Healer (Deluxe) Casting Crowns

• 1 Desert Road 03:38
• 2 Healer 03:11
• 3 Jesus at a Distance 03:49
• 4 The Devil is on the Run 03:39
• 5 Scars in Heaven 04:28
• 6 No Hurt 03:12
• 7 Crazy People 02:28
• 8 Anything But Easy 03:43
• 9 All Because of Mercy 03:47
• 10 2nd Opinions 04:22
• 11 The Power of the Cross 04:02
• 12 I'm Still Out Here 03:34
• 13 Song of a Broken Heart 04:01
• 14 Gentle Healer 01:55
• Total Runtime 49:49

Info for Healer (Deluxe)

The prolific and chart-topping CCM group Casting Crowns' highly anticipated album Healer is releasing in early 2022. Healer follows the band's 2018 release, Only Jesus, which was met with astonishing success producing two No. 1 radio singles, including the group's 15th career No. 1 radio single, a GRAMMY nomination, a 2019 Dove Award, two 2020 Dove Award nominations, and two Billboard Music Awards nominations for "Top Christian Album" and "Top Christian Song" ("Nobody" ft. Matthew West). Two songs from Only Jesus, ("Only Jesus" and "Nobody") have been certified gold by the RIAA. The first single from Healer, "Scars In Heaven", impacted fans and broke the global first-day streaming record for a Christian song debut on Amazon Music.

This new album will cause a variety of emotions for listeners as they experience the deep, thoughtful lyrics, the uplifting worship songs, and more. The tracks include songwriting collaborations with notable artists such as Matthew West, Brooke Ligertwood from Hillsong Worship, and Kristian Stanfill and Brett Younker from Passion, and more. Casting Crowns continues to deliver songs that are timely and relevant to their listener's lives, and this album is no exception.

“I was walking through the world being shut down, just like everybody else,” shares Mark Hall. “I’ve been a youth pastor for over twenty years and here I was counseling teenagers who’d just lost their senior year, lost their friend groups, felt hopeless for the future. As I started working on this record, I realized all the songs I was writing dealt with healing in some way, something we all need. And more than that, we need a Healer. This whole album is about healing, about how God meets us where we are and what His healing looks like.”

Listening through the album, it’s clear the band’s intention is to show that healing comes in many different colors and sizes. With songs that feel both familiar and brand new, Healer is a scripture-filled push forward, challenging the listener to seek true healing from Jesus, the only Healer we need. Recently Hall spoke with American Songwriter for their November/December issue.

Leading up to the new release, Casting Crowns has released selections from the album including the poignant song “Scars In Heaven” and the powerful anthem “The Power of the Cross.” As a group that has been known to break records, “Scars in Heaven,” broke the global first-day streaming record for a Christian song debut on Amazon Music, received top playlist positioning at all major digital service providers.

Casting Crowns

Casting Crowns
Hearing Casting Crowns’ frontman Mark Hall singing those words in the title track of the band’s new album Thrive, it’s hard not to feel peace wash over your soul. Life can be so challenging and it’s easy to become overwhelmed. What a gift to be reminded we were made to thrive!

“The idea of ‘Thrive’ came out of our student ministry. I’ve been a youth pastor for almost 22 years and it’s still what I want to be when I grow up,” Hall says with a grin. “The songs always really start out with what we’re teaching, and for years I’ve been using Psalm 1 in showing them what a believer looks like. It says: ‘Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season.’”

For Hall, nature seemed to underscore scripture on a family vacation in Gatlinburg, Tenn. when he looked at the trees near the river. “Their roots are exposed and you can feel them just doing everything they can to get to where the water is,” he says. “When I talk to families about how they are doing, they always say ‘just surviving.’ That is not the life that God designed for us to live. That’s not saying that you’re not going to have problems. None of the New Testament people had it easy. They all had troubles, some even at the expense of their lives. The book of joy, Philippians, was written from prison. Hard times are going to come, but God didn’t put you here just so you could survive through hard times. He put you here to thrive, to dig in and to reach out. This record is an effort to draw a picture of what a believer, a follower of Jesus, would look like if they dug into their roots and understood God and themselves more, and then instead of trying to go be Christian for God, they just let God give them chances to be a Christian.”

Casting Crowns’ has consistently delivered songs that spur listeners to evaluate their relationship with God and with each other. “The basic idea is let God define himself through you and if you’ll do that, you’re going to thrive,” says Hall. “The first six songs on the record are all about learning who God is and who you are. The second six songs are about how that works out. How are you going to get out there and let him live his life through you?”

The album’s lead single “All You’ve Ever Wanted” has a potent message. “It’s combating that logic that we have in us that says when we fail, we need to make it right,” Hall says. “We think we need to make things right with God. We think we’ve got to make him proud again. Not only does it not work, it’s not needed. We’re fighting a battle that’s already won and that’s what this song is about.”

Hall says the hardest song for him to write on the new album was “Love You With the Truth.” “It’s a big, upbeat rockin’ song about a person realizing that they’ve been a really cruddy friend because they haven’t shared the truth with the person closest to them,” Hall explains. “People say, ‘I want to share the gospel, but I don’t want to ruin my friendship.’ What you are really saying is I love my friendship more than I love my friend. It’s tough, but it’s truth.”

One of the most poignant songs on the album is the compelling ballad “Broken Together.” “Marriage is tough,” Hall says. “We bring a lot of fairytales to the picture when it comes to marriage. We bring them to the altar with us [thinking]: ‘This is going to be perfect. We don’t have to be apart. We can just wake up together every morning and no one is going to have morning breath. We’re not going to have any problems.’ And then the problems hit and you don’t know where to file those into your picture. . . The idea I’m trying to say is: ‘Can you lay down who you thought I was and love the me that is? Can we take this from where we are now and realize that I can’t be that person?’ Only God is going to be able to make this work and broken people can be broken together. To me, it’s probably the most important song on the record.”

Song after song on the album deals with tough topics and frames life’s challenging moments in Biblical perspective. “House of Their Dreams” paints a portrait of a family who has achieved what the world views as success, but inside their home, they are aching with emptiness and isolation. “Just Be Held” shares an uplifting message for anyone struggling as Hall shares what our heavenly father wants his children to remember: “Your world’s not falling apart, it’s falling into place. I’m on the throne. Stop holding on and just be held.”

“Waiting on the Night to Fall” is a powerful ballad that displays the depth and range in Hall’s voice. The haunting lyric about addiction uses the metaphor of an old man lurking in the woods, biding his time, as Hall sings: “He knows you have the answers, but truth lies dusty on your shelf and the sword that you could slay him with has become an ornament and nothing else.”

“Dream for You” features Hall’s youth group singing background vocals. The song reminds us God’s dream for us is bigger than we could ever imagine. “We have this picture of who God can use,” Hall says, noting that when God spoke to Moses, he found reasons he couldn’t do what God asked. “What God had to do for Moses is He had to wipe away that picture and say, ‘I’m going to use you.’ It’s the same way with us. When God hits us with something like ‘You need to teach this small group’ or ‘you need to live on a mission field,’ we immediately look in our own backpack at our gifts and skills. If I would have lived on that, I would have never been a youth pastor. I would have never written a song. I would have never stood up in front of anybody. I don’t have any of those things in my backpack. . . God is saying, ‘There’s an X-factor here. If you would just step up, I’ll do something that will blow your mind.’”

Working again with producer Mark Miller, who signed the band to his label more than a decade ago, Casting Crowns has crafted another collection of songs that are entertaining and innovative, yet lyrically substantive. Thrive is a rich aural feast that leaves everyone with plenty of food for thought. In writing songs for Thrive, Hall enlisted some of his favorite collaborators, among them Matthew West, Matt Maher and Bernie Herms.

It’s been more than 10 years since the members of Casting Crowns heard their first single on the radio in July 2003, the same day Hall and his wife Melanie welcomed their daughter Zoe. Since then so much has happened in the lives of each member and along the way God has taught them so much. “He’s opened our eyes to our suspicion that He was way bigger than we thought He was,” Hall says with a smile. “He didn’t need Casting Crowns to come along to help His word get out. God is winning. He’s changing the world. It may look at times like things are getting darker and darker, but they are not. Everywhere you go, you can see light and light wins. It always wins.”

This album contains no booklet.