Behind Casting Crowns Music

Stories Behind Casting Crown Music

I have a playlist on my iPod that I put on in the car on our half-hour ride to church on Sunday--standard favorites such as "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" and other hymns that draw us into a worship mode. It seems every generation has its music and as a senior citizen I have not kept up with Christian rock music to any great extent. It doesn't catch my attention on the radio.

Then there is  the Christian group
Casting Crowns. 

A year ago we enjoyed them at Plant City, Florida's Strawberry Festival as reported HERE. The Strawberry Queen herself told the audience to enjoy the worship, not the concert. People in the audience were indeed worshipping and singing their songs as they led the concert.  I do have two of their CDs and have downloaded other songs into my iTunes library. Why I also have a Casting Crowns playlist to listen to in the car. What lead singer/songwriter Mark Hall said in the concert has resonated with me and I was glad to read one of his four books,

Lifestories: Finding God's "Voice of Truth" 

Through Everyday Life. 

The book made my Casting Crowns playlist come alive.

The creative part of me enjoyed how Casting Crowns songs came to be as described in this book. The devotional side of me enjoyed the reflective questions called The Bottom Line at the end of each chapter. (This might be a good resource for a youth group study.)  The theological side of me recognized Mark Hall's Reformed thinking in the book. I do like that he both sees God's election and our responsibility to evangelize. On tour they take time for their behind-the-scenes people in sharing the gospel. Then they usually make it back home to minister at their own churches, although they are so successful they wouldn't have to ever make it back home to their churches.

Mark Hall tells how one of his songs,  Praise You in the Storm, took off after Hurricane Katrina. See it on YouTube HERE.

You're Already There is a song that touched me at the 2013 concert where I took this picture.

We had great seats and my husband really liked the concert. 

Last year's concert may be one of the last events of this sort that I am able to take my husband to because of his decline with dementia. As a caregiver this song lifts my spirits when I hear it on my playlist. The LORD is already there with the ending time for my husband's dementia.

Then there is the Casting Crowns song,  If We Are the Body. We are the body of Christ as Christians according to Scripture. Since reading about this song, I have been propelled to do several acts of kindness and bold witnessing beyond really what I would ordinarily think to do. Here are some lyrics from that song:

But if we are the body,

Why aren't His arms reaching?

Why aren't His hands healing? 

Why aren't His words teaching? 

And if we are the body, 

Why aren't His feet going? 

Why is His love not showing there is a way?

 (pp. 39-40)

Just a few more gems from Mark Hall's book:

• "Authentic Christianity is nothing if not transparent." (p. 145)
• "When I'm not living for Jesus daily and show up at church after squeezing out life on my own terms all week, I'm needy when I walk through the doors. . . . I am so needy because I'm not complete when I get there [to church], and when I'm not being completed by my walk with Jesus, I unwittingly demand completeness from people. I raise the bar of expectations, and people don't meet my needs because it is impossible for people to do so." (p. 99-100)
• He quotes Colossians 3:17 and writes "That means all of life is worship. If we are so accustomed to thinking of worship as mere music, then we should realize the song starts when we awake in the morning." (p. 113)

Above all about this book and the popularity and success of the Casting Crowns Christian rock group, I love the band's name. The band members will one day cast their crowns at Jesus feet as we read in Revelations.

Looking forward 

to the day

when I can also

cast my crown

at His feet. 

Dr. Gentry on Exclusive Psalmody

A new series of audio lectures by Dr. Kenneth Gentry, Jr., has come out. In it he asks what about the psalms, hymns and spiritual songs in Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3? Are all three the same as the Exclusive Psalmody group suggest? Not the same he says.  The Psalms are a pattern for our worship, but not a limitation.  Gentry traces the use of the word spiritual which does not mean inspired. Furthermore, if they are all the same, he argues, why are they all mentioned in the Psalms in three different ways?  He notes that psalms are in the book of Psalms 67 times, hymns 6 times and songs 35 times. They do not all mean the same thing. In Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 we do not see "The Psalms".  Many songs are in Scripture outside the book of Psalms. Psalms really means "stringed instruments", not "The Book of Psalms". Gentry asks and answers:

Does the Regulative Principle demand Exclusive Psalmody? I think not.

This discussion is going on now with blogger/pastor Greenbaggins (Rev. Lane Kessler) and Heidelblog’s Dr. R. Scott Clark and others. I say that the whole point of worship is worship, not entertainment, and certainly not debate. In the Spirit of Romans 14 I would like to let each camp enjoy their worship more than their debate.

As for me, Dr. Gentry is most convincing and I urge listening to his tapes. Let’s let the Word of Christ dwell richly in us, more than the spirit of debate with our study of Scripture and Psalms along side of carefully chosen hymns.

I wrote earlier here about this subject.

From the back of the audio set

Sing Only Psalms in Worship?

There are "exclusive psalms" singing churches. Hmmmm. Not sing "Amazing Grace", "How Great Thou Art" and "It Is Well With My Soul"?

Well I do love Colossians 3:16 which says in The Geneva Bible:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you plenteously in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing your own selves,  in Psalms, and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

I love to let Christ's word dwell in me all the time. And what to sing? The footnote to this favorite verse says:

By Psalms he meaneth all godly songs, which were written upon divers occasions, and by hymns, all such as contain the praise of God, and by spiritual songs, other more peculiar and artifcious songs which were also in praise of God, but they were made fuller of music.

Below is a theological note "Music in the Church" in my husband's New Geneva Study Bible:

   Some branches of the Reformed faith, eager to protect the church from the addition of human tradition, impressed by the continuity between Israel and the church, and noticing that the terms "psalms," "hymns," and "songs" are used in the Book of Psalms, believe that Paul envisioned only the singing of the psalms of the Old Testament in public worship. This restriction appears, however, to miss his point. He piles up the terms to highlight the wide range of musical expression that grateful and heartfelt praise to God calls forth from the body of Christ.
     The word "psalms" refers at least to the use of the Old Testament psalter (Luke 20:42; 24:44; Acts 1:20; 13:33), but may also refer to fresh compositions for worship (1 Cor. 14:26). The word "spiritual" (Greek pneumatikos) qualifies the potentially secular term "songs" as being taught or led by the Spirit (cf. 1 Cor. 2:6; 15:44, 45 notes).
     Christ's redemptive work brought an outpouring of hymns of praise from His people, often patterned after the songs of the Old Testament (e.g. Luke 1:46-53, 67-79; 2:14, 29-32). Paul personally employed music within his own worship (Acts 16:25), and it has long been observed that his letters contain portions of early Christian hymns (Eph. 5:14; Phil. 2:6-11; Col. 1:15-20; I Tim 3:16 and notes). Early Christian songs of praise appear also to underlie John 1:1-14; Heb. 1:3; 1 Pet. 1:18-21; 2:21-25; 3:18-22. The "new songs" of the Book of Revelation are themselves a study in the vibrancy of early Christian worship (Rev. 4;8, 11; 5:9, 10, 12, 13; 7:110, 12; 11:15, 17, 18; 12:10-12; 15:3,4; 19:1-8; 21:3,4)

The above Scripture gives me enough to chew own without tracking down first century writings of the earliest worship.

Added 2/7/11. Pastor Darren Middleton, North Geelong Presbyterian Church, raises an interesting point here. He points out that Calvin himself wrote hymns and there are more hymns in the
Bible than just the Psalms.  Pastor Middleton also distinguishes between elements and circumstances. Check out  his discussion. There are other good Reformed articles there as well.

So we need to ask where is the warrant for singing psalms (as opposed to just singing) and specifically, where is the warrant for singing only the Book of Psalms since we can find no such warrant in the Old Covenant itself.

What do you think, gentle reader,

 of only singing from the Psalms?

Music and Styles of Worship

I long to hear an old fashioned TN gospel quartet. Maybe I will have to visit another church at a time when when my Reformed church doesn't meet. Maybe I can hear a men's quartet sing "I'm On the Battlefield for My Lord" or some other favorite of mine I rarely hear.

You know though, I don't always aprreciate an endless round of  praise choruses. We went to a relative's church and there was one hour of standing, moving, clapping and singing to the projected songs. People came forward to pray with men and women in the front during the praise singing. The pastor's wife who is also a pastor apparently led us in the singing. The prosperity gospel. Prophecy for the New Year, etc. No confession, communion, but lots of hype. I missed a solid hymn with solid theology. Some Scripture was in the husband-pastor's sermon but he also quipped "When was the last time you laid hands on someone?" For  fight???!  Not my kind of worship and church, but we loved being with this relative.