November 25, 2002
'Girls of Grace' tour colors Prestonwood in pink
___By Marcia Davis
___Religion News Service
___PLANO (RNS)--It's a fall Friday night, and 7,000 teenage girls have given up football games and movie dates to assemble in a Texas church for the "Girls of Grace" conference and a weekend during which innocents gain confidence and prodigals meet Point of Grace.
SYDNEY Gardner, Jacey Svendsen, Kristi Hall and Crystal Clark of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano sing along at a Girls of Grace concert at the church.
___The girls, ages 13-18, listen raptly to Heather Payne, Denise Jones, Shelley Breen and Terry Jones as the four female singers of the Christian music group Point of Grace talk straight and quote Scriptures about sensitive subjects. Youth leaders sit among their prodigies, and solemn-faced moms huddle to the back or side, some nodding, others taking notes.
___The audience reflects wall-to-wall faded denim, splashed with pink T-shirts, ponytails and flashing smiles fraught with the glint of braces. The girls link arms and sway to the beat of "Circle of Friends" and "Keep the Candle Burning" during the weekend's mini-concerts.
___The teens have traveled from throughout Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma, and some all the way from Minnesota to attend.
___A fashion show and make-up tips break up frank discussions from the stage on the scriptural wrongs of premarital intercourse and oral sex, and the importance of setting boundaries for dating. A counseling room draws hundreds. The makeovers are meant to move well beyond blush and brush to life changes.
___The first three venues of the conference tour--Lakeland, Fla., Plano and Denver--sold out and other spots are being added. No end date has been set for the tour. Since its release in August, the "Girls of Grace Devotional and Bible Study Workbook" has moved to the top of the Christian Booksellers' best-seller list, and the "Girls of Grace" CD has made the top 10.
___Payne, the group's towering deep-voiced brunette beauty, said in an interview that over the years the group had received many letters and phone calls from girls wanting advice and spiritual guidance. "These conferences are our response to those cries for help and our answer to how they can be godly girls in the new millennium," she said.
___The group has long awaited this kind of tour, Payne said. With platinum and gold recording sales, two Grammy nominations and a bevy of Dove awards since their songs first hit the charts in the early 1990s, the girls of grace see this conference tour as the most important work of their careers.
___"We tackle self image and tell them that what the world says is cool isn't necessarily godly," Payne said. "We tell them you can dress cool but you don't have to look tacky and trashy and show every part of your body.
___"And we tell them they should choose their role models based on character, not just what's on the outside."
___The conference pace and break times are scheduled to allow Breen, Payne and Terry Jones to cuddle and nurse their three newborns.
___During a backstage break, Denise Jones and Shelley Breen talked about their teen years.
___"I just didn't do it right," Jones said. "I didn't see the big picture. I want to tell the girls, 'There's a bigger picture that affects you for the rest of your lives.'"
___"I was a fence sitter," Breen said. "I wanted to be popular. I pushed the lines in dating," she said, "but when a friend invited me to youth group, it was a turning point for me."
___"We were all four virgins when we married," Breen said. "Teens need to be told, 'It is possible; you can wait.'"
___Breen encouraged the girls to honor their parents and try harder to get along with their siblings. From Terry Jones, the girls heard that friendships take hands, feet and hearts. Heather Payne spoke on spiritual discipline.
___Denise Jones talked about boys and dating. "Check your motives for dating," she said. "Are you looking for something in someone else you should be looking for in Christ?"
___"This is the perfect time to commit your love life to God," Jones said. "And if you've crossed a lot of lines, God forgives."
___In video interviews flashed on large-screen monitors, members of the Christian music boy band dc Talk commented from the male perspective.
___Nancy Alcorn, founder of Mercy Ministries, which works with teenage girls in crises, took the stage to tell the girls to be real with God, and a former Mercy client recounted her struggle with eating disorders.
___Recording artist Joy Williams drew raves as she belted out a few of her newest songs.
___Lindsay Baker, 14, came to the conference with a group from her church in nearby Keller. "I'm going to go home and set some boundaries for my boyfriend," she said. She said a lot of the conference advice wasn't that much different from what she had heard from her parents, "but it meant more coming from them."
___"I was prepared for the blunt talk about sex," said Beth Ellis, who brought her 12-year-old daughter, Landon. "I think it needed to be said, especially in this town and in my church."
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