(Forgive me one more trip down memory lane, but this month is the 8th anniversary of one of the better shows I can remember seeing, and that’s ever … Twila Paris and Out of the Grey blessed those of us on hand at Calvary Church back in November 2001. This was right after 9/11, when all of us were glad for the spiritual encouragement … dave o’c)

Twila Paris mixes music with message

If it were up to her, Twila Paris would have her life planned out, with a calendar where she could check off the “right” time for reaching milestones in her life.
Get married by 25, have a child by 29, be the department manager by 35, that kind of thing.
But when she passed the age she figured she would have her first child, she said she reminded God she was getting a little behind on her calendar.
Paris said, during a concert here Friday night, that experience taught her a lesson. Paris, who performed for about 2,000 people at Manheim Township’s Calvary Church — and, now in her early 40s, had a son in April.
The lesson was, God’s calendar is “a lot bigger and more accurate than ours,” she said, which we should remember when we wonder why we’re not married, don’t have kids or don’t get that job promotion when we think we should.
The ministry was just as moving as the music Friday evening as Paris, the writer and performer of no less than 32 No. 1 Christian radio songs, left an indelible message on people with a diverse and powerful concert at the huge Landis Valley Road church.
She sat at the piano and performed her moving, look-behind-the-armor signature song, “The Warrior is a Child,” her first hit from back in 1982. She then hopped up front to lead the funkier, up-tempo “Run to You.”
The writer of some of the best-known current worship songs, she led an interlude featuring “He Is Exalted” and other worship standards.
There was even a pleasant surprise at the start of Friday’s nearly three-hour concert, with Paris herself emerging on the darkened stage to sing a powerful and respectful version of the national anthem.
The concert at Calvary also featured singer Michelle Tumes and husband-and-wife duo Out of the Grey, comprised of singer Christine Dente, who is a 1982 Conestoga Valley High School graduate, and her guitarist husband, Scott.
Both of the other acts also have topped the Christian charts and both played short-but-sweet sets before rejoining Paris for hers.
And like Paris, what they said was just as impressive as what they sang.
Tumes, from Adelaide, Australia, was painfully shy growing up and was told to forget about a music career, she said after performing her ballad “Healing Waters.” But she believed God had a plan for her to keep with it, and she encouraged others to go and do likewise.
Christine Dente, during Out of the Grey’s 45-minute set, reminded the audience that “you don’t have to have it together to come to God, you don’t have to get your tie on straight and come to church twice a week and all that.”
People just need to take the first step of faith, she said. The Dentes then performed “Shine Like Crazy” from their newest album, “All We Need” from the mid-1990s and “Nothing’s Gonna Keep Me from You” from 1992, at the start of their career.
The concert also was a rebuttal to one of the criticisms of Christian music, that the level of singing and playing isn’t up to popular music standards.
That wasn’t true Friday, with three excellent female singers and, in Scott Dente, a guitar virtuoso along the line of Stanley Jordan, Pat Matheney and other guitar cleanup hitters — at about a third of the price.
A visual player, he drew an extended hand for a finger-tapping solo on his black guitar.
Also impressive was how Paris, with her 19 years of experience in the music business, seemed to be mentoring the younger Tumes, and how the artists stayed on stage most of the night to help with the others’ music.
One fan at Friday’s concert, Eugene Blank of Paradise, was impressed by how approachable the performers were.
He got a CD autographed by Tumes during the show’s intermission, and then said, “With Christian shows, it’s a lot different than some other (secular) concerts, where they don’t let you get close to the singers.”