Casting Crowns (Música Cristiana)

Casting Crowns

Hearing Casting Crowns’ frontman Mark Hall singing those words in the title track of the band’s new album Thrive, it’s hard not to feel peace wash over your soul. Life can be so challenging and it’s easy to become overwhelmed. What a gift to be reminded we were made to thrive!

“The idea of ‘Thrive’ came out of our student ministry. I’ve been a youth pastor for almost 22 years and it’s still what I want to be when I grow up,” Hall says with a grin. “The songs always really start out with what we’re teaching, and for years I’ve been using Psalm 1 in showing them what a believer looks like. It says: ‘Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season.’”

For Hall, nature seemed to underscore scripture on a family vacation in Gatlinburg, Tenn. when he looked at the trees near the river. “Their roots are exposed and you can feel them just doing everything they can to get to where the water is,” he says. “When I talk to families about how they are doing, they always say ‘just surviving.’ That is not the life that God designed for us to live. That’s not saying that you’re not going to have problems. None of the New Testament people had it easy. They all had troubles, some even at the expense of their lives. The book of joy, Philippians, was written from prison. Hard times are going to come, but God didn’t put you here just so you could survive through hard times. He put you here to thrive, to dig in and to reach out. This record is an effort to draw a picture of what a believer, a follower of Jesus, would look like if they dug into their roots and understood God and themselves more, and then instead of trying to go be Christian for God, they just let God give them chances to be a Christian.”