Your Music
Behind the Album: Until the Whole World Hears
With the recent release of Casting Crown’s fourth studio album, Mark Hall talks to IV about salvation, walking with God daily, and being intentional with God’s call on our lives— and what inspired the album’s title.
When I caught up with Mark Hall of Casting Crowns on the band’s new album release date, the cheerful Atlantan had recently stepped off his flight from NJ after a radio appearance earlier that morning. Despite the travel and the busy schedule that comes with promoting a new album, Mark was excited to share his heart about the boldly honest, and hard-hitting lyrics behind the group’s newest CD entitled Until the Whole World Hears.
“The themes are usually similar with all our records,” said Hall. “We usually talk about salvation, the fact that God is calling us out, wanting us to be His. We talk about the fact that God wants us to walk with Him daily. He isn’t just saving us for later. We talk about God’s call on our lives, in the way we live, our goals, our gifts, our passion, our ministries – being intentional and that is why we intentionally called the album, “Until the Whole World Hears.”
The title track on the album comes from a signature line in an e-mail from Roger Glidewell, Mark’s mentor in student ministry who always closed his e-mails with the phrase, “Until the Whole World Hears.” Hall says, “Those simple words are a challenge to be intentional with the way we live our lives.” The lyrics were born out of John the Baptist’s life. “He was the voice crying out in the wilderness, eating grasshoppers, and speaking into the world about their sin. Speaking out in the wilderness is never popular but in the body of Christ we’ve got to do it in love.”
Seeking to do exactly that, the band has used their music to show love in some of the most isolated places globally. The band has had two career performances in Pyongyang, North Korea at a nationally televised Spring Art Festival in 2007 and again earlier this year. Hall talked about his experience. “Being a part of that festival was very special to us on a lot of levels. We went with a group call Global Resource Services (GRS) whose goal is to build friendship and relationship with other countries through humanitarian aid. And so by us going and representing GRS, I believe we were helping the fellowship grow between GRS and North Korea which in turn builds or begins the friendship between our countries too.”
In addition to the band’s unique ability to minister cross culturally, you’ll find that this album also extends and touches people across several generations. You’ll find people of all ages at a Casting Crown’s concert. Speaking to Mark about why he thinks this is the case he says, “Our music is more lyric-driven than music-driven, which means the music is just the plate that meat’s served on. It doesn’t draw attention to itself. It sets the tone so we can talk about what we want to talk about. The lyrics are what connects with people.” And there is no doubt that is exactly what Casting Crowns does through their music – connect with people to speak truth into today’s culture about having an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.
The lyrics of each of the songs on this album are what makes it a sincere offering of worship to God. In the song, “If We’ve Ever Needed You” the first verse says, “Here I cry, Lord, we pray, Our faces down, our hands are raised, You called us out, we turned away, We turned away.” The song is about personal and corporate repentance as a Church and Mark explained that the song is very special to him because he woke up in the middle of night singing the song. It started as a prayer in his head and as he sat down at the piano to find the chords he had been humming, the first verse and chorus came out right there in one sitting. Hall went on to say, “You know it’s bigger than you, when you know you didn’t come up with the lyrics. I’m not that creative! When God whispers in my ear, that’s a God-line.”
The talented musicians that are Casting Crowns are youth ministers at their home churches. When I asked Hall how he maintains an others-focused, pastoral mentality despite his incredible success in the music industry, he was quick to point out that, “When you’re a youth pastor you’re dealing with everyday situations…we don’t have time to be famous so when we hit the road we have that indwelled in us. When we’re on the road I think more than anything it’s my goal to remind everyone that there aren’t any rock stars in the room. Until they understand that we on the stage are just ordinary people, they’ll never understand the message that we’re trying to convey which is that He loves all of us and that He can use all of us. So really the fame is just an illusion that we’re fighting to erase.”
Another very intentional and thoughtful attribute about this album is the band’s effort to connect listeners to the theology of hymns by including modern renditions of the songs, “Glorious Day (Living He Loved Me)” (from the hymn, “One Day”), “Joyful, Joyful” and “Blessed Redeemer.” Hall shares that “musically, hymns may be distant culturally than what we’re used to hearing nowadays so what I like to do is rediscover some of their great theology. One way we were able to do that was using the hymn “One Day.” The chorus says ‘Living He loved me, dying He saved me, buried He carried my sins far away,’ – you just can’t beat that. Using those lyrics in a new musical way can be used to reach a whole new generation of people.”
Touching the lives of people with a Kingdom focus through music is exactly what Casting Crowns does through this new 12-song collection. Pick up your copy of Until the Whole World Hears today. Casting Crowns is currently headlining the 41-city album tour with special guest Matt Redman. For more information visit www.castingcrowns.com or www.providentpress.com.
Until The Whole World Hears scanned 167,432 copies its first week, making it No. 1 on the Nielsen SoundScan Current Contemporary Christian Album Chart and No. 4 on Billboard’s Top 200 chart. Casting Crowns’ Until The Whole World Hears is the third strongest album debut in the country on Billboard’s Top 200 Chart behind John Mayer and Norah Jones. 
Special thanks to Jacquelyn Marushka Luttrell and Alisha McArthur.