Months before the snowflakes are falling upon us (we hope!), another well-known Christian music act is announcing plans for a Christmas tour.
Casting Crowns, who are up there with Third Day and Michael W. Smith as the best-known performers in Christian music, are planning a 14-city “Casting Crowns Christmas Celebration,” replete with a full orchestra and choir, to tour in November and December,
The Grammy-winning, multi-platinum group known for their rock sound and heart-grabbing, emotion-packed lyrics are to perform songs from their first-ever Christmas album, “Peace On Earth.”
If you’ve ever seen them in concert you’ll know the sound and the message they pack at their shows, so the Christmas concerts are sure to be a big draw.
Performing along with them will be some other well-known names, like award-winning Natalie Grant, Denver & The Mile High Orchestra, foursome Avalon and another powerful voice, Michael English.
When you listen to a lot of Christmas carols, “we sort of shift into Christmas carol mode — singing songs that we’ve been singing for so long, we might not be hearing what they’re really saying,” Casting Crowns frontman Mark Hall explains.
His hope with the tour is “to see people rediscover the worship that Christmas songs have in them.”
The new CD showcases “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” which features a Chattanooga, Tenn.-based boys choir personifying the bells.
You might know this already, but Hall, when he’s not singing and writing songs for Casting Crowns, is a full-time youth pastor. He’s in his 17th year in youth ministry as a student pastor at Eagle’s Landing First Baptist Church in Atlanta.
All seven band members in Casting Crowns, in fact, remain active in student ministry in the Atlanta area, and tour part-time around their local church duties.
Visit www.castingcrowns.com for more on the band.
Good music to play in the kitchen while making, and eating, Christmas cookies?