Millions of Christians enjoy the music of Casting Crowns. Now they can learn the stories behind the words in the new documentary film “Casting Crowns: Home by Sunday.”
The group’s Mark Hall at first resisted the idea of a movie.
“I finally told them, `If you make the film about the songs and we can tell the stories of people who’ve been impacted by the songs, I think there’s something to tell there,” he says. “And as I started telling my story, I started realizing, ‘OK, there’s stuff in here, too. Being a learning disability kid who never wanted to be in front, but God made me get out front — that was a pretty big deal.”
READ: Film traces history of Contemporary Christian Music
In its 20-year history, the band has sold 13 million albums while winning four American Music Awards, one Grammy, two Billboard Music Awards and 18 GMA Dove Awards. It released its latest album, “Lifesong: A Celebration of the First 20 Years,” this fall. The band has soared to the top of the charts multiple times while balancing ministry and life at home.
For the band’s entire existence, Hall has served as a youth pastor. He currently is on staff as youth pastor of Eagle’s Landing First Baptist Church in McDonough, Ga. Many of the band’s songs, he said, were born out of his ministry.
“If I wasn’t in the church, the songs wouldn’t have been written,” he said. “So the songs are just kind of overflow. Because it all comes from something I’m teaching, something I’m teaching students or I’m one-on-one with some of the guys that I meet with or things that have happened in our families.”
Hall never considered quitting his church ministry. “People think teenagers are scary,” he said. “No — grownups are the scary ones. If you love a kid and you spend time with them and you know their name and they know that you’re calling their name out to God, you can speak truth into that.”
He wants moviegoers to realize the members of Casting Crowns are not just ordinary but “less than ordinary.” When people finish watching the film, he said, he wants them to tell themselves, “If they’ve got a ministry, then I’ve got a ministry.”
More information about the movie is available at www.castingcrownsmovie.com.
–Alan Goforth | Metro Voice
