Of Faith and Fame

The four women in Point of Grace, one of contemporary Christian music’s hottest young groups, rapidly are compiling the kind of credits that add up to pop-music stardom.

Four of the five albums they’ve released since 1994 have gone gold (sales of 500,000), and one--”Life, Love & Other Mysteries”--has been certified platinum (1 million). Their new holiday album, “A Christmas Story,” is quickly nearing gold status, according to a Word Records spokeswoman, and not only is No. 2 on Billboard’s contemporary Christian albums chart, but is up to No. 55 on the pop album list.

They’re popping up on TV magazine and talk shows more frequently, and are on the road now with the queen and king of Christian pop, Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith. The “Amy Grant Christmas” tour brings all three acts to the Arrowhead Pond on Saturday.

But where stardom is a goal in the secular pop music world, it’s something Christian artists regard warily.

“The idea of a ‘Christian celebrity’ is an oxymoron,” says Point of Grace’s Heather Payne, 29. “This is not about us at all. . . . We always try to bring it back to God, as trite or as cheesy as that might sound.”

Grant and other crossover Christian musicians mix devotional and inspirational material with less specific expressions of affection that can double as love songs. But Point of Grace’s songs focus unflinchingly on God and Jesus.

“Parents try to be careful about which movies they let their kids see, and I think you have to be even more careful in choosing what you’re going to put into your mind,” says member Terry Jones, also 29. “There’s a lot of great secular music that I love, but there’s a lot that I don’t. Like Marilyn Manson--I don’t want to hear that, and I don’t want anyone I know hearing that.”

Not surprisingly, Point of Grace’s biggest musical role models were Grant and Smith, two key players behind Christian music’s rising profile in the pop-music marketplace.

According to Record Industry Assn. of America figures, Christian music’s share of overall music sales nearly doubled from 1994, when it constituted 3.3% of total sales, to 1998, when it reached 6.3% of the market. That represents about $880 million in sales. The growth shows no signs of slowing: SoundScan figures for the first half of this year show a 21% increase in Christian music sales over the same period in 1998.

Point of Grace’s members never envisioned becoming heavy hitters in Christian music when they came together in 1991 at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas. That’s where childhood friends and singing partners Payne, Jones and Denise Jones (no relation) met Shelley Phillips (now Shelley Breen).

The four students started singing together in the university’s choir and in church, finding their own road to the close, high harmonizing that typifies their sound. “As far as good female four-part harmonizing, there wasn’t a whole lot for us to go by,” says Terry Jones.

Their material comes almost exclusively from professional Christian songwriters. Within the group, only Payne and Breen have expressed much interest in songwriting.

Their outlook on the subject is shaped largely by humility.

“If we wanted to put one of our own songs on our next album, we could--if it was terrible or not,” Jones said. “But we don’t want to put a song on that compromises an album just because we wrote it.”

The tone of the songs they choose tends toward upbeat encouragement, but in “Saving Grace,” a song by Grant Cunningham and Matt Huesmann on the album “Steady On,” they delve into a character study of a teenage runaway that is also an allegory about the elusiveness of heavenly grace.

According to Jones, it was coincidence that the song fit into their ongoing support of Mercy Ministries of America, a Nashville-based nonprofit group that offers residential programs to runaways, unwed mothers and troubled young women.

“When we heard it, we weren’t thinking of that, but when we played it for the president and founder of Mercy Ministries, he said, ‘That song is perfect for what we’re doing, and for showing how God is working in people’s lives,’ ” Jones says. “So we’ve been dedicating that each night to them.”

BE THERE

Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith and Point of Grace, Saturday at the Arrowhead Pond, 2695 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim, 7:30 p.m. $35 to $50. (714) 704-2500.

WILL USE

Lewis No. 1