Before Chris Tomlin became a million CD-selling contemporary Christian singer-songwriter, he was just a kid growing up in Grand Saline, about an hour and a half from Dallas.

It was there, the place with "a lot of salt mines," that the 36-year-old Tomlin found his muse, not to mention his faith. He wrote his first worship song at 14 with the guitar his father gave him.

"I loved growing up there," Tomlin says by phone. "I had a great church growing up. People who would do anything for you and usually did. I wouldn't trade it for anything."

And yet Tomlin almost pursued a career in physical therapy, one of his college majors. Had he done that, he never would have recorded his breakthrough disc, 2004's platinum-selling Arriving, or the follow-up, 2006's gold-certified See the Morning. We wouldn't have his latest either, the Top 10 hit Hello Love.

"I was in college just trying to find a place," he says. "I changed my major so many times. I had no idea what I really wanted to do. By the time I was halfway through college, people were inviting me to come play, and I was getting all these opportunities to play. It was really cool. Then it occurred to me this is where I was going."

Tomlin's popularity has been gaining momentum, particularly from a secular perspective. Hello Love, with its arena-ready, anthemlike pop-rock tunes, is his first CD to land in the Top 10 of Billboard's album charts. In addition to his truckload of Dove Awards, he received a Grammy Award nomination for Hello Love in the best pop-contemporary gospel album category. Alas, he lost to CeCe Winans' Thy Kingdom Come.

"I've been doing this about 15 years now," he says about his career. "This is good grounding. When success comes, you know every step along the way what's been put into it, what you've been building upon each year. It's great that the songs have been embraced by the church. Hopefully, some of those songs will last longer than I will be making records."

They just might, especially since Tomlin continues to embrace modern musical production values. Smart move. Today's contemporary Christian music, particularly of the rock variety, can sound much like its secular counterpart.

"The younger generation rising up and leading lives, this is the music that they play. I'm not trying to do anything special," Tomlin says. "I'm trying to keep our music modern, but give voice to people as well. You can play these songs with a big rocking band or just with a piano and acoustic guitar. I'm trying to write songs for people to express their hearts through music."

Meanwhile, Tomlin is all geared up for his show tonight at Nokia Theatre. This (almost) local boy will be performing "a lot of songs that are favorites through the years and a lot of the new stuff."

"Nokia has always been an amazing place for us to play," he continues. "It keeps growing, gets more momentum each time. We have a lot of great friends in the area, so it's always a good time. It's like our homecoming concert."Plan your life

Chris Tomlin performs tonight at 7 at Nokia Theatre, 1001 Performance Place, Grand Prairie. $27. Ticketmaster. [an error occurred while processing this directive]