Lately God has been teaching Nicole C. Mullen about the importance of ordinary, everyday people. So much so that her upcoming album will consist of songs telling stories of the least that God has made greatest in the overall plan of His kingdom.
“These are the stories that I want to represent in a song in order to say, ‘This is how the Lord has shown His face here,’” the Cincinnati native told Baptist Press (BP).
“Even through Scripture I’m often reminded that God didn’t necessarily take the kings and the queens of the day to do great things.
“He took a shepherd boy to make him into a king to do something great, or He took the orphan girl to make her into a queen to do something great,” she said. “But they didn’t start out that way; they started out as ordinary, everyday people. The God that did that is the same yesterday, today and forever.”
Mullen, who won a Dove Award for Female Vocalist of the Year in 2002 and is known for such hits as “Redeemer” and “Call on Jesus,” said faith in Jesus Christ works in everyday life.
“It’s not just something that should work on Sunday while we’re in the pew at church worshiping,” she said. “But it’s supposed to work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday too.”
Mullen and her husband, David, recently returned from a trip to Kenya and Uganda with Compassion International, and there Mullen picked up more ideas of what ordinary people who are great in the Kingdom look like.
“I saw that we really are a part of the upside down kingdom, where the rich are poor and the poor are rich,” she said. “It’s so obvious that those that we show pity for being poor are a lot more wealthy than we are. They’ve seen the hand of God, where we don’t have a clue. They’ve seen Him provide when we’ve never seen Him provide. Their faith and their hope in Him is so strong. Their gratitude in the small things makes it so obvious that they’re richer.”
And because she believes so much in the potential of ordinary people to be used by God in marvelous ways, Mullen devotes herself to mentoring a group of young girls in her town. Each Wednesday Mullen leads the Baby Girls Club at New Hope Academy in Franklin, Tenn. The girls generally range in age from 5 to 17, she said, and everyone is welcome. The number of girls ranges from 20 to 50 each week.
“We meet for two hours, sometimes it’s three because we can’t get out of there,” she said. “We sing, we dance, we eat, we do crafts, we write songs. We have a talent show almost every week where if they have a talent like singing or poetry, we give them a little time to share. We give tips on being in front of people.”
Mullen said she enjoys encouraging young girls because she remembers what it was like to be not yet a woman but not a little girl anymore.
“There was a lady at our church named Cecilia, and I remember she would take me to her house sometimes and she would do my hair and speak into my life,” Mullen recounted. “She would encourage me.”
Mullen and her helpers teach the girls real-life lessons such as how to forgive a friend at school when punching the friend would seem more natural. The club’s motto is 1 Timothy 4:12, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.” They even sing a song about what it means to be an example at such a young age.
Mullen said, “ I pray for my girls all the time, that they would have hope in their heart and have a personal encounter with God.” (BP)
Share with others: