Casting Crowns answers the questions YOU posted.
1. NABOO asks: How did you come up with the amazing song “Somewhere In The Middle”? I love that song, and I would really like to hear the story behind it and how [you] wrote the chorus.
Mark Hall: “Somewhere in the Middle” is about that feeling we all get when you’re sitting in church, and you suddenly realize you’re not as close to God as you once were. That’s such a nasty feeling to go, “I’m not walking with God like I was a month ago”—that feeling of guilt that you have and that feeling of lost fellowship that you have. It’s in that moment that you realize, I’m gonna run back to Jesus, or I’m gonna stay out here on this spiritual vacation for awhile. It’s a tough place.
2. freakofnature asks: There are those who feel as if Christian music is somehow [a] second-class citizen to the music of the secular world. What do you think the real role of a Christian artist should be—artistic-minded first or ministry-minded first?
Mark: I can only answer for me, because every artist is different. When you lump everyone into a group, that’s when you end up with stupid stuff [like] “Christian artists are less artful.” The term “bad art” doesn’t make sense. Art is something we see or hear or experience that generates emotion. That’s what art is. To say something is “bad art” is a misunderstanding of what art is. I’d say that I’m a youth pastor and a believer, and the music is the plate that the meat is served on. I think that there are times that the “plate” has become so much of the priority that the “meat” may not be making it out there… This person has given me four minutes of their life, and I need to be saying something that draws them closer to Jesus. I hear people say that “your lyrics are hard-hitting, and it’s not all watered down and namby-pamby,” and I don’t get that either. I think that there are not more spiritual or less spiritual lyrics. I think writers are writing out of their gifts. I think if Paul wrote a song… Here is a guy who walked out onto the steps of the city and said, “Hey, you know what the problem is? You killed Jesus!” And then you’d have Barnabus write a song, and [he’d] be like, “Hey man, its going to be okay, and let’s just get together in a room and talk about it.” So you have two different guys writing lyrics. What we have done is started categorizing them as more spiritual or less spiritual. So the content has to be first, and you say it with the gifts God has given you.
Hector Cervantes: Ministry minded first. We are called as Christ’s followers to preach the Gospel to the nations (Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 13:9-11, Mark 16:15), whether it’s through what we do or what we say. God did not save us and then start the process of turning us into His son so that we could make music. He did all this so that we may show others the truth we now know. From an artistic standpoint, I believe that we serve a creative God, and if He is first lifted up, then He will provide the means (music) for His glory. Really, “second-class citizen” is not bad compared to flogging, a crown of thorns and crucifixion. Thank you, Jesus!