It seems the Casting Crowns' cup continues to runneth over.
The Georgia-based Christian rock group won the Dove Awards' biggest honor, the fan-selected Artist of the Year award, during Wednesday night's 41st annual GMC Dove Awards ceremony in Nashville, solidifying their place among the best of the genre. The group was nominated for but did not win Group of the Year, which it had won for the last five years in a row.
Casting Crowns' lead vocalist Mark Hall was also among several artists who won the award for Special Event Album for "Glory Revealed II: The Word of God In Worship." Other winners with Georgia connections include Bebo Norman, who won for Inspirational Recorded Song for "The Only Hope," and Jeff and Sheri Easter for Southern Gospel Recorded Song for "Born to Climb."
The Casting Crowns' album "Until the Whole World Hears" opened at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 in November and was certified gold with 500,000 albums sold in just four weeks, according to the Associated Press. It had the highest Nielsen SoundScan debut for any Christian music performer in the history of the chart.
Hall, a youth pastor at Eagles Landing First Baptist Church in McDonough, confirmed that the group generally tours on Thursdays through Saturdays, with few exceptions, so the musicians can spend Wednesdays and Sundays at their respective churches. He said the best way to "stay grounded is to stay in your church." Family and friends help to "make sure you don't get too big for your britches."
Other members of the group are Megan Garrett, Melodee DeVevo, Hector Cervantes, Chris Huffman, Juan DeVevo and new member Brian Scoggin. They all serve in the youth ministries at their churches. Four at are Eagles Landing, the rest at other churches.
The group, with Hall, Cervantes and the DeVevos, started in Daytona in 1999 as a youth group band, using music as a way to reach young people. Later, Hall moved to Georgia to be youth minister at Eagles Landing and Cervantes and the DeVevos came as well. Other members eventually joined, Scoggins just joining last year. The group became known as Casting Crowns in 2001.
Hall recently talked about the group's success.
Q: The group's five-year winning streak as group of the year has ended, but you did win the fan-voted Artist of the Year Award. So, that's not bad at all. Does this award mean more to you because it's coming from the fans?
A: It's definitely a little more special because it's fans voting. We're Christian music fans. That's what we listen to. All I've listened to for the last 15 to 16 years is Christian music. That's my world. It's not going to pull things out of me. I need music to pour things into me and to pour things into people to remind them of where they are.
Q: Performers with Georgia connections generally do well at the Dove Awards. What's in the water here?
A: Atlanta's got it going on right now. The new Nashville. There's definitely a lot of Christian artists down here ... Chris Tomlin, Third Day, LeCrae, one of my favorite rappers ... Atlanta is a great place to live. Nashville is nice, but we're Georgia boys.
Q: You must get a lot of folks coming to Eagles Landing to see you.
A: One of the good things I had going in was that I had been the youth pastor there for ... years before the Crowns. Everybody already knew us. We decided not to make our church about Casting Crowns. We don't play a lot of Crowns songs. We don't announce we're going to the Dove Awards. We don't say we're going to the Grammys. ... People do come to meet us, but we try to keep it low key.
Q: What message are you trying to send with your music?
A: The message is that God is pursuing you. He's a very personal God. He's calling you out. He loves you just like you are, but He refuses to leave you that way. He wants to save you and He wants you to have a friendship with Him. ... You need to discover what your personal ministry is, what you have in you that can point people to Him. When we sing, we're doing it all in the glory of the Lord.
TV INFO
What: The Dove Awards
When: 8 p.m. Sunday.
Where: Gospel Music Channel
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