Jami Fair hates algebra. The brown-eyed high-school senior smiles sheepishly after admitting it. Actually, Jami smiles nearly all the time, except in Algebra II. "That's why I'm in it my senior year," says Loveland High's homecoming queen. "My day gets better after second bell."

Her boyfriend, Tony Cook, begins each day of his final high-school semester in a calculus class. The lanky homecoming king folds his 6-foot, 2-inch frame into a gray desk and pulls the book out of his backpack. While working on an in-class equation, Tony literally pulls his hair out, one long frizzy strand at a time, unaware of this dramatic display. Like Jami, math does not come easily to him.

However, ask Jami or Tony about spiritual mathematics, and, as they say in this suburb of Cincinnati, that's a whole other ballgame. Through Student Venture, the high-school ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, both students have learned that addition and multiplication can be an exciting part of the Christian life. As in algebra or calculus, spiritual mathematics requires an application of the basics. And--as Jami and Tony experience every time they take a math test--you have to depend on God's intervention to see spiritual math work itself out.

Tony's lessons in numbers began with addition, when he first became a Christian. During freshman year, his good friends Nick and Jimmy invited Tony to hang out at the Student Venture meetings with them. He attended one or two large-group meetings, then during his sophomore year went to a Student Venture conference in Michigan. That weekend, he invited Jesus Christ into his life and began a personal relationship with God.

The change in Tony's life was noticeable to everyone, but not always well-received, providing a lesson in subtraction. "Me and my friends cussed a lot before; that was a regular thing for us. When I came back, you know, I stopped cussing." Typically logical, Tony went on: "I just figured God wouldn't want me to cuss--when I go to church do I cuss? No, so obviously something is wrong with it. Some of my friends noticed that. They went one way and I went the other and I basically lost some friends."

Unlike Tony, Jami grew up attending church regularly. As a freshman, nearly three years before her relationship with Tony began, she and her best friend, Marissa, went to a Student Venture conference in Atlanta.

"After that," remembers Becky Fair, Jami's mother, "they both decided to break it off with their unsaved boyfriends and decided to get rid of their [music] CDs that weren't honoring to the Lord. Ever since then, she's had a quiet time almost every day and has been growing significantly." Her mother, who as a student helped start a Bible club herself, is thankful for Student Venture. "Jami made a profession of faith when she was young at a Good News club," she says, "but the real fruit started after the Atlanta conference her freshman year. That may be when she became a true believer."

Helping Tony and Jami learn the numbers are Rick and Melissa Bush, full-time staff members with Student Venture in Loveland. The young couple works to reinforce the basics of Christianity in the lives of teenagers through group Bible studies, weekly meetings, and individual meetings with students. "Rick usually takes the kids out to Burger King somewhere to have a Coke and sit and talk," says Tony's mom, Maria Cook. "Usually he takes somebody else [like another student] with him. I think that makes a kid at that age feel good."

Taking another kid along on the appointment also introduces students to the idea of multiplication. Rick and Melissa want to teach kids how to teach others to explain their faith. "These students are immediately being trained to share their faith," says Sam Teasley, a Student Venture staff member who worked at Loveland. "It teaches them responsibility for the spiritual condition of others, and that ministry should happen now, whether they're 11 years old or 75."

In fact, several high-school students help Rick and Melissa run the middle-school outreach by explaining the games, acting in skits and leading Bible studies.

"Rick has been talking about leaving a legacy, to leave one specific person behind to teach others what you know," Tony says. Much to his parents' surprise and great pleasure, Tony decided to invest his energy in building up his younger brother, Phil, a freshman at Loveland High. "I want to see him grow even closer to the Lord," says Tony, "and I know people in his grade look up to him somewhat. He is probably more of a leader-type personality than I am."

When Tony noticed that his little brother wasn't spending time alone with God, for example, he offered to study the Bible along with him. "I was like, 'OK, why don't you have your quiet time when I have mine?,'" he says. "'You can have it with me and we could read it out loud and stuff.'"

In another instance of spiritual multiplication, Rick read through an evangelistic booklet titled "How to Know God Personally" with a teenager named Scott. "Two weeks later, he took the same green booklet," says Rick, "and with a white-out pen, whited out all my circles and underlines. Then he took it to his mom and did the exact same thing with her."

Teenagers within Student Venture are placed in leadership roles, like making announcements or explaining a game at a large meeting. Many students, such as Jami, may be nudged to lead or co-lead a Bible study of younger students. She co-leads a Bible study of sophomore girls. "In Student Venture," Jami explains, "you can go from learning to leading and teaching. This year they've asked me to do a lot more. I think as you get older, it's just your job."

"I am not the stereotypical Christian," says Tony Cook. "I don't wear preppy clothes and don't wear little crosses and the WWJD bracelets." Tony may not follow the crowd, but he does choose to put God first. Tony's girlfriend, Jami, shares his passion—she co-leads a weekly girls' Bible study (above).

"A lot of groups on campus will be teacher-led," says Emily Pflug, a senior who co-leads a girls' Bible study with a junior. "When it is student-led, it's cool because you are testing yourself to see how much you really know."

Co-leading a Bible study gave Jami just enough confidence to challenge her entire speech-and-drama class this past spring. "We had five to seven minutes to persuade the class in something, so I tried to persuade them that there is a God and that Christianity is the right faith. That was a big thing, and it was scary!"

Jami knows that while spiritual mathematics can be frightening, the rewards often outweigh the risks. One Saturday in March, Jami and Tony went downtown together to pass out food and to talk about God with homeless people. Neither teenager felt comfortable, but they both believed the adventure was an important application of their faith. "I want witnessing to be a normal, average, everyday thing, you know?", says Tony. He relaxes back into his chair like he doesn't care, but his words belie his apathetic posture: "At every conference, I always think to myself, OK, I'm all pumped up about it now, and I shared my faith with people now, but I've got to make sure that when I go home, I make it, like, a regular thing."

Balancing his passion to serve God with college-prep homework, a social life and dishwashing duties at the American Pie Café requires a lesson in division. Through Student Venture, Tony's learned to prioritize time alone with God. On his own initiative, Tony even has a weekly quiet time with his girlfriend. The two students have studied the book of Romans and read through Henry Blackaby's study Experiencing God. In eight months of dating, they only missed one week. "Sometimes during the week we can only see each other once," explains Tony, "so when we see each other, that's what we do."

Numbers measuring Student Venture's ministry at Loveland High rack up impressively, despite Loveland's relatively small enrollment of 1,000 students. According to Mike Parrott, director of Student Venture in greater Cincinnati, nearly half of the kids involved in Student Venture in his region (17 schools) attend Loveland High. Last spring, five Bible studies were student-led at Loveland, out of 12 in the region. "Our other ministries usually run 30 to 40 kids each week," says Mike, "where Loveland typically has 60 to 70. Obviously, God is moving among the kids."

For Tony and Jami, the numbers don't matter. Long after algebra and calculus fade from memory, the young couple will be applying lessons learned in Student Venture. They may not remember the square root of "x," but they will both know for sure that their lives count.