On Friday at 7 p.m., Easthaven Baptist Church will be hosting aChristmas concert featuring Christian recording artists NewSong andTodd Agnew, with special guests Matthew West and Britt Nicole.

The event will be the eighth of 18 stops on the artists’ 2007Christmas Promise Tour, which began on Nov. 27 and is scheduled toend on Dec. 20. The show at Easthaven will be one of many stops themusicians have made in Brookhaven.

“At Easthaven, we’ve had a long-standing friendship with thefounding members of NewSong,” said Easthaven Baptist Church PastorDanny Singleton. “They’ve been to Brookhaven many times, and toEasthaven at least three times.”

While NewSong is a regular visitor to Brookhaven, Agnew will bemaking his first stop here. He has, however, been in the SouthwestMississippi area before.

“We really have always had great shows in that part of thecountry,” Agnew said in a telephone interview.

NewSong, an established Christian musical group and member ofthe Georgia Music Hall of Fame, was founded more than 25 years agoand has 17 albums under its belt. Agnew and his band, whose fourthalbum, entitled “Better Questions,” was released in July, haveenjoyed success of their own.

The two groups are close and perform together regularly.

“A couple of their guys take the stage and sing and play withus, and a couple of our guys play with them,” Agnew said.

NewSong will open the Easthaven show and will perform songs fromthe group’s two best-selling albums, “The Christmas Hope” and “TheChristmas Shoes.” From the latter album comes the band’s number onehit, “The Christmas Shoes,” a song that inspired a best-sellingnovel by Donna VanLiere and a CBS television movie.

Agnew will headline the event.

During his roughly hour-long performance, Agnew and his bandwill perform selections from their musical, “Do You See What ISee.” The musical tells the Christmas story as seen from the eyesof the biblical characters.

“We wrote the songs from different people’s perspectives,” Agnewsaid. “Like Joseph … he wasn’t just some super-spiritual figure;he was a guy who was in love with a woman that came to him and saidshe was pregnant with someone else’s kid. He ended up becoming thestepfather of the Son of God.

“We wanted to show that the Christmas story occurred in themiddle of real people’s lives,” Agnew continued. “They’re not justmythic characters.”

Other perspectives Agnew plans to present in the selections from”Do You See What I See” include those of Mary, the wise men, theangels, Simeon and Jesus himself.

Easthaven Baptist Church has drawn up 900 tickets for theconcert, which will be held in the worship center.

Advanced tickets are selling for $15, and tickets at the doorwill be $20. Anyone interested in more information on the concertmay call the church office at (601) 833-2597, or visit the Web siteat www.easthaven.net.