A Pioneer | Jennifer Edwards searched for other students who shared her passions: Jesus and art.

Who the [obscenity] would put that up at a school like this?" barked a teacher's assistant, looking at a flier.

Jennifer Edwards braced herself: "I did."

"I don't ever want you to look me in the eye again!" he shot back and walked away, leaving Jennifer alone by the elevators in an industrial-looking hallway. The offensive piece: an invitation to a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting at one of the country's best and most prestigious art schools—the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

"I had never had anyone hate me for what I believed before that," Jennifer says. She and five courageous students lead Campus Crusade at the SAIC. The volatile environment forces the students to daily ask themselves, "What do I really believe?" and "Is Christ worth the battle?" Their answers affect everything from their art to their relationships with other students.

Anomalous in every aspect, the SAIC classroom and residence buildings are camouflaged within the city, scattered individually throughout a few blocks, not clustered like a conventional campus.

During her freshman year in one of those classrooms, Lois Song received an assignment to paint something important to her, then present it to the class. She painted a picture of Jesus, and then, being last in the presentation order, fidgeted while waiting. Maybe I'll say it's Bob Marley, she thought as one student before her presented paintings about Satan, then another presented one about black magic.

After a quick prayer for strength, the pastor's daughter presented her painting of Jesus. Her classmates, usually quick to respond with comments and questions, sat sober-faced and silent. What seemed like hour-long minutes passed, with only one response, and the class ended. The black-magic student approached Lois. "I respect your boldness," he said walking out with her. "That took a lot of courage."

"The best thing about being a Christian here is the opportunity to reach out," says Lois, the Campus Crusade leader in charge of worship. "When I came here, my worry was that I'd fall away from God, and actually, it's made me stronger."

Lois, now a sophomore, found strength in numbers. When she came to the SAIC, she found the Campus Crusade ministry already started, thanks to Jennifer.

	Diverse and Dedicated | On Monday nights the SAIC student leaders gather in Jennifer and Alisa's room to create the content for their weekly meeting.

When Jennifer had a tough first year and a half at the school, her older sister, involved with Campus Crusade at the University of Iowa, advised Jennifer to check the organization's Web site. There she located a staff member in the Chicago area—Ana Arias. Ana helps direct Campus Crusade's 10-member metro team in the city as part of the Catalytic Ministry.

The Catalytic division allows the students on a campus to take full ownership of the ministry at their school, while consulting with a team of Campus Ministry staff members who oversee the work on multiple campuses.

While Jennifer first took responsibility of the SAIC ministry, she was not alone. She met with Ana frequently. Ana listened to Jennifer describe a photography professor who threatened to fail her for walking out on a presentation of lewd and sexually explicit photographs of the professor. They wept over the campus—grieving the absence of God. In the 136-year history of the SAIC, no Christian group had ever been officially recognized as a student organization. Together they asked God to build a ministry.

He did. In order to meet school requirements, Jennifer found two other girls to sign a petition, and a museum worker reluctantly agreed to be a faculty advisor. The administration assigned them a study lounge to hold their weekly meetings. Then Jennifer started to advertise the meetings with fliers, like the one that offended her teacher's assistant.

A year and a half later, 25 students attend the meetings, surpassing the expectations of both the students and the Catalytic staff members. But, just as a blank canvas doesn't turn into a masterpiece overnight, this budding ministry still grapples with how to reach out beyond the comfort of their group to share the love of Jesus with their peers.

In a residence hall located above the Borders bookstore on State Street, five other student leaders gather with Jennifer, some after finishing a 12-hour day of classes. In Jennifer and Alisa Chen's room, the student leaders scatter on the floor around a plywood coffee table covered in black-ink doodles and drawings, and brainstorm about the best way to communicate at the weekly meeting about the power of the Resurrection to both the Christian and non-Christian students attending. In addition to the messages at the meetings, the students try to meet with any first-time attendees, hoping to present the gospel again.

Alisa, a senior majoring in interior architecture, meets regularly with sophomore Tabitha McCollough to train her in ministry skills like evangelism. Alisa takes Tabitha along to a meeting with one of those newcomers. Amid the clutter of conversations in a cafeteria, Alisa gave a clear presentation of the gospel while Tabitha looked on. Later that day, Tabitha called Alisa, wondering if they were being insensitive at the appointment earlier in the day. Didn't they need to know the girl better, she asked, before telling her about Jesus? Alisa brought the question to her trainer, Ana.

"The best thing you can give someone is an opportunity to say yes to God's love," Ana explained to Alisa. Alisa then explained the answer to Tabitha, continuing the chain of discipleship.

Straight and Narrow | "On this campus," says Joel Dougherty (above, in class), "I want to see men who delight in the truth, who stand up for their convictions."

In the same way, Joel Dougherty trains sophomore David McDaniel. Joel, now a senior, leads the weekly meetings. He studies God's Word, apologetics materials and worldview critiques to know what he's up against. Typical of current thinking, his peers at the school believe it's cool to be searching for something, but not cool to find anything, especially anything labeled truth.

In fact, artists striving to be "cutting edge" and Christian at the same time are told they seek the impossible.

"Students don't apply to our programs if their art is old-fashioned or conservative," writes SAIC art professor James Elkins on his Web site. "The admissions committees for the big departments (printmaking, painting, film/video, sculpture) wouldn't admit a student who wasn't savvy about Andres Serrano's Piss Christ [a photograph of a crucifix submerged in a jar of urine] or Jeff Koon's pornographic photos. At least that is what we want."

In the face of such opposition, Joel and the other Campus Crusade leaders realize reaching their campus begins by creating excellent art, thereby glorifying their Creator, and gaining respect for it.

"[Communicating with artists] hinges on how eloquent you are and how you go about presenting yourself," Joel says, looking through horn-rimmed glasses. "If I went out and painted crucifixes all the time, that would gain me no respect. But if I can go out and make my art connect to an experience or a question everyone has, like 'What happens after death?' or 'What makes life worth living for right now?', then that will lead them to ask questions about where I am coming from instead of me forcing it on them."

Campus Crusade's Chicago Metro Team director David Martinelli regularly meets with Joel, guiding him as he guides the ministry. David works with 12 of the schools in the central Chicago area, also known as "the Loop." In the fall of 2000, when he and his team surveyed the Loop schools, they tried to pick an influential dorm, group or place to begin a ministry.

"I would never have started at the SAIC, and yet I feel like that's what God has put His finger on," says David. "We send students from other Loop schools to the weekly meeting at the Art Institute just to give them a vision of what could happen on their campus."

The sharpened faith developing in these young artists proves that a hot furnace makes a hard tool. Yet, as these instruments slowly chisel a ministry out of rock, it will likely not get easier. Today they will have to ask "What do I really believe?" and "Is Christ worth the battle?"

They will have to ask those questions again tomorrow.

You can contact the writer at Beth.Bahe@ccci.org.