The Choir of the Daughters of St. Paul has recorded a dozen albums, selling more than 500,000 copies since 1988.

It has won three major awards for excellence in media for its albums since 1993. The choir's music has been heard on two movie sound-tracks. With the 2002 release Sing Your Praise the sisters made their first foray into the upbeat contemporary-Christian genre: It's got “praise-and-worship” songs that make you want to clap your hands and sing along.

The international order of the Daughters of St. Paul dedicates itself to communicating God's love and truth through the media. It operates 20 Pauline Book & Media Centers in the United States and Canada and, from its Boston headquarters, produces books, CDs, magazines, videos and software products. Register correspondent Joseph Pronechen spoke with Sister Bridget Charles Ellis, the music director and CD producer, and Sister Margaret Timothy Sato, a member of the choir, while the group was preparing to perform at World Youth Day in Toronto.

It seems Sing Your Praise is something of a departure for you, style-wise.

We started out in 1988 with a more traditional approach, a “golden-oldies” type of music. Our audience then was primarily made up of people in their 50s and 60s. In 1994, with A Little Love, we changed styles and got a bit more contemporary. We included some songs like “Put a Little Love in Your Heart” and the “Peace Prayer of St. Francis.” But we gave them a totally new approach with the arrangements. The arrangements gave them freshness.

We made the departure in A Little Love from our previously more orchestral tracks to a lot of percussion. We were really happy with the result. We wanted to convey God's love for us in an upbeat manner.

We decided to do a “praise-and-worship” CD because it's a popular form of music for young people. We did concerts and were struck by how drawn into praise and worship the people were. The thought of it is to get people to talk to God, to pray to God. And with each album, we're trying to broaden our audience and reach young people.

You've tried different musical styles but stayed consistent with your basic message.

Through all the albums we've done, we've tried to communicate the message of hope and love. These are the two connecting themes in our albums from when we started out with Marian hymns and then went all the way to Touched by Love in 2001.

In the albums, it's the whole sense of being witnesses and giving testimony to God's love. We also try to evoke a response in the people. That's part of the philosophy behind it. This music can be really able to reach down into the person's soul. With the music, there's more of a potential to move the person toward God.

How do you know when you've succeeded with that aim?

At concerts and by e-mail we hear and have experienced how people are so touched by the music. They really have an experience of God in the music, and they can feel God in a new way. Music is very powerful. One of our main thoughts is, we're doing this music in a way that hopefully facilitates an encounter with God for those persons. It ties into our whole media ministry.

How long does each album take to record?

All the sisters who sing on the album are in other full-time ministries; they're scattered in places such as St. Louis, Boston, Chicago, California and Louisiana. Sister Bridget, who's now studying for a degree in musical composition in Boston in order to write arrangements, has to come up with a nice compilation of songs. Then there's work with the arrangers in California. From the planning stage to the final master takes about a year. A couple of times we've been able to do two albums because we've made the effort to bring all the sisters together.

In the works at the moment is an instrumental album with two music lines. One is orchestrated, one is contemporary. It has current liturgical music, and it's in a meditative style. Our last instrumental, Sojourn, was more lively. This one is prayerful.

Can we look forward to another praise-and-worship album?

Yes, in the future we hope to make more music in this style. With it we're inviting our listeners into a truly prayerful experience of worshiping God — whose love, fidelity and sweet mercies flow from heaven. Our hope is that people are drawn into the music and each song becomes a prayer in which they feel embraced by God's love.

Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.