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There are many major artists in gospel and Christian music, but only a select few manage to get their names out of the church pews and into the public consciousness. Artists such as Kirk Franklin, the legendary Mahalia Jackson and Christian alt-rock band Jars of Clay all have been able to take their message out to the mainstream. But arguably the biggest family and one of the biggest names is the Winans.

David ”Pop” Winans and Delores ”Mom” Winans produced 10 musical children who, in various groupings and solo, have been a force in gospel music. Child No. 8, Priscilla Marie Winans, known to friends and fans as CeCe, has been one of the most successful crossover members of the family, releasing six albums (plus a scheduled 2008 release) with her brother BeBe and eight on her
own. She’s received six Grammys, 20 Dove Awards and numerous other accolades and honors.

On Friday, Winans will perform a rare area concert at the House of the Lord. The concert will serve as the annual spring fundraiser for the Emmanuel Christian Academy in Springfield Township. In its six-year history, the spring concert has welcomed popular Christian singers such as Damaris Carbaugh, Wintley Phipps and Babbie Mason, but Winans is easily the biggest name the school has corralled.

The concert will benefit the academy’s scholarship program, with a goal of raising $60,000 to help the more than two-thirds of the student body that receives financial aid. Tickets for the show are available at Berean Christian Stores and at Emmanuel Christian Academy.

Winans, who has two grown children — including son Alvin Love II, who co-produced her latest album and has written songs for his mother in the past — says that though she doesn’t seek out benefit events, she welcomes any opportunity to help.

”You know I haven’t really tried to find them; they find me, which is always good. I think it’s exciting to be a part of great, great causes and definitely, I really get excited about children because they are the future,” Winans said.

For the school, the timing couldn’t be better, as this year’s star is coming to town with a fresh new album called Thy Kingdom Come. Some critics and her own record label have called it a return to the church for the singer, whose previous album Purified had a strong pop/R&B contemporary edge and won a Grammy for best contemporary soul gospel album.

”That’s so funny to me when they say that, but I understand what they mean,” Winans said.

”Within the church or within Christian music, there are different styles of music. You have those sounds that are more contemporary and those that have a more traditional praise and worship sound. So whenever you’re more traditional [in your music] these are things that are more ‘inside of the church,’ where the other music lends itself to other formats.

”But I’ve always been in the church,” she said, laughing.

Musically, Winans’ eighth album does contain several praise songs, such as the ballads We Welcome You (Holy Father) and Thy Will Be Done, which builds in intensity to a string- and choir-buoyed crescendo. Forever features classic gospel call-and-response, but there are contemporary touches, such as the funky, syncopated beat of Worthy, and the gutbucket, staccato, horn-laden, gospel-funk groove that is underneath the inspirational ‘’stay strong, God’s got your back” lyrics of It Ain’t Over.

Also, Thy Kingdom Come doesn’t bother with the lyrical obfuscation that some contemporary Christian albums use to help cross over to the pop charts. Winans’ words (she co-wrote more than half the album) leave no doubt that the subject of her songs is not some earthly ”him” to whom she gives her love, but the heavenly ”him.”

But Winans says that reaching people is more important than adhering to any particular musical tradition.

”Even as a kid I loved the contemporary as well as the traditional. It’s important because different sounds will reach different people,” Winans said.

”There are different ages as well as different races, and different people who only appreciate one type of music. So you have to have the good news wrapped up in all different types of packages, so that it will be something people will pick up and give a listen to and their lives will be blessed.”

When circumstances are difficult or hard to comprehend, God is still present, contemporary Christian recording artist Jami Smith said.

This is the theme of the Chickasha native’s 13th album, to be released Friday during a CD debut concert at Crossings Community Church, 14600 N Portland.

Smith’s popular song “Faith in You” also is the title of the new CD, and its faith-full premise is to be shared through music and video throughout the evening.

“We’re really going to try to create an atmosphere where people who have been through really tough times can come and maybe just have a night, kind of in memory of someone they’ve lost,” Smith said in a recent interview.

“It is to be a night of healing, a place for them to be with others and grieve a loss, whether it be a person, a job or a marriage — whatever it might be.”

Faith in Him
The “Faith in You” concert is the first of three April events that place Smith in the center of activities focusing on faith and healing.
The day after her CD debut concert, Smith is scheduled to perform at the 13th anniversary remembrance service of the Oklahoma City bombing, set for 9 a.m. April 19 at the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum. Smith also will perform at the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon-related Sunrise Prayer Service at 5:30 a.m. April 26 at the Survivor Tree on the memorial grounds.

Smith said each of these events will give her a chance to emphasize a message that people need to hear more and more: “God is not against, but for you, no matter where you find yourself.

“A lot of these songs focus on a particular verse in Isaiah which says, ‘My ways are not your ways, My ways are higher than your ways, My thoughts are higher than your thoughts,’ ” she said.

Smith said the Lord often will not give an explanation as to why things happen, though people often seek one. The Book of Psalms, she said, is full of people asking, “Where are you? What’s going on? Why is this happening? Would you please be with me? How come you’ve forgotten me?”

Smith said through song, she is hoping to convey God’s faithfulness, even in times of trouble and periods where His answers are long in coming.

Concertgoers will view video vignettes featuring others who also have trusted God in times of adversity.

One video will focus on Steve Saint, whose father Nate Saint was one of five missionaries killed in Ecuador in 1956.

Smith said another video will show an interview with Donna Weaver, whose husband, HUD employee Mike Weaver, died in the Oklahoma City bombing. Another video will feature friends and family of Sonya Hill Payne, a woman who attended Oklahoma Baptist University with Smith and died of breast cancer.

“I just hope to focus on His goodness, despite wherever we might be with our circumstances,” Smith said.

Some of the lyrics in “Faith in You” perhaps say it best, she said. The song, made popular through the St. Anthony Hospital commercials airing locally, encourages the listener to have faith and walk in the joy of the Lord, even in times when he does not “understand it all.”

“It’s still our good pleasure and still our joy, eventually, to continue to have faith in Him,” Smith said.

“I know that I haven’t walked through every story that everybody in that room will have walked through. No way I could, but I still believe in just the few things I have walked through, that He is good and He is consistent and He is faithful.”

Editor’s note: Look for Smith’s “Keeping the Faith” column on Wednesday’s Religion page.

You might be familiar with Christian band Hawk Nelson even if you’re not really into Christian music.

That’s because the pop/punk foursome has achieved significant exposure through secular venues, including television shows such as “Smallville” or “Laguna Beach,” professional sports league promotions, the Nickelodeon television channel and Tiger Beat magazine

Hawk Nelson performs Thursday at First Christian Church of Newburgh, along with opening act RunKidRun.

The 4-year-old group’s third album, “Hawk Nelson Is My Friend,” was released earlier this month and debuted at 34th on the Billboard Top 200.

“I think we’ve had a great chance of balancing both worlds, and I’m really grateful for it,” said Daniel Biro, the band’s bassist.

One of the songs from the debut album, “Right Here,” was featured in a commercial for the 2004 Summer Olympics.

Hawk Nelson’s music also has been used in promotions for a number of professional sports leagues: “Bring ‘Em Out” in the National Football League’s “Sunday Night Football” commercials; “The Show” and “Right Here” during the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup finals; and a baseball tour last summer in which the band toured more than 30 minor-league baseball stadiums and a handful of Major League Baseball parks. Its song “California” has been featured on episodes of MTV’s “Laguna Beach” and the WB’s “Smallville,” and “Like a Racecar” was featured on another WB program, “Summerland.”

Perhaps one reason for Hawk Nelson’s secular exposure is the lyrics to many of their songs aren’t explicitly religious.

That’s by design, Biro said — the band prefers to get its point across without always using the expected Christian language.

“We never wanted to get wrapped into the idea of selling the name of Jesus,” he said.

On its latest album, “Hawk Nelson Is My Friend,” Biro said, “there’s probably four or five songs that are about our relationship with God.”

“It doesn’t say ‘Jesus,’ per se, but that’s what we’re about.”

Hawk Nelson’s fan base has grown more diverse over time, Biro said.

Early on, many fans were teens.

A Nickelodeon television special earned Hawk Nelson some preteen fans, Biro said, and more recently entire families have started showing up for concerts.

With its latest album, the band hopes to again broaden its listening audience.

Co-writers on the album include Trevor McNevan from Christian band Thousand Foot Krutch; pop songwriter/producer Matthew Gerrard of “High School Musical” and “Hannah Montana”; Raine Maide of rock band Our Lady Peace; and pop star/songwriter Richard Marx.

“We co-wrote with a wide spectrum of writers because they’re experienced and talented, and we want to learn and grow,” Biro said.

Gospel veteran CeCe Winans targets the church crowd with her first album in three years, and is enjoying a chorus of support.

“Thy Kingdom Come” recently hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Gospel Albums chart, No. 2 on Top Christian Albums and No. 12 on Top R&B Albums.

During the last two decades, the nine-time Grammy Award winner has been successful in the gospel, R&B and contemporary Christian arenas. Her previous release, “Purified,” has sold 286,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Winans feels “Thy Kingdom Come” could have broad appeal, but says she focused her music on communicating to churchgoers.

“Everybody can be blessed by it,” she says, “but it’s a record that’s really for the church and encouraging the church to stand up and be the church, reminding them of the authority we have in Jesus Christ.”

The first single, “Waging War,” is about the power of prayer, rather than a call to arms linked to current events.

“It’s definitely not there to encourage that war (in Iraq) at all, but something I pray for daily is our soldiers and our leaders . . . I didn’t mean for this to be connected to that war except as a reminder to us to pray.”

Promotion plans for the album include visits to churches, where Winans sings three or four songs
“We’re targeting some really nice churches that we believe are heavy into praise and worship and are also trying to target places we have never been before to try to spread her reach,” says Demetrus Stewart, president of Winan’s own PureSprings Gospel label.

The EMI-backed label also partnered with Verizon to offer the track “Forever” as a full-length song, ringtone and ringback. The set is also garnering exposure through key media appearances, including an April 15 Trinity Broadcast Network special that Winans is hosting.

In recording “Thy Kingdom Come,” Winans worked for the first time with her son, Alvin Love III, as a producer. “He wrote some on ‘Purified,’ but this time he wrote a song and also co-produced. That was kind of funny having to do what my son told me to do. It was kind of weird, but we made it,” Winans says with a laugh.