasted. I remember Cass LinkedIn. She's from Hillsong. She's a creative director of everything, of worship. But she was talking about how, you know, they have insane song writers there and everyone's pumping out these crazy songs. And, you know, how do you choose songs for an album? And she just went on this whole tangent about it's not wasted worship just because your song doesn't get put on an album or whatever. It's like, it's not unseen, you know. And I think it's important to remember that when we're prepping and we're creating like even knowing that even if it doesn't your song doesn't get used or, you know, the set list changes, it's not wasted worship. The preparation is not wasted worship. Okay, so excellence starts with the expectation we set for ourselves, but a culture of excellence in a team can only be created by the expectation of our leadership. So as a leader, I'm creating an expectation for our team. Hey guys, let's be excellence. I'm always encouraging. I've had to learn how to not be harsh like with people, you know, if you know something they don't know, like learning language to be like, hey, you know, I hit them with a compliment sandwich. You know, like, you are so good at this. Here's like a little pain point. Maybe like, you know, practice your parts at home. But I know you're gonna crush me. I'm gonna crush you. You know, a compliment sandwich. Yeah, so you encouraged the practice, practice, practice, being prepared. Your best is gonna be progressive. Remember, excellence is bringing your best today. So every day we want to keep growing our craft, we want to keep growing our ideas and not get stuck on what worked last season. You know, so it's always, it's very important to keep progressing. Our excellence today is different than our excellence yesterday. Yeah, excellence looks like personal practice getting better at your craft. If you feel as though you're good enough, please recheck your approach. Say it again. Say it again, yeah, I will. If you feel as though you're good enough, please recheck your approach. Excellence takes hard work and means we are continually getting better. Be aware of where you want to be and set realistic goals for yourself. Like I said, don't be content with staying where you are. God wants our best and the bottom line is our best will continually be changing with more time, work, and experience. Approach what you always do with fresh eyes. If we want our church to be a place of innovation and an initiative, we can't do this by staying the same. Like I'm saying, in the new season, we need to look at what we're doing with fresh eyes. Different seasons call for new strategies, new sounds, ideas, techniques, all the things. So for, I'll just speak a little bit about, we just did this tour called the Victory Tour for both music. And I just recently got this job of, it's kind of a new thing, like, you know, live, director of live events. I was like, what the heck does that even mean? So they're like, you know, set list, like the whole thing, like for a worship night for a Bethel tour. Previous year, so I've been traveling with Bethel's music for almost five and a half years or so. And our tours back when we were very like, they were awesome and their presence filled, but there's still so many like loose ends and, you know, like we would, the lights wouldn't be working or like, you know, the kick drum mic is unplugged, you know, all these little things and there is no one really running point on it. We just like, we just wanted to worship, which is, I love that part. You know, like I said, like my whole background is just like, let's go for it. Like I was in spontaneous world forever. But taking over this role, I wanted to make everything so intentional. Like there was no wasted moment in the night. So the moment it's, we opened doors at 6 p.m. and it ends at 10 p.m. Like there's nothing wasted in those four hours. So we have an, we have an opener and her name's Tasha Couchlin. She's insane. So, and we had like pre-roll. So it was everything from, okay, let's make the pre-roll music awesome. Let's make the screens have important information we need to say, like, and I also wanted to make the pre-roll music, like the actual, the songs and the pre-roll music actually work into her set. So whether that was knowing what Tee she was going in and having the last song and pre-roll music goes. So there's all these little things that I was, I thought, man, if I'm bringing my best, what can I do to make this my best? So, that's one of the little things. Also, for spontaneous stuff from our own set, like, I wanted to make a set list where we get, we wanted to, I wanted an awesome opener. It's like, let's just make this the best. It's Victory Tour. Let's make it awesome. Victoria's huge opener. So, we made it and it was great. And then, I just thought, we also need like, we can't forget our DNA. Like, we want to go after healing. We want to go after spontaneous moments. We want to leave space where we can actually like, have moments where we can just breathe. So, I actually built that into the set list and there's nothing wrong with that. I think, I don't think we need to overthink it, you know? I don't think we need to overthink set lists. Like, we're worshiping a living and breathing God and our set list can be that way and we can make them and be confident and move forward. I deal with a lot of worship leaders that just don't want to make set lists and bothers me sometimes. You know, the Holy Spirit can tell you on Tuesday what we're doing on Sunday. Yeah, so, I think it was really, it was important for me to put in this time. So, we have like, the healing times are, we put in, we have this song called, or the hells to have a song called You Came and we did it on tour and after the end of it, we like, okay, let's float on some music and let's go after healing. So, any of the worship leaders, if you have a word of knowledge or if you're feeling something, this is just go after it. And that is built into the set list, but what happens every night is completely different, you know? And it goes, sometimes it goes 15 minutes, sometimes it goes 30 minutes and if that's the case, we'll cut a song and we just, it's on the fly. So, there's still room in the spirit of excellence. There's always room for deviation. There's always room for change and like I said, it's a living and breathing, always moving kind of idea for set list. Any questions? I want to open this up for questions. Sorry, I'm just rambling. It's not up to you talking. But I wanted to open up just for if you guys have any questions or anything. If this is not making sense or you're like, dude, I don't agree at all. But excellence in, it's something that I really, really preach. Like for our drummers, we have nine guys that are on our team and my thing is like, hey, like your base level is to know these songs inside and out. Like you shouldn't have to like figure out a part when you come to church. Like if you're not putting in the word beforehand, like didn't, you know, another church and I'm just kidding. But that's the base level and that's the, as a leader, that's the standard I'm setting and it's not in a harsh way. It's just, hey, like think about, if you don't have to think about the parts and you actually can play with freedom, like there's something that unlocks in the prophetic realm. There's something that'll unlock you when you're playing. The confidence that you have going into a set, there's so many times that I deal with musicians that are not confident if we don't have a set list. They get so timid and scared even in the prophetic moments. But if you have a game plan, they're prepared, they're rehearsed, and then we deviate from the set list, there's like this confidence, like I did the best that I could do. Like they just have this, they can stand up straighter, they can do that as confidence. Yeah, I can play this, like in a spontaneous moment. There's more confidence in musicians when you come prepared. It's very important. Um, yeah, any questions? No questions? I'll ask you. Yeah. Yeah. And these limbs are a leg church in West Grona, York. Awesome. I'm new to all this. Maybe you have been playing from out of your base. Hard time with the clicker trying to hear? Trying to hear the clicker? The clicker, yeah. I like that one. And then the worship leader speaks in your ear. Sure. You want to disorsho that way? Yeah. If you could kind of guide me in maybe the order of events I should focus on to get where I want to be in the worshiping and playing at the same time. Totally. Thank you. Great question. Um, the clicker, I like... I don't even know or the... No. So I used to, I used to, hey, I mentioned, I'm like, I was like anti-nation, I'm talking the spirit move, if you haven't mentioned it. But the more, I just start practicing with it at home and the more I did, the less and less I could hear it. And then from there, I don't hear the click anymore. But if you do hear the click, you're off the click. Right. But... I think it's important to practice more at home with the metronome and you'll become more used to it. And, um, yeah. I mean, that's honestly the best thing you can do. And I think working on your, in your mix to where it feels awesome and, um, like I mixed mine, like kind of like a live CD type feel. That comes with time, but there is, there is a spot where you can worship and you can enjoy His presence and His goodness with a metronome. It just takes a little bit of time and practice with it at home so you're not just like stressed out during your church services with it. But yeah, yeah. And what I'm trying to stay with that is, uh, what do you recommend for that? Um, I don't know. Are you asking? What are you asking? Just to keep, just to hear the clicker. I've never really heard the term clicker. I always thought it was just a metronome. Yeah, clicker's a new term. I like it. I always thought the drum was supposed to be the beat, but sometimes in the bands that I play, my instrument is an acoustic, so I am actually the drummer. By my chop, I'm not sure what the chops are, but I'm keeping the beat. But just how to do that, how to work with others in that, how to, I'm still learning. Yeah, totally, totally. I think when you're playing with a metronome, it takes a lot of practice because sometimes the acoustic can be right on the clicker, but with drummers dragging, the singers are singing way ahead of the beat. I think it's, my default is, I'm on the click, but I'm not like, like Kari Job is a good example of this. She's singing so far behind the click, it's like, where are we? But I think it's important for encouraging your drummer to stay pretty locked in on the metronome and then kind of follow the drummer. If he's dragging a little bit, if he's speeding up a little bit, kind of stay with him, and I think you'll err on the side of it, being better than worse. If you're perfectly on the click and he's not, then I think just err with him a little bit, and if he's struggled, then that's like an outside combo. Oh, you had a question. We'll get to you, we'll get to you. At a practical level, a lot of us are using Ableton Live, in your song. Take like Raise a Hot Lullaby, for instance. There's like an eight minute recording of it. The song kind of wraps itself up with the first chorus, bridge chorus, about four and a half minutes. Even, for instance, like last night, specifically, you're at the drum set. You kind of do the arrangement of the song, then there's that space. What are you singing on your Ableton Live screen? Is there a click track that's going and you're waiting to initiate the next spontaneous moment? Sure, for you as a drummer. Well, Caleb was running all the track goodies last night, but for our tours, I run it, and we do Raise a Hot Lullaby, and we do it with spontaneous. So essentially, we do that four and a half minute arrangement, just straight through, and then the tracks will fade out. But everything has markers, like the chorus, the verse, whatever has markers. So if we do spontaneous, we go back into it. Sometimes we just do whatever chorus, but if we do go back into it, we have the option to just fire like last chorus or last verse. So we do the, we have it set up, we just do that four minutes. We don't stick to the eight minute arrangement. So at the spontaneous part, like it does in the album, that's where we fade out the track. So this back half is, because that was specific to that one recording day, you know, that makes sense. But I also use a Boss DB90, like spontaneous click. So if I don't want to have to mess with tracks world, I have another metronome that I can just tap in and do just for spontaneous stuff. Like this morning, there's Here Is In Heaven, because that large instrumental felt a little forced. You've done that before too, and that like elevation feels like 16 bar phrase. It just feels like nothing's happening. You're doing the second or third service. Do you feel that tension, and as a band, like after you've done a set and you've got a 32 bar interlude and it kind of feels like nothing was happening. Do you talk and then make adjustments to your Ableton tracks and stuff like that? Absolutely. For Bethel services, we have an 8 a.m. We have the luxury of like where everything is streamed and recorded. But usually if you're feeling that and you can see in the content, you're right. You know what I mean? Like if the collective group is like and this 32 bar guitar solo was a little rough, like let's take it back. But Bethel, we have an 8 a.m. service and then a 10 30. So after our 8 a.m. service, we go back and we listen and we make adjustments and we'll make adjustments to the tracks. So yeah, but usually like that instinct that you're feeling like it's usually, I wouldn't ignore it. That's for sure. Word kind of, it's like Megan's way back up. Yeah, just super quick. Could you speak to the how you would enable the tension being a worshipper and a planer. So like, I got to play bass for a little while for my chairs, but now I get to lead our production team. So I kind of have both. But my team is a bunch of planers. And they want things exactly how it's supposed to be like a plane or whatever. So how would you make this that tension? And then maybe some some tips that as the leader of the team. Well, grace to you. Yeah. So planning center one, I don't want to not plan center, but I miss the old days when like you're in a group text with the worship leader. There's something about that, you know, I mean, it's obviously not practical for everyone, but I miss those days. Yeah, I think I think you just man, this whole idea of like we have, you know, our chairs, we only can have 25 minutes of worship. How do you do spontaneous and 25 minutes of worship? How do you like our thing is very contrived. This is a it's a big, big topic, but I mean, I think if you honor your pastor and you you know, that's where you want to start with. Honor your pastor and you don't want to like fight him. You know, we're doing spontaneous for 15. Good luck. If he's not okay with that, then you're dishonoring and I think we're gonna get on with him. So I think you want to start there and it could be a conversation you have with your pastor say, hey, like after the third song, it would be cool for us to just like just have a breath and just wait and just kind of just maybe have like two or three minutes of just waiting and it could be cool there or not, but I think just having those conversations outside of the worship and it's so important to talk about these things because you build up so many like preconceived ideas when you don't like even though you're on a plane soon and you have like five songs you're automatically thinking, oh, we can't do spontaneous, you know, and I think it's important for you to talk about that with your leaders and like I said, it's I'm still a fan of the 25 minute sets like by saying he can't move in a 25 minute set is kind of putting him God in the box essentially. So I think you pray for breakthrough and you really continue to go as hard as you can go in those 25 minutes and like yeah, I can't go from there. I don't know if that makes sense, but I'm a fan, like I said, I'm a fan of songs and set less because God can move and how great is our God. You can do it. So how do you guys inspire excellence with volunteers who do you know, they have a full-time job, they're busy and you know, you're throwing five songs a week at them what is it that's pursuing them to not just, you know, take a listen and they'll show up at reversal and play their favorite Eddie Van Halen like. Yeah, I think it's really championing that person like knowing their gift, championing it and saying, hey like calling out what you see in them, like I totally get it and you know, deal with the guys who are playing electric for 25 years and they can shred like crazy. But I think it's a real connection with you have to be very intentional with these players and I've had to be very intentional. We've had drummers that can shred, I'm talking like crazy to drummers, but it wasn't translating to what we're doing in church and so it was really like, hey like I see your gift and I know how insanely talented you are during this set is it possible that you know, we play these parts and let's just go from there you know and I think really calling out that person and letting them know that you see them and that they're steaming, it will go a really long way coming prepared and serving the song and serving the set. So I would encourage you to do that with the shredders. So how do you continue to foster the on ramps for the new musicians because I like how you made the point that your best continues to get better. So as your team as your mature players on your team continue to mature, continue to get better, you still want to continue to foster the newer and the younger generation. So where do you make that space because it was easier for them to have an on ramp two years ago where you guys were at two years ago? That's a good question. I hope I understood it. So we and you just talked to me, I might need to we have section leaders and so part of our job essentially is to raise up musicians to take our jobs so it's kind of funny, but it's, I always felt like I'm giving, I give away all my secrets and all the things and I know the Lord is giving me more. So when we on ramp these new guys, we have, usually they have gone through our Bible school or whatever and we go in and we, I usually watch like for the drummers, I'll go in and watch them and set and like really encourage them even before they're on our team and but once they get on to our team, it's an ongoing process of working with them during sound checks, meeting with them for coffee, making sure their hearts are good and they're not mad and bitter. It is an ongoing process of training and raising up new musicians. It's not just the people on the team getting better and better and better. We're actually pouring into our younger guys so we have a lot of musicians that just come through and they're just serving and it's not their full-time job, they just, they're hungry you know and they want to, they want to get better and they want to learn. So there's a few um, yeah I mean we have a very strong onboarding process in that sense we're always training and raising up new people and practically speaking when and where is that happening? That's not happening for Sunday set, that's happening in some other activities that you're doing in the church. So where are you creating those activities? Yeah, so like I said they usually come from our Bible school so they've been prepping and playing in worship sets um, and then when they come on they're usually in our smaller campus and they'll, the drama for all the musicians they'll start in twin view and then they usually spend about six months or a year and then their growth process depending on if they're growing really fast or not growing as well then they'll move up to our Friday night service and then to Sundays and then if you're on Sundays then you have the ability to tour um, does that make sense? Yeah, so you strategically created all of those places. And we also have a thing called worship rooms which is like a prayer room type thing and it's a very we put a lot of our musicians in there too to kind of learn spontaneous and really foster that prophetic spirit on your instrument so So for a smaller church then that becomes the challenge of creating a couple different venues where you can supervise and cultivate that craft? Yeah, I think for like I don't know how practical this is but I always thought for a smaller church if you don't, if you have one campus and you have like 50 members but you have new musicians like have them come to rehearsal and have them sit in on the song like really incorporate them without necessarily being on the Sunday morning service I think that would help It's a great idea Awesome, awesome, yeah So I've got a couple new drummers on my team worship leader so when we go in a spontaneous direction I want to be just as excellent as we are when we're doing songs and they're doing a great job of studying those songs and doing those really well but like when we launch into a spontaneous direction sometimes I'm like shoving up the dynamic way too high or way too fast How do I encourage them to practice like a spontaneous Practice patience Totally Yeah, for a drummer, I do a lot of ear drummers as well Build it and go I think that's one thing that I've learned in the prayer room there's almost a little bit of time but you can preach this and say let's be patient, let's wait let's wait for there to be a melody or a chorus let's not just build over a pad let's wait for the music to evolve and I think that's something that I learned in IHOP days was waiting for a Caleb or a Cassie to throw out a melody and kind of play off that and you can create, as a drummer there's a lot of different timbres on like the tom, how it translates and I had tons of energy without building per se and just going crazy all at once so I think adding dynamic is obviously a big thing but just adding layer by layer and listening to the other musicians is something that you can really preach and just say hey let's just maybe be patient and maybe wait for a little while you can tell hey maybe wait for a signal from the worship leader to build it and then kind of start from there and then it's a big trust deal and just add to them and say let's start from there maybe wait for my foot to start tapping and you can kind of build that would be the starting point and then go from there does that help? just to add to what you said Jake who played this morning he came to our campus a while ago and loved what he said practicing and profiting with your instrument just to add what you said not my question so you mentioned building Ableton tracks so first part of the question who indies for you guys is it you or is it the leader so for Bethel music two words so I have a talk back I'm kind of anti drama doing indy because of the symbol bleed so if you're playing go the fives are so we have a bass player it's a panic button it's a panic button that you're hitting I have a switch our bass player will have a panic button yeah for sure yeah so I've been working with our indies very very intentionally because there's a fine line this is where we got into the most trouble of Bethel music tours was moving on too fast we would finish a song even a moment and the bass player it wasn't really bad it was whoever they weren't looking up and the worship leader was like keep going okay let's go king of my heart and then try to check so we always ran into this thing and so it's very important for I've been working with the indies any transition or turning point in the song or after keep your head up watch the worship leader let's make sure that we're ready to move on but yeah so what does the role look like I guess what expectations outside of life here's what you do in a service like you're saying you look up I guess what's the preparation for and for indy yeah yeah I'm glad you asked I'll say this real quick because I have indy notes we have our indies this is something that we do like we have them run our soundcheck so what we do how we run our soundchecks drummer will start playing and the indy will drum will play and he stays playing basically through the whole soundcheck so and we add one instrument by instrument so drum start playing a groove usually a simple groove add toms crash every now and then the bass player ok here comes bass and then adds in bass on top of the drums so we're adding layers by layers so we have our indy run the soundchecks we have them know the set list run through the set list make sure all the keys are right and we have them confirm set list with worship leaders they print out the set list the big ones though are those are the little practice the big ones are being sensitive being super sensitive and the less talking is better so the less times you have to hear them talking everyone's eddies but I think yeah less is more in spontaneous moments the thing that I love is when if we're on a moment and we've been on this progression forever like when the bass player will call out chords that's like my favorite thing to like add new energy they're picking those progressions yeah they're picking progressions on the fly and it takes a lot of trust and not everyone can do it that's something you have to kind of build with history but chord progressions I usually tell them never talk dynamics because dynamics is something that's like a little sticky if you're like ok build it here no come out you know like I'm not super into that because it's you're taking away that person's initiative in their feel and you're kind of squashing it and making it reliable on only you're not hearing this here and these are good and awesome and sometimes do you have time for one more question? yeah one more question just as someone who's been through all of the steps and worship leading and you've come into this like super big role how do you keep the tension between humility and excellence and balance that well humility and excellence how do I stay humble in this role I mean it's as like like if I wasn't getting paid to do worship music I would still do it like I there's something in me that's like burning for this like I know there's something on my life and it could look like in a stadium or it could look like in a prayer room full of maybe like 10 people I think that's always stuck with me and I know that like that he is worthy like this it's not on my power it's not on my like my strength that like in his this is like because he needs a willing vessel and so I'm saying yes and I mean there's no reason for me to be like Mr. Hotchunk I feel like the moment I'm that the moment is the moment he finds someone else so I think that keeps it very humbling and very close to me and I think like Pastor Lee said creativity comes from intimacy it's so real like like spending that time in the quiet place of the Lord is so vital in all of this like it keeps it keeps him near and it keeps like things in perspective and yeah I don't know there's no room for egos there's no room for Mr. Hotchunk guy dealt with a lot of those people and there's just no room for it you know and it's I'm not into that I'm not who it is but yeah I cannot pray real quick thank you guys for coming yeah Lord we thank you for your kindness and your goodness and thank you for your nearness we just ask that you would give us divine ideas new strategies new techniques we ask that you would anoint our hands to whatever we touch would be amazing and we ask that you would visit us in the night in dreams we ask that you would give us even visions during sessions God you would give us ideas that would just come in a moment we thank you for your goodness and how good you are to us we love you very much in Jesus name and thank you guys