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Casting Crowns’ singer undergoes cancer surgery


MCDONOUGH, Ga. (BP) — Mark Hall, lead singer of contemporary Christian band Casting Crowns, underwent surgery to remove a kidney March 11. Doctors found a solid mass in the kidney earlier this month and were 90 percent certain it was cancer, according to a post on the band’s website March 5.

After removing the kidney, doctors determined that the mass was indeed cancer and that it had been fully encased in the kidney.

Hall’s wife Melanie, who often blogs at the band’s website, called the pathology report a miracle, noting the encased mass had not spread inside the kidney or anywhere else.

“Glory Hallelujah!!” Melanie wrote in a post on March 15. “It was found in the earliest stage possible…. Something else interesting is that it was also determined to be a nuclear level 3 cell type, which is aggressive. What that means is that it was active and ready to go somewhere. This just makes all of this even more of a miracle. I wish that I could explain in words how much of a miracle it was, but it would take too many words….”

In addition to his role as Casting Crowns front man, Hall is longtime student pastor at Eagle’s Landing First Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist church in McDonough, Ga. He’s also known for his songwriting, having written or cowritten many of the band’s biggest hits, including “Who Am I,” “Praise You in This Storm,” “If We Are the Body” and “East to West.”

The band has won multiple Dove awards and one Grammy and has performed numerous times at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting. They are scheduled to perform this August at the Send North America Conference in Nashville, hosted by the North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board.

A few days before Hall’s surgery, Melanie wrote that the family was focusing on Isaiah 26:3 — “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.” In the days since the surgery, the band has continued that theme through posts on their website and Facebook page, many of which have gone viral.

Hall is now home and healing well. And according to Melanie, the family desires for God to be glorified in this experience.

“I’m praying earnestly for you to have opportunities to share the Love of God with the people that God brings your way through this,” she wrote to fans on March 14. “So many people don’t understand why this would happen to Mark because he’s so great and because he does so much for God. But many of you are getting opportunities to say God loves Mark and God loves you and God loves me. He is a just God. He is not a God that only gives blessing and favor on those that are ‘good enough!’ And in turn He also doesn’t love you less when you aren’t.”