Mike Rimmer had a lengthy chat with US rock band BARLOWGIRL and found spiritual maturity behind the squeaky clean image.

Becca agrees, "It is. When we hang out with our friends you don't really have these limitations and restrictions of, 'If this doesn't happen and this doesn't happen then I don't have a good friendship.' You don't go through your head and torture yourself about how you hung out with your friend that day. It's just natural. That's kind of how we view our relationship with God; it is what it is. I talk to him. I don't stop talking to him through my day. Everything.even yesterday as I was riding round London I was talking to him in my head; just this constant relationship. It's not just when you sit down and have your journal and Bible, it's a daily thing. He's always with us. He's just waiting for us to stop and acknowledge him. So I think we need to simplify things a little bit, you know? And not make it so complicated."

Becca makes an interesting point. "One of the huge things is media is so much louder. What happens is it kind of gives you earmuffs to hearing God. People need to start turning things off. So turn off your radio. Turn off your iPod. Turn off the television. That's the only way you hear the voice of God. That's the only way you can have a relationship with him. You need to shut off things. A lot of times our mom would come in and go, 'Turn off the TV. I want you to listen for a minute. I want you to be silent. I want you to go, take time to pray.' It's a sacrifice. It'll take time but it's so worth it! It's so worth it!"

If you are going to call an album 'Another Journal Entry', you can imagine that many journalists have already talked to the three sisters about their devotional lives. In an age of fast moving life and so many distractions, there are many young Christians who struggle to create a devotional life which is going to sustain them as they get into the world and earn a living or study at university or school. One of the biggest challenges seems to be getting the message of the Bible to really change their life. Part of journalling and part of your devotional life has to be about making the transition of getting the Word into your life. How do BarlowGirl do that?"

"Wow! It's a challenge for us!" admits Lauren. "Yeah! There's always different ways," agrees Becca. "Like for me, some of the things in the Bible, they are going to be just innocent stories but each story has a quality. It's in the Bible for a reason. And for me, sometimes I'll have different patterns of reading through the Bible. Like God will put a certain book on my heart and I'll just read it over and over and over again until I 'get it'. I think that's the thing that's really hard - you want to keep moving and you want to conquer and continue until you've read the whole Word. But sometimes God will have me just ponder one verse for an entire day, just over and over and over again. And if we press into it there are secrets that are hidden in the Word and we need to press into it, continue to read it and let it saturate our minds and God will reveal what we need to learn. What the purpose of that verse is for our lives."

That process might seem like very hard work but it's essential for spiritual growth. Alyssa admits, "We've kind of simplified it but I remember as I was growing up I really struggled with image. I think every girl does. I was always the smaller, petite, short girl. I was never tall like my friends or like my family. I remember I found two verses that I found as I was praying, 'Lord, I'm really struggling with this image thing. Give me something to hold on to.' I looked it up and I found two verses. One was in Samuel: 'Do not consider his appearance or his height.' That whole thing. So I was like, how am I gonna get this?! So what I did for, I think, about six years, I had this paper taped to my mirrors with that verse on, every single one of my mirrors. And so every time, for six years, as I would go and do my makeup, as I would go and do my hair, I would see that verse. I would just say it out loud, you know? Or I would pray about it. It would be there in front of me at all times. As I looked into the mirrors I did that. So it was a gradual process. It took a long time. But I think the biggest thing that I tried to do is I didn't kick myself over it if I didn't 'get it' the next day. I had it up for years and years, and I'm still learning it."

'Another Journal Entry' contains "Psalm 73" and a cover of a David Crowder song. Isn't there a real danger that BarlowGirl could become a worship band? "No!" they all respond simultaneously before breaking into laughter. Then Becca thinks about it, "That would not be bad at all!" The others agree! But hasn't the world got enough worship bands already? Alyssa responds, "I kind of compare it to, how many love songs are there in mainstream music? I mean if you think about it, just about every single song is another love song. And for us Christians, I just hope that every single song turns out to be a love song to our God, you know? A love song to reflect who he is. I think our mouths should never be done with singing love songs to him, whether it's in the form of a praise song, or a rock song or whatever. At the end of the day, I want it to be a love song."

In the end the girls have just Barlowised their favourite worship song! David Crowder's "No One Like You". "We did!" agrees Alyssa. "Goodness, we heard this song a while ago. We can't get up on stage unless we are a hundred per cent behind a song. And when we heard that song we were like, this is it! This is so a song we can sing. This is so our hearts for the season of our lives right now. When we were writing up our song list for the album we really felt like that was one of the songs that was important. Both of the worship songs that are on that album we have in every show." Becca adds, "We've been singing them in our shows for the past two and a half years. Our audience was just going, 'Pleeease put those on the album!' So we did. And we love them."

Flashback to April 2006. I'm sitting in my hotel room at Gospel Music Week and the hotel TV has a collection of Christian music channels including the excellent TVU which serves up a constant diet of rock and hip-hop. Snuggled in with all the Tooth & Nail bands are BarlowGirl hammering out their songs and shock horror.rocking out. The girls are actually sweating! They laugh. "We don't sweat," Becca insists. Alyssa corrects me, "We glow!"

I'm sorry but they do sweat. I've seen those videos. I can't be fooled here. I point out that there is something inherently sexy about being a bunch of rock chicks rockin' out on stage. And it's certain that they've got lots of guys looking at them and checking them out." "We tell them we have a big brother!" deadpans Lauren. The point I'm making is that it seems to be completely the opposite to what their stand is in terms of purity. So don't they think that doing the rock thing actually works against their stand for purity?"

"I've never thought about that," confesses Becca, "but I think that's the cool part about what God has done in our lives. Being in a band, being a celebrity is a huge thing and our society today and kids look up to that. Every kid wants to be a celebrity or whatever. We never wanted to be but I think God is using this as our platform of saying, 'You can be "cool" in the world's eyes but still stand for the things of me.' That's what God is saying. So yeah, being in a rock band but standing for purity, it's totally opposite but I think God's showing that you can do something that's cool but still stand for things."

Okay, so they're standing for purity and they're standing up doing their thing on stage. Even if they dress modestly, they are probably provoking impure thoughts in some of the male members of the audience who basically fancy them. So in terms of the purity thing, there's a dichotomy there isn't there? "I think even if we wore tarps," Lauren responds, "I still think that there's gonna be some guy out in the audience who's gonna have a thought that we can't control. So to the best of our ability we are going to cover up. We are going to be modest and try to protect their eyes as much as we can. But I think even if we wore snow suits it would still happen, you know?"

Alyssa continues, "But I think the cool thing is that we do take time in every single show to challenge the guys. 'Guys, what are you thinking about? Are your thoughts pure? Satan is trying to get you down every wrong path and we want to be people that challenge you to grow in this area.' So we do set that standard on stage. We do all that we can to help them out. The rest is up to them."

It's a warm summer's day in London and in the basement room the girls are beginning to. ahem. glow so Starbucks are ordered and a break for refreshments takes place. The girls' family is with them and other interviews are planned today before they are free to enjoy some more sightseeing in London. Drinks are slurped, chocolate and muffins are consumed and we start chatting again.

With their stand on purity I wondered how one could set up a date with a BarlowGirl. "You don't date a Barlow girl!" Becca responds. Hmmm. interesting. Alyssa elaborates, "You know right now we've never actually had a date. We've never gone out on a date with guys one-on-one. We have a lot of really cool guy friends right now and we hang out in groups." Becca warms to the theme, "We do a lot of group stuff and that's kind of how we get to know people. We have guy friends that would call and email and whatever. We've had guys ask us out. We've had guys pull us aside and go, 'I'm interested. Would you go out with me?' And our answer's always the same, 'You know, why don't you go talk to our dad?' One thing that's very important to us is our dad in our life. Dad knows things about guys that we probably don't know and could never know. So we send the guys to him and a lot of times he'll come to us and go, 'Okay, so are you interested? Do you want me to give this one the go-ahead?' And there hasn't been that one yet. We've said no. And so dad's kind of been a great protector for us."