In my experience, this is often the situation in our churches. Unless you’re using electronic drums or your church is big enough to mic the drums, your drummer is playing live to the room and therefore he or she sets the volume for the whole mix. If the drummer is too loud, then either they drown out everyone else, or you push everyone else up and the neighbours start complaining about the loud music.

So here’s my top 5 strategies for ‘mixing’ the drums.
5. Get a quiet kit. Some drums and cymbals are louder than others. Get a set that isn’t so loud.
4. Use a drum screen.
3. Ask the drummer to use brushes or hotrods rather than sticks. Drummers usually hate this, but it helps a lot.
2. Turn the fold-back speakers down. By the time you have a bunch of amps on stage for guitars, keys, bass and a few foldback wedges for the vocals, there can be a lot of noise on the stage. This forces everyone to turn themselves up so they can hear themselves which compounds the problem. There should be a minimum of noise coming from the stage. Get all the instruments to turn down their amps so they can just hear themselves. This will encourage, and enable, your drummer to come down as well.
1. Ask the drummer to hit softer.