Jars of Clay is quite possibly the (no pun intended) godfather of Christian rock.

The quartet, which has sold more than 5 million albums, won three Grammy Awards and claimed an American Music Award since forming in the early 1990s, has managed to thrive in a mainstream rock scene not known for its proclivity toward Jesus-themed music (Creed doesn't count).

Jars of Clay — along with fellow Christian rocker Third Day — will play its next San Antonio show at Community Bible Church on Thursday, Dec. 13.

For Jars of Clay, the show will provide an opportunity to showcase tracks from its first Christmas album, the recently released Christmas Songs.

“In making this album, we wanted to capture what was meaningful about the music we listened to growing up at Christmas and add some of those textures to our palette,” guitarist Steve Mason said on the band's press Web site. “We worked hard on how to approach the more commonly known songs to give them a new angle.”

One of those songs was the famed Christmas carol, “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”

“ ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem' is a good example of that reconstructive creative process,” Mason said on the band's press Web site. “We had a standard acoustic version of it, but it wasn't interesting enough. We weren't sure exactly what we were doing when we started, but it came to a beautiful, emotional end for me.”

CLINT HALE | 210SA