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Bootsy used to go to our church back in Cincinnati. I don't know where he goes now, but one of my cousins kept in contact with him. He always asks her to give him a call when I'm going to do my next record, and he came to my live concert taping in Cincinnati and said the same thing. I had "Message For Ya" so I sent it out and said, "No pressure. If you're feeling something, great. If not, that's cool too," and he called back and said "I'm feeling it!" He played about 16 tracks on it-he played bass, he played guitar, he played keys, he sang, he talked, he did the whole nine yards-and then sent it back. He was so gracious and came out to Cincinnati a few weeks ago to play with us on stage.

How do these contacts open the door for mainstream possibilities?

Mullen We're just seeing God really doing something with this album. It's been my hope from album one to take this message Jesus has given me into the world. I've said a thousand times that I want to keep my feet planted firmly in the church so that I can reach over to the world, pull people out and not fall in. I'm not trying to abandon my base. I need the people who've supported me. I want them to take them on the journey with me. Hold my hand, keep me in prayer, come along for the ride with me so that we can reap a harvest together!

At the same time, I pray that God opens the right doors and gives us favor in that area, so we can take the message of the gospel out there to people. Everybody's not going to listen to Christian radio, so we've got to take the music to where they are listening and make them see that the God we serve is not just a God we worship on Sunday. He's relevant every single day of the week; he understands every issue we have as everyday people. I want to show them how beautiful he is, to get them jealous that they don't have him and to encourage them to want to embrace him. It just so happens God has brought us so many people that have the same heart. These producers and these collaborators, they're feeling it. They've all said, "We want to see what God's given you go to another level." At the end of the day, let's save more souls!

Tell me about the Baby Girls Club, your ministry to teen girls.

Mullen We get together on Wednesdays and we have a little chat time, prayer requests, dancing, sewing, eating, encouraging each other, making clothes and all kinds of things. It's about getting involved in the lives of young girls and giving them hope in Christ. We've found when they have hope in Christ, all of a sudden they don't want to vandalize people's cars anymore and they don't want to cuss their teachers out anymore because they have hope. All of a sudden, they don't want to go to juvenile detention centers because they know God's got their back: "My mama and my daddy may not be there, but God has my back. Ms. Nicole told me that I can go to Scripture and I can call on God and he can give me self-control." We're seeing the gospel being carried out in the lives of these girls, some of which are from Christian homes, others of which are straight out of the hood-no mommy or daddy at home. We have a wide range of dynamics that are seeing the gospel as relevant for today.

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