Arguably the finest harmony group in America's world of CCM, FIRST CALL have enjoyed industry awards, album sales and high profile media exposure. But the trio also have a growing consciousness that they're on a sacred journey. Jan Willem Vink spoke to the group's Bonnie Keene.

"I think 'Sacred Journey' is definitely the other side of the 'Human Song' record. We've all gone through painful times in the last few years. I don't know how specific you want us to get with that. But like anybody else, our faith has not healed us from going through difficult times. We've all walked through difficult places that have been painful. But God has been so merciful helping us grow through it and moving us on to the other side of the pain. This record reflects the fact that we have survived some of those difficult times personally and God has really infected us with this huge gratitude for his mercy. We continue to struggle but we continue to find God in that struggle, in every point. We felt we needed to be honest about the fact that as Christians we are human beings that struggle, get lost and trip over things that we don't know what to do with. But the goodness is that God is there with us and the mercy of his Son is with us. 'Sacred Journey' album is more of that, because we have continued to move on as people in the last couple of years. But I'm sure we will always talk about the angst side of us."

How did you get through the tough times?

"When I don't always make the right choices, or when I don't understand what is happening, I still find this tremendous amount of guidance and love and mercy that continues to lead me on. There is a lot of confusion in things that have happened in my life. I have two children, so I don't talk about this very often, I don't want them to read about it when they grow up. I went through a divorce a couple of years ago. So it is very difficult for me and for my children, for all the people that loved their father and loved me. It was very painful. I didn't understand a lot about what was happening, but I felt like I rediscovered God's hand in my life in a whole new way. I have rediscovered what real mercy is, and his grace and his covering and that he continues very gently and very sweetly to remind me that he still loves me. I am not a second-class citizen and I am not an outcast but that, in the frontier of our worst need, he meets us there. I think it isn't an accident that 'Sacred Journey' is about celebration and healing in a lot of ways. It is such an outpouring of God, creatively. I think that's what we supposed to say on this record. But I also think it's because we were listening in certain ways and areas and God really honoured that. We feel this record almost brought our hearts back to life again. It were just a very tough last few years for us and we feel God gave us this album in a very special way and there is no way we could have done this album without his outpouring. It happened very quickly. It was obviously God, there was no other way it could have been anything else. We all had these incredible experiences while we were writing the record and while we were working on it."

What kind of experiences?

"For me writing takes a long time. It's really difficult. I will get an idea or I will try and do something and it will have to almost firm it into my head for a period of weeks or months before I finally birth the songs somehow. I usually like to co-write. On 'Evidence Of Love' I wanted to write a song about the evidence of love - finding God all around us everywhere. I knew what I wanted to say, I knew the analogies I wanted. I didn't want it to be written like you normally write. I wanted it to be written in a sunset and spoken by someone's hand reaching out. I didn't know how to do it. I wrote some music but I didn't like my music. I liked my lyrics, I couldn't figure out what I was going to do. I ended up writing this song with a man I had never written with who just called me one day and who is a fabulous writer for Sparrow. We had never gotten together before. He was woken up in the middle of the night with this piece of music going through his head. He didn't know what he was going to do with it. We got together one afternoon and in two hours we wrote the whole song because my lyrics and his music idea were perfect together - it was such an awesome experience for both of us. It was just obviously that God had brought this together to happen that way. The same thing happened to some of the songs we co-wrote with Darrell and David and other people where it was obvious that God wanted us to serve these ideas. The author Madeleine L'Engle talks about serving the work - getting out of the way for what God gives you to do, serving it and letting it be what it can be. I feel like we really did that on this record. Then when the players came in to do the tracks, it was so wonderful, we were all just blown away. A lot of times recording albums had not been easy. This one was like God-breathed. It was a real special experience. We found this new energy for the group in the middle of it. We all find this new discovery for how we loved singing together. It was kind of like that next place that you move to, that God moves you to that next season, that next plateau of joy in what you do."

Marabeth had her baby recently.

"Marabeth was pregnant with her daughter during the recording of 'Sacred Journey'. There was kind of this birth thing going around for everybody! Actually Sophie was born just a few weeks after we finished the vocals, so we kind of made it right to the deadline."

On the lyric sheet you write, This song is inspired by the sound of Martin Luther's hammer on the church door in Wittenburg, warning us of our tendency to make faith a religion rather than a relationship.'

"That says it right. It's very easy to fall in something that is culturally religious as opposed to finding a relationship that is real. Especially in the States it is very easy to fall into a cushy, very easy kind of religion. I went to a Bible study last night where we were studying Revelation and talking about the spirits of the churches that Jesus talks to and how Jesus warns against false teachers. Or the spirit of Jezebel and the different people that come in and mislead. My pastor said, 'We need to be awake to that now. We need to be awake to what we've been taught, not follow every dog-and-pony show that comes done the park. Always go and find that in the Word, find that in a real relationship with God.' We in First Call talk a lot about how we desire for the church at large to encourage people, not just follow along, but to really know what they believe and to really seek God one on one, not to be complacent and not be judgmental and harsh but define God as loving and compassionate and to grow in that. It seems like kind of what we talked about on 'Human Song' and 'Sacred Journey' is there's often times in a church setting people think they can't even be honest about what's happening in their lives because they are afraid they will be judged and they will be condemned when I think in the purest form the church can be a place where we can go and our hearts can be broken because that's where God is. I think as a people we need to find a way to be more compassionate and more sure about what we are about and to stop blaming each other and criticising each other but to start loving each other more. Definitely that's something that we will always write and sing about."

In a time where there is a lot of talk about crossover, you make a very clear Christian statement. What do you feel is your place now? Do you aim for secular recognition as well?

"We've been asked that so many times and I can understand why because we have several different songs on some of our records that could have crossed over. We have always been about singing about our faith. I don't see that ever changing. I think that's why First Call exists, that's why we sing together, it's God's purpose for us. At the same time, if some things do cross over for some reason, we welcome that. But only if that's what God has for us and even then I don't think we change what we sing about. I don't think this group ever will be a pop group that sings love songs, not that there's anything wrong with that, if that's what you're supposed to do, but we are not called to do that. We are specifically here to sing about how God affects our lives. We will try to explore all kinds of ways of singing about that. But I don't think that will ever change and that feels so good to know. If God wants to open it up and make it bigger, that's fine with us, but that's where we'll always gonna come for."

Getting back to Madeleine L'Engle. You quote her on the lyric sheet for "Under The Water". Are books a big source of inspiration for First Call?

"They are for me. I've been a Madeleine L'Engle fan for many years. The song that I wrote 'The Parable Of The River' on the 'God Is Good' record was inspired by a book that she had written, Walking On Water. It really touched me. Her writing tremendously inspires me. I would highly suggest her writing to anyone to investigate. She has children's books that are incredible, but her adult novels and journals are just incredible. I have written several songs that she has put in my heart a reason for. Through what she has written. They'll probably crop up every once in a while. But she is not so much the group's inspiration as mine. But we have our places we draw from."

Frederich Buechner?