Israel Houghton and Galley Molina on “I’m In Love with a Church Girl”

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog

While in Chicago as part of a multi-city tour to promote their film, I’m In Love with a Church Girl, filmmaker Galley Molina and Grammy Award-winning gospel artist Israel Houghton talked with TBGB about, among other things, the use of gospel music on the movie soundtrack.

TBGB: Give us a quick synopsis of I’m In Love with a Church Girl.

GM: The title explains it all. It’s a true story of how God used a woman to help change a man by taking him to church for the first time and allowing God to get hold of him. This is my life and my testimony.

TBGB: What inspired you to write the story for the big screen?

GM: I wrote the manuscript with the intention of turning it into a book. I was seeing it visually as I was writing it, but I didn’t intend it to be a film at first. Once I stepped back and took a look, I thought it could be a movie. After God put that on my heart and equipped me to do it, that’s what we did: we turned it into a script and made a movie.

TBGB: Israel, how did you meet Galley?

IH: Galley and I met through a mutual friend who knew I was approaching music a certain way and that Galley was approaching film a certain way. We connected on the basis of doing things with excellence, and realized we needed to be a collective instead of two guys doing a lot of the same things on two different planes. Over the last year and a half, we have developed a legitimate partnership to where RGM [Reverence Gospel Media] New Breed is the production company that oversees the film and all the music ancillaries—from publishing to touring to new technologies. We merged our mutual companies into one large conglomerate.

TBGB: What about the importance of using gospel music for the film’s soundtrack?

IH: The story has an undertone of redemption, and songs of hope, redemption, surrender, and love, subjects that are inherent to gospel music, became the easy bedrock of the film. There are also love songs in the film, and songs that are gospel but have a love song intertwined within them. I’m thinking specifically of “Sunday Kinda Love.”

I believe that we are salt and light as Christians. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to keep salting the salt and lighting the light. The salt needs to go where it’s needed to bring flavor, and the light has to go where there’s darkness. In other words, I think we as Christians tend to shy away from subjects like romance and love and falling in love, but it is central to human life. You can’t expect people to just wake up one Sunday morning and go, “You know what? I should go to church! I should be a Christian!” That’s not going to happen. That’s certainly not our story. For Galley, it took a woman he met in church to take him to church.

TBGB: Galley, did you listen to gospel music growing up?

GM: The only gospel album I heard growing up was Elvis Presley’s How Great Thou Artalbum. I’m a huge Elvis fan; it’s one of my favorite albums! “Lead Me, Guide Me,” “His Hand in Mine,” “How Great Thou Art”—those are the songs I knew. But gospel music never influenced me growing up. I’m a worship leader now, and as I started going down that path, I was touched by Israel’s records, Fred Hammond’s records, and now I’m a big fan of gospel music.

TBGB: Let’s go back to “Sunday Kinda Love.” Did the song or the movie come first?

GM: The movie came first. Israel wrote the songs for the film. He asked what I wanted him to write about, and I said I definitely wanted a song called “Sunday Kinda Love.” To me, that encompassed the relationship. Israel said he thought he had a song for that, and I thought it would be a ballad, but when he played it, it was amazing! It’s the lead single for the soundtrack. It plays a big part in the movie; the song is playing when my character first goes to church. I think it’s one of the most clever plays on words I’ve ever heard in the genre.

TBGB: What other gospel songs on the soundtrack support the storyline?

IH: One of the first songs I brought to the table was a song that my wife and I wrote called “Providence.” It’s a love song and the theme occurs throughout the film several times. I sing it with Lalah Hathaway for the soundtrack and the film. It’s beautiful—strings, nylon-string guitars. It spells out their relationship.

There’s another song called “I Surrender.” Surrender is the hashtag of this film. I wrote this song a number of years back, but it was so pertinent to this project, we included it. The last song we added, going into the wrapping up of the film and the soundtrack, is one my wife and I wrote with Donnie McClurkin for Donnie to sing, called “Come As You Are.” It’s the tagline for the film. Donnie, Marvin Sapp, and I sing it, along with our crew from South Africa, New Breed Africa, led by a guy named Neville D. It’s so cinematic. It’s The Lion King meets the Hawkins! It’s Johannesburg and Oakland, California together! It’s global and gospel at the same time. “It’s Not Over” from our album, Jesus at the Center, is also on the soundtrack.

Other artists on the soundtrack include Beckah Shae, T-Bone, Sheila E and a great Latin artist named Lucia Parker. Fred Hammond and the United Tenors are on it. Toby Mac, Ja Rule. It’s a big soundtrack. Go big or go home, that’s what we say!

TBGB: Any other songs from the movie that you anticipate releasing as singles?

IH: I think “Come As You Are” and “I Surrender.” The theatrical release is October 18, then we get into the holidays, then the DVD will come out, and the movie will be on TV in the spring. So the soundtrack will have several cycles.

TBGB: Tell us about the promotional campaign for the film.

GM: Israel and I stumbled upon this process, the movie tour idea—I’m not saying we invented it, but we kind of invented it! When we put out Jesus at the Center last year, Israel being the workhorse touring artist that he is, we got on a bus to talk about the album, and we used that platform to leak information about the film, too. It was around this time last year, in fact. There’s nothing better than grassroots marketing, being in front of people as opposed to doing a television commercial. TV commercials are great, but we wanted to revisit the tour idea before the film came out.

We have a beautiful touring bus. Our film talent is with us and we are going to churches in a number of cities, opening up with some music, showing clips from the film, showing interviews, doing some Q&A, showing trailers, and giving away a ton of merchandise. We have a social media person on the bus who’s handling Twitter and Facebook. In a way, it’s like artists used to do it: go straight to the venue, to the people.

This is an important step because this genre of film, and the music, have been looked at as a stepchild. The records and movies have been called low-budget, as having no talent. We’re going to let people know that Christians can make films just as good, or better, than secular people. We’re going to show the churches that we are here to stay. We filmed it with the best cameras, the best lenses, a top crew. I think people will be impressed by the cinematic look and feel of the film.

We’re already working on the next couple of films, and will start pre-production at the top of the year. We are going to go bigger each time.

TBGB: So you have more to come!

GM: We have films, records, whatever it is that we can use to spread the Gospel. Can you imagine if the disciples had what we had today? If they had social media, and buses, and films?

TBGB: Are you happy with Ja Rule’s performance of you in the film?

GM: Are you kidding me? Ja Rule killed it! He played me better than me! He came to church, talked about pastor mannerisms, and all that, but it wasn’t a stretch for him to play this part. He’s an amazing actor. He’s going to shock people when they see him in this lead role. I’d put him up against any lead man in Hollywood.

TBGB: Israel, what will New Breed be doing in the coming months?

IH: We’re out on this tour now; the whole crew is out here. We’re also gearing up for something special next year. We’ll probably do another live record overseas. We’re looking at Asia, to do something global, something big. I’ll certainly be sharing some of that in the future.

TBGB: What do you want filmgoers to come away with?

GM: That church is for everybody. There’s a line in the movie: “God doesn’t want somebody like me in his church.” I’ve said that before, but it’s not true.

IH: We want people to know that God is not asking us to clean up our act and then come to Him. He wants us to come in our current situation so that he can do what he does best. Come as you are. That really is the underlying message of this film.

I’m In Love with a Church Girl opens at select theaters Friday, October 18, and the soundtrack release date is Tuesday, October 22.  “Sunday Kinda Love” will be available on iTunes starting October 9.

For more information on the film, including behind the scenes footage, go to www.iminlovewithachurchgirl.com or follow the tour on Twitter: @churchgirlmovie.