Your stance on not dating and remaining pure is very well known. How do you get to see how you are affecting popular culture with that?
Alyssa - The coolest part is reading the letters and hearing the stories. Kids coming to the shows and going "I thought I was the only one who stood for purity. I felt so alone my whole life". That's been the coolest thing for us, when they go "I'm not the only one doing this!

I'm not the only reject!" Then a lot of kids come to us and say "Oh my gosh. I had no idea that there was another way for me. I had no idea that it could be OK and accepted and cool to save myself and to wait and to save my heart. To think 'It's OK that I don't have a boyfriend right now. It's OK that I'm not dating someone. I can be OK in learning who I am and who God has made me to be.'" The coolest response is that people are standing up going "This is OK. This can be a good thing." It's a great thing. I think that has been the most encouraging response. It's been a very large and overwhelming response. Even parents going "I know how to teach my children this now. I know what to do now and how to encourage them in this path so they don't make the same mistakes that I did." It's been really cool and very exciting. A lot better than we thought it would be. We thought that we were really going to get shot down for that one. We braced ourselves when the record came out. Especially with the song Average Girl on it.

You just never know. You're standing up saying, "Here's our story. We don't date." We totally thought that people would be just like "forget you guys", but God really just went ahead and did His own thing there. It's been really shocking, but it's been really cool.

As a mom, I sure to appreciate it. It gives me some ammo against what my kids hear with their friends and at school.

Alyssa - That is so cool. It is great to hear.

What is your favorite type of venue to play?

Alyssa - I kind of go back and forth on that one. There's a part of doing the smaller venues that I just love. All three of us are very personal ... we like getting in there and being able to hear people's stories. I love when the signing lines are shorter because you can take the time with people and really listen to them. It's harder with the bigger venues because when you have bigger signing lines, it's harder, you know, it's more like just a line. You don't get time to stop and look every single person in the eye and hear their story or hear a little bit of what they're going through and encourage them. We still try to do that, but that's the part of big venues that we don't like. As much as I love as having the opportunity to reach as many people, and just having that bigger ... people you can speak into for 45 minutes. I wish I could take more time to just be with each of them and hear their stories. I go back and forth all of the time on this deal. If there was only a way to combine it or if we just had more time in the day. You know? But I think that there's pros and cons to both.

A lot of Christian artists now are either moving more toward a secular market, or they say that is what they want to do. What do you think about that and is it a path that you would like to see the BarlowGirls follow?

Alyssa - I think that for us personally, if God chose to use us in the secular market, I would be surprised. Kind of like I was surprised by us getting signed, as well. Personally, we never plan on being like "Oohh, let's cross over. Let's try to reach..." Although I'd love to see everybody reached with the message of who my God is and with our story and what we have to share. I think if God chooses that for us, we'd really have to be careful. It's got to be a tough place to have to walk through without compromise. Without any kind of fear and shame at all about what I'm speaking. I think that God would really have to try and test our hearts before He allowed us to do a cross over kind of thing. If He is, us girls better not be ashamed at all to stand up and speak about who our God is. I don't want to water down my message to get people to like me .... more. I'm not going to blow them out of the water just to be rude to them. I want to go in there boldly. If God tells me to speak something to someone I need to be able to do that. So I think if He does have that for us, our prayer is that He would definitely test and refine our hearts before He allows us to be in a situation like that (and I know He will). To be in that kind of place, so we would be bold and steadfast and not fall away because of it.