Francesca Battistelli Celebrates the Success of #1 Song “He Knows My Name”

From award show nominations to career milestones and hit songs, Spring 2015 is truly a time of celebration for Fervent Records recording artist Francesca Battistelli.

Battistelli’s “He Knows My Name” is up for Top Christian Song at Sunday’s Billboard Music Awards, the latest benchmark for a song that’s been life-changing in many ways. Battistelli celebrated its success last week when she visited the Nashville Mercy Ministries home. She came to the home to sing for and visit with the girls and was surprised with a No. 1 plaque celebrating the multi-week, multi-format chart-topping success of “He Knows My Name.”

The song, the second multi-week chart-topper from her 2014 album If We’re Honest, spent 14 weeks at No. 1.

“It’s been an incredible season,” Battistelli said. “We came off of seven straight months of touring to some really exciting things to celebrate. To have my label surprise me at Mercy Ministries with a plaque for ‘He Knows My Name’ was just so special. The song will forever be connected to Mercy, and to celebrate its success there was just so perfect!”

Battistelli assumed her second visit to the Mercy Ministries home was solely to lead worship and spend time with residents. Just last summer she gathered stories from four young women who completed faith-based treatment and included them in the 12-minute short film that served as the video for “He Knows My Name.” That inspirational film has been seen more than 1.2 million times on YouTube. Rod Riley, CEO of Word Entertainment, presented Mercy Ministries with a unique plaque commemorating the organization’s involvement, which has helped raise awareness for its mission. Mercy Ministries helps young women struggling with addiction, eating disorders, unplanned pregnancies and other challenges.

“God is using music to impact lives,” Riley said. “We’ll never see the full impact this song has had this side of Heaven, but we are seeing some of the fruit now.”

With new single “Holy Spirit” quickly climbing the charts into the Top 5, If We’re Honest has now produced three hits and pushed the already popular Battistelli to new career heights. She performed lead single “Write Your Story,” which spent six weeks atop the charts, on ABC’s Good Morning America and Fox News’ Fox & Friends. The six-time Dove Award winner has now sold nearly 1.5 million albums and is one of the genre’s top live draws as well. She just wrapped appearances on The Bible Tour 2015 and Winter Jam, which was attended by more than 600,000 fans.

Find out if Battistelli wins her first Billboard Music Award from 8-11 p.m. ET Sunday on ABC. She also is nominated for Female Artist of the Year and Song of the Year for “He Knows My Name” at the May 31 KLOVE Fan Awards. She will perform “Holy Spirit” during the show at the Grand Ole Opry. Fans can still vote at www.klovefanawards.com/vote.

Battistelli will be performing select solo and festival dates over the summer. For more information or to buy tickets, visit www.FrancescaMusic.com and follow @francescamusic on Twitter.