Interview With Mark Hall From Casting Crowns
Article Overview
Before Mark Hall became the well-known lead singer of Casting Crowns, he’d considered making music and going on the road, but had serious reservations. “If you’ve got to be in some sort of band, you’ve got to be on the road,” says Mark. The idea of leaving his family behind to travel was not an option. He was determined not to be the kind of dad who calls his boy to say “Happy Birthday!” from a bus.
Doin’ Life and Ministry Together
Rather than go on the road, Mark started to write songs so that other bands could play his music. But God had other plans. After prayer, discussion with his wife and a nudge from Steven Curtis Chapman and Mark Miller of Sawyer Brown, Mark decided to jump into Christian music with both feet — <em>and his family.</em> “I just know that if we can’t do this together as a family, then I’m not going to do it,” he said.
Melanie, Mark’s wife, became the band’s manager. Mark affectionately refers to her as “the other half of my brain.” She’s analytical. He’s creative. It makes sense that they’d work well together. Their “right-left brain combo” helps them hit home runs for Casting Crowns and Christ.
Mark jokes that Melanie basically runs the band he just goes where she tells him. He’s pleased that she’s remained his partner in ministry like she’s done for seventeen years of marriage.
Ironically, Mark says that he has more time with his children than he did before going on the road. Homeschooling affords Mark the flexibility to see the sights with his children in whatever city they are visiting before he has to perform at night. In fact, Mark has become a kind of “expert” about zoos and other kid stuff around the country.
Even with all the togetherness on the road, it can still be a challenge to keep the Hall family connected. Because life has been non-stop since <em>If We Are the Body</em> became a hit, the Halls closely guard their family time at home at Atlanta by saying no to a whole lot more than they say yes.
Maybe you’re wondering how to become more of a team with your wife and kids like Mark. To begin, make a list of the kinds of things you can do together as a family and limit those that isolate you from your loved ones.
Mark says that he’s cut out one isolating activity to an all-time low. “I had one of the girls in our youth group get on my TV and block every channel that I like! So to get on the channel, Melanie has to give me the code, but then I have to go to her and say, ‘Can I watch this TV program?’”
Whether home or on the road, this small action that keeps Mark connected as husband and father.
Guarding Time with God
For a husband and father who travels on the road like Mark, or one who spends his day giving his all at an office, it can be a challenging to make God a priority. For Mark, spending time alone with his Lord is the most important thing he can do for his wife and kids. “I feel it’s the first thing that Satan attacks in a believer’s life,” says Mark. He knows it first hand and confesses that not giving God first place can result in spiritual burnout and what he calls, “a big 9/11 moment” when everything in life gets out of control, including your relationships.
A low spiritual gas tank has caused Mark to treat everyone, including his wife and children poorly on occasion. “Then I can begin to look to others to complete me and I want to be appreciated and loved. And I’m thinking ‘Why doesn’t this person every talk to me?’ instead of me coming in complete and just wanting to pour into someone else.”
According to Mark, the first step in guarding your quality of life with your family is to guard your time with the God. It might be hard, but it’s worth the effort.
Giving the Gift of Time
Some women want flowers, some women want romance and some women, like Melanie, want time, more than anything, with their husbands. Mark knows this and does the best he can to give his wife what she needs.
“I’ve got to be with her…hang with her and spend time,” he says. Mark believes it’s often easier for men to give everyone and everything else top priority. “You get going and what you end up doing is, ‘I’m pouring everything I have into every other relationship — work and ministry and all this — and when I come home, I just want to exhale.” Mark says men can even justify their selfishness by thinking, “You’re in my family. You just need to understand and then let me try to go out and be my best with all these other people.”
Mark admits that for a long time those he ministered to in church came first. “Man, I tried to do everything I could to love on these people, and when I’d come home, I was just tired.” When the Halls first son, John Michael was born, Mark realized that his priorities needed an overhaul. That’s when he thought, “My family is going to have to come first, and the church is going to have to come second.”
Mark says many men fall into the trap of retreating into what is easiest when the fires at home get too hot. “When we’re [men] faced with a tough relationship issue, we begin to retreat into more manageable situations” such as hiding in work rather than facing the challenging family issues that can happen, especially in the teen years [of a child’s life].
Not only are troubles at home a reason many men retreat but also because they have a sense of entitlement. “A lot of us dads, we have developed this entitlement to our time alone, because ‘I work so hard, so I deserve to be on a golf course all day Saturday.’ Or, ‘I deserve to be hunting all weekend.’ That’s not true. That’s not your right. First and foremost, you are a dad. Your right is to be with your kids.” If it means you don’t get to play golf anymore, Mark says that’s okay. “They [your kids] need you now. He’s eleven today, not later.”