ONTARIO — Contemporary Christian music artist Steve Green is slated to visit Ontario Christian Fellowship on Friday, Dec. 9 to kick off the Christmas season.
“We’re all excited. It’s just been energizing for the church, so I also hope it is in the community. It makes for a really awesome worship experience for Christmas. It (the concert) makes you really think about the coming of Jesus — and what it means to the world,” OCF spokesperson Paula Keiper said, who has worked in tandem with church staff members for the last six months.
Keiper’s work with Green stretches farther back than six months, however.
In 1993, she and her husband, Dave, went to their first Steve Green concert. She said she was moved.
“The Lord put it on my heart to invite him to OCF. We had just started going there. Within about a year, we sponsored our first event in Mansfield with him at the Renaissance (Theater),” she said.
The upcoming show will be Green’s eighth concert in Mansfield. Every one of those, Keiper said, have been hosted through OCF. The last time Green came to Mansfield was in October 2010.
Throughout the years, Paula and Dave have gotten to know Green personally.
“We’ve gone on a couple cruises with him and his family. They’re just an awesome couple (Green and his wife). He’s humble and Godly and he just loves the Lord with all his heart,” she said.
A choir comprised of nearly 40 individuals from the community will accompany Green during the concert — an addition that Keiper characterized as grand.
“The choir’s made up of people from various churches,” she said, adding the choir director, Caitlin Carr, who also works for OCF as the Worship and Creative Arts Director, has done a phenomenal job organizing the choral arrangement.
“We’ve been working hard and I’m looking forward to being together with everyone, like with Steve and his accompanist, just celebrating Christ’s birth and worshipping together,” Carr said. The choir began weekly practices in October.
“It’s going to be beautiful — they’ve worked hard,” she said of the choir.
Green released his first album through Sparrow Records in 1984. That same year, Steve Green Ministries was founded and he launched a concert touring ministry. Throughout his 32-year career, he has received many awards, including being nominated for a Grammy Award four times.
He also won the Gospel Music Association Dove Award seven times. Nearly three million copies of his albums have been sold worldwide.
“Thirty two years is a stretch of time,” Green is quoted in a press release. “I’ve been able to communicate the gospel in almost 50 countries around the world, and as God gives grace and strength, I look forward to many years to come.
“There are more songs to be written, more peoplep who need to hear the glorious gospel of our Lord, and more communities that need to be redeemed for God’s glory.”
Green lives with his wife, Marijean, and three children, Addy, Ava and Brice, in Atlanta.
Keiper said tickets for the concert have sold out and is expecting attendance to reach up to nearly 500. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the concert begins at 7:30 p.m.
