It's all relative

Just got alerted to a story in today's papers that I had missed.

My cousin, Hector "Cito" Cervantes and his contemporary Christian music group, Casting Crowns , were triple winners at last night's Dove Awards.

Congratulations to Cito and all the guys in the band.


Cousin Cito fronting the band

Here's an excerpt from the wire story as it appeared in The Daytona Beach News-Journal Online, the news site named top Web site in Florida. In fact, winning that honor was one of my last official acts as an employee of that newspaper.

Casting Crowns won three awards - group of the year, pop/contemporary recorded song ("Who Am I"), and inspirational recorded song ("Voice of Truth") - while lead singer and songwriter Mark Hall won individual honors for song of the year and songwriter of the year.

"This is such an encouragement," Hall said. "There are so many people in the world who need hope and it's so cool to be a tiny part of that."

Hall said the idea for "Who Am I" came to him as he was driving home late one night with his wife and children asleep in the car.

"In the midst of my own little worship time, I stopped and wondered, 'Who am I to think I can just call up to God whenever I want, from the middle of nowhere, and expect Him to hear me.'

... That's where it started," Hall said.

It was the second consecutive year that the 35-year-old youth minister won the top songwriting honor at the Dove Awards.

Switchfoot, Crabb family top Dove Awards

Dove Award winners