Christian Contemporary band Casting Crowns dropped by Billboard Magazine and discussed how the band successfully juggles full time ministry with making music that is impacting the church.

Casting Crowns began as a student worship band in Daytona Beach. At the center of the band is Mark Hall, who was originally leading a band of people that consisted of his youth group.

Now, the band has become Christian music's biggest success story for the past decade and amazingly Hall's work as a youth pastor on a weekly basis has not been affected.

Many give up ministerial obligations to go on the road and minister to the masses but for Hall and the rest of the band the two callings are intricately linked.

"I'm sort of a life coach for our students," Hall says, who has been serving as a youth pastor for the past 22 years. "My focus is when families come to our church, to connect with teenagers. I form small groups where they can meet with kids their age," he told Billboard.

The popular singer went on to describe what he does as a youth pastor. "I write curriculum and Bible studies so we can help them with whatever they are going through with their family, whatever is happening at school. I help them see what their gifts are and help them grow in their understanding of who God is and what their relationship with him can be."

One often hears stories about music companies asking artist to compromise or sacrifice their lives for the job, but amazingly the folks at Provident Records have always been supportive of Casting Crowns church obligations.

"When I said, 'Can I stay a youth pastor?' he said, talking about his initials concerns with signing a deal, Hall recalls the label saying, 'Well, I'm sure you can, but your youth group is just going to be a lot bigger,' We didn't get anything but support from the label," the singer states.

The band members Josh Mix, 23, Chris Huffman, 33, Brian Scoggin, 31, Megan Garrett Juan, 38, and Melodee DeVevo, 37, as well as Hall, 44, all schedule their recording and touring around their church commitments. Hall goes on to explain that they usually head out on Wednesday night around midnight to play concerts on Thursday Friday and Saturday, and then return in time for Sunday morning services.

Hall is very committed to the work he does for God and he takes his role as youth leader very seriously. "I'm in the office through the week, meeting one-on-one with the students and meeting the parents, working on mission trips and projects and all kinds of things that they can be a part of," he said.

"We decided early on the priority is going to be the church. We are not going to be the church with the rock star leader that's always gone, in the long run we want to build people," he said.

The songwriting in the music is driven by his work as a youth pastor, and their latest record "Thrive" is a top example of their music emulating real life situations. "The idea of 'Thrive' came out of our student ministry," Hall says. "The songs always start out with what we're teaching, and for years I've been using Psalm 1 in showing [students] what a believer looks like."

The busy bandleader tells the famous magazine that he is very appreciative and humbled by the type of impact the band has made. "To me, it's totally a God thing," he says. "I don't think we're superior to any other band. I don't think we're saying anything different than other artists who are way more talented than we are. I can't put my finger on it other than to say God is allowing us to have the ear of the church right now and speak into people's lives."

The band's first major release was certified platinum. Their next album secured them a Grammy Award and every album since has been in the top five of the Billboard 200 charts. Their new album Thrive comes more than two years since their last highly acclaimed album and it paints a picture of the dialogue Christian's need to have around others and with God. It debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Christian Albums chart and No. 6 on the Billboard 200, selling 45,000 first-week copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.