Lauren (left), Alyssa, and Becca continue to make a difference by following the road less traveled.

Becca, Alyssa and Lauren Barlow are BarlowGirl, who became the best new selling artists of 2004 with their self-titled debut album. The Illinois-bred sisters are back with their sophomore album, Another Journal Entry. They shared their thoughts with us about their music, nonconformity, how the world wears down young people's self esteem and how renewing our minds with God's thoughts is the way to overcome.

Now that you're on your second album, is being female rockers becoming more comfortable?

Becca Barlow: One of our mottos is that we need to play like guys, so every time I run across an amazing guitar player, I always ask for help. We've grown so much musically. We've played so many shows in the last year that we've become more comfortable with who we are onstage.

Besides being female rockers, are you nonconformists in other ways?

Becca: Lauren shares Romans 12:2 at every show—"Do not conform to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." We have prayed over the years and asked God what this verse means to us. He had shown us that he wants us be transformed in the way we view purity and in the way we live our lives. He has called us not to date and to give up our dating years to live for him during this time. I know for sure the three of us would not be traveling around the world in a band if we had been distracted by those things.

Why do you feel God wants you to avoid dating?

Becca: The reason girls desire to be in casual dating relationships is because they are searching for someone to define them. Girls look for someone else to tell them who they are. But, when we run to other people instead of God, we're not getting a true definition of who we are. A lot of times at the end of a relationship, you just end up with a broken heart, with someone not liking you. That gives you a false perspective of who you are. We encourage people to find out who they are first through Christ, how he views them, what he thinks of them. God has shown us so many verses on what he thinks of us. There is more security found in that than will ever be found in a casual dating relationship.

Why do you encourage young people not to conform?

Alyssa Barlow: Young people are so insecure that they want to conform so people will like them, so they will be popular. We are always looking for who we are and for acceptance from other people to the point that we are willing to throw off our own true, God-given identity to be just like everyone else. So, we conform to their ways and we miss out on who God has made us to be. Through not conforming, we throw off the molds and find the calling God has placed on our lives.

Did you go through wanting to be the popular girl?

Alyssa: I was the popular girl. I wanted to please everyone and make everyone happy. Staying at the top became important. I had to be the cool girl at all times, never make a mistake and never be real in front of people. I wanted girls to want to be like me, even though I had no clue who I was. At the end of the day, the cool girls don't know who they are.

What do you talk about in concert to help young people?

Alyssa: Since I was a little girl, my aim was to be on Broadway. I chased after that my whole life. I was determining my own path, had my dreams in mind and was going. God really stopped me a couple years ago and asked me if I wanted to find out what he had for my life. I had a two-year struggle. If I had remained on that stubborn path, I could have missed out on his plan. I'm so thankful he's more stubborn than I am. I talk about this onstage.

Lauren Barlow:
When I share Romans 12:2, I tell kids that the world gives us a list of rules everyday that we must follow to be accepted, and we get so sucked up in following their rules that we just conform. God asks us to live a different way, to step out of what the world says is "normal." We need to shift our view and see that God is not calling Christians to live like this. I tell them to rebel against this world if they want to shake up history. I also go into purity and modesty.

Becca: I share about eating disorders. Because of what I saw on television and read in magazines, I thought I had to be a certain weight before I could be perceived as beautiful and cool. I thought if only I lost weight, I'd have it all together. So many girls think they have to weigh a certain amount to be loved and accepted. The world is feeding girls lies, so I tell them that what the Bible tells us is the truth.

How long did you struggle with these feelings?

Becca: For two years, I was always thinking about body image and exercising. When none of that worked, I was feeling so terrible about myself because of believing those lies that it turned into an eating disorder for one year.

How did you overcome that?

Becca: I was healed of anorexia and bulimia at 21, but it's a constant process. Satan is always coming around to see if I'm still going to stand strong. I have to say, "No, that's a lie. What God says is the truth." You always have to be renewing your mind and constantly pursuing Christ and what he thinks about you. If you focus on what the world thinks about you, you can fall back into these things.

What response has your message brought?

Becca: Some people tell us they live like us and didn't think there was anyone else out there who could encourage them. We get a lot of people who have gone through hard things like deaths, suicides, cutting or eating disorders. They come to us after our shows and share how God used our songs to touch their lives, how they have been healed of eating disorders and cutting because they realize God loves them. We're taken aback that God can use three simple girls from a town in the middle of nowhere to touch people's lives.

What types of help do you give young people who tell you these things?

Becca: I share Genesis 1:26-27, about how we are made in his image and that anything telling you otherwise is a lie. I share Isaiah 62, which talks about how God tells us we are beautiful. I recommend and sometimes give out the book, Battlefield of the Mind [by Joyce Meyer]. It is an amazing book that transformed my life. It's about how the way you think determines the way you feel about yourself. If you have the wrong thoughts, you are always going to be thinking poorly about yourself, so you need to have God's thoughts.

What's the most important thing that girls—and guys—should do?

Becca: To have extreme ideals and question what the world tells them. If we could get that across to people, it would be our dream come true. We are supposed to pursue a different life, to look different, to be different. We are supposed to pursue God, not what people think about us. Sometimes, it's a lonely road, but God will bring people into a relationship with you to encourage and build you up and help you live a radical life.

What does it take for a young person to stand out and be different in today's world?

Becca: Our definition of standing out is standing out in your faith, going on missions trips, selling what you have to feed the poor—whatever God puts on your heart to be radical for him. All of us have that hunger in us to be radical. God wants us to take it deeper, into our spiritual life, to be radical in a spiritual way, not a fleshly way.

Your new album is titled Another Journal Entry. Do you journal?

Alyssa: We've kept journals since we were little. We always had a mandatory time of prayer and journaling and it just stuck. I think it's important to write down the little miracles in our lives. Our songs all come out of our journals. We never had training in songwriting. The only way we know how to write songs is by sharing the honesty of our lives, how we have fallen and how God has picked us up. We can offer people hope by showing them that we are just like them.

Your song "5 Minutes of Fame" is a parody about one of you selling out to the world. How do you keep from compromising in your daily life?

Lauren: We were scared to get signed [to a recording contract], because we didn't want to start out with a strong faith and then sell out in a couple years, backing down to sell a couple more albums. But, God has put us together as a family to travel together. We have Mom and Dad on the road. We have a church back home that prays for us every day. They check on us all the time to be sure we stay strong. We asked God to take our music away from us if we do ever sell out.

Visit our site's artist page for BarlowGirl to learn more about them, and click here to read our review of Another Journal Entry. Please visit Christianbook.com to listen to sound clips and buy the music.

© Maryann B. Hunsberger, subject to licensing agreement with Christianity Today International. All rights reserved. Click for reprint information.

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