Fi­nal prepa­ra­tions are be­ing made for the vis­it to Trinidad and To­ba­go next week by Paul Wilbur, a pop­u­lar singer-song­writer, wor­ship leader, and pas­tor in the Mes­sian­ic mu­sic genre. Wilbur, whose mu­sic is well known lo­cal­ly, is here for a se­ries of con­certs in cel­e­bra­tion of the first an­niver­sary of the One in Christ Move­ment. He will be at Saith Park, Ch­agua­nas, on:

• No­vem­ber 11, at 6 pm;

• Wood­ford Square, Port-of-Spain, on No­vem­ber 12, at 4.30 pm;

• Faith Cen­tre, San Fer­nan­do, No­vem­ber 13, at 5.30 pm;

• and Char­lot­teville Recre­ation Ground, To­ba­go, No­vem­ber 14, at 5.30 pm.

The na­ture of most of Wilbur's songs seem to be Mes­sian­ic be­cause he be­lieves it is God's call to peo­ple to be back in a covenant re­la­tion­ship with Him, bridg­ing Gen­e­sis to Rev­e­la­tion. He says the Old and New Tes­ta­ments are one con­tin­u­ous Word of God. Wilbur's fa­ther was Jew­ish and his moth­er was Bap­tist. Wilbur, the old­est of three chil­dren, said there was lit­tle re­li­gious train­ing in their home. "There was no Jew­ish ex­pres­sion at home," he said, al­though their moth­er would oc­ca­sion­al­ly take them to lo­cal church­es. When he at­tend­ed col­lege his mu­sic/voice teacher was a can­tor at the tem­ple down­town. Wilbur, who had been mu­si­cal since he was a child, joined the tem­ple choir and at­tend­ed ser­vices for sev­er­al years. "I didn't know what I be­lieved or why," Paul says. "The Jew­ish part of me was reach­ing out for some­thing tan­gi­ble."

The world's opera stages were Wilbur's am­bi­tion. His pas­sion for the arts, mu­sic, and teach­ing took him from un­der­grad­u­ate school in Cleve­land, Ohio, across the At­lantic to study in Mi­lan, Italy. There he was in­struct­ed in vo­cal tech­nique, Ital­ian, and high-opera by some of Eu­rope's most skilled men­tors. He met opera star Richard Tuck­er, who was Jew­ish and ho­n­oured his re­li­gious tra­di­tion by singing un­der the domed roofs of the world's syn­a­gogues. In grad­u­ate school Wilbur's search con­tin­ued, and at the in­vi­ta­tion of a young woman, he at­tend­ed an­oth­er church ser­vice. In­ter­est­ing­ly, this very Evan­gel­i­cal church had a charis­mat­ic youth min­is­ter named Jer­ry Williams. At the end of the ser­vice the church of­fered at­ten­dees a chance to sign up for a fel­low­ship din­ner with some of its mem­bers. Wilbur de­cid­ed to sign up for the free din­ner and end­ed up at Williams' house.

"I re­alised this guy had what I need­ed," he says. Wilbur gave his life to the Lord on March 26, 1977, and im­me­di­ate­ly every­thing about him was to­tal­ly changed-at­ti­tudes, emo­tions, etc. Then, to­geth­er with their friend Ed Kerr, Wilbur and Williams formed the pop­u­lar con­tem­po­rary Chris­t­ian group Har­vest. They trav­elled and min­is­tered to­geth­er and record­ed sev­er­al al­bums on the Ben­son Record la­bel, Milk & Hon­ey. "What an in­cred­i­ble time this was for my life," Wilbur re­called. "But the call to bring the Gospel back to the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty grew stronger and stronger in my heart." Af­ter near­ly five years, Wilbur yield­ed to this call and moved his small fam­i­ly to the Wash­ing­ton, DC, area and to a fledg­ling Mes­sian­ic con­gre­ga­tion.