The Christian band Casting Crowns has reached a career milestone with over 10 million albums sold. They are now set to boost that number with the release of their new album called "The Very Next Thing."
The band's frontman Mark Hall, who has been battling cancer since last year, believes the success of their music can be attributed to their personal connection to their listeners. "All of the albums are personal to us because the songs that we write come out of our ministries in the local church. I've been a youth pastor, and this past Sunday I just celebrated 15 years at the church that I'm at now, in South Atlanta, Eagle's Landing First Baptist," Hall told The Christian Post.
"Any song that you've ever heard from Crown, before it was a song it was a Bible study, or a devotion or a moment or situation that has risen out of being a minister to families, and just loving on teenagers and their parents and walking through our own struggles," he said.
So every time Casting Crowns sings a song about a girl, Hall says it's really a song about a girl. All of the things they sing about is happening in real life, and "that's what makes Christian music so awesome because most genres sing about real life."
Since he starting fighting cancer last year, Hall told "The Church Boys" podcast that he has been translating his emotions to music. The night he found out there was a solid mass in his right kidney that might be cancerous, Hall just sat down at the piano and wrote a song called "Oh My Soul," which is based on the Bible verse Psalms 42:5.
The verse reads: "Why, my soul, are you downcast? And why are you disquieted within me?" Hall said the song gave him a lot of comfort during that troubling time, since it reminded him to trust that God is who He says He is.
