HAMILTON, ON-A Christian club banned from meeting inside the Hamilton secondary school its members attend hasn’t let the opposition slow them down. Instead, about 50 students pack up chairs each week and trek half a kilometre to meet outdoors, no matter what the weather.

Calling themselves the "Friday Lunch Group,” the club was first assembled in 2000 by Mark Bonam youth pastor of nearby Harmony Baptist Church. The students met at lunch once a week, hosting pointed, honest dialogue on the Christian struggle with sexuality, suicide, substance abuse and other difficult topics.

The group generally kept a low profile until last fall when principal Margaret Bowman, on the job for just a year, informed them they were no longer welcome to meet during the day on school property.

Since that time, the group has met in a grassy patch away from school property, where they have been subjected to jeers from fellow students and passing motorists as well as bitter weather conditions-one day reached -36¼ Celsius, and it rained on the students for four consecutive weeks this spring.

Despite the inconvenience and the opposition, Jared Brock, a Grade 12 spokesman for the Friday Lunch Group, says, "The group has grown both in numbers and in spiritual maturity. We’ve seen six people come to Christ because of the Westmount group in one year, and it’s because curiosity turned into conversion.”

In the group’s early years as few as two students attended the meetings, but attendance has swelled in recent months to nearly 50 regulars.

Bowman, who could not be reached for comment, based her decision to oust the group on a 1990 memo from Ontario’s Deputy Minister of Education banning religious indoctrination in schools. Included in that policy was a rule that religious clubs and groups could only meet before or after school hours.

The school board supported Bowman and shut down the Friday Lunch Group and similar daytime Christian groups across the school district. Students from other faiths, including Islam, were allowed to continue daily prayers and weekly meetings with spiritual leaders during the school day.

Christian students and parents called the move blatant religious discrimination and intolerance. They took their case to the school board, arguing not that the Muslim students’ rights be taken away for equality, but that their own rights be restored.

A proposal from the school board in March 2004, which would have allowed the students to return indoors if they made certain concessions regarding multi-faith perspectives, received very little student or community support. The Friday Lunch Group called it a violation of their Canadian freedoms of association, speech and religion.

Bonam and fellow pastor Blake Davidson have been working with the school board to revise the proposal. New amendments, which were to be discussed the board’s April 26 meeting, would set minimum levels of multi-faith integration at two meetings per semester, and require that the new "faith groups” have a multi-denominational makeup.

Javid Mirza, president of the Muslim Association of Hamilton, hails the latest proposal, calling it a solution to the school board’s outdated policies, and a new opportunity for interfaith understanding.

"Every religion fosters harmony and good relationships among brothers,” says Mirza. "This new agreement will give us the opportunity to together develop our youth into better spiritual leaders.”

Board superintendent Charles Reid agrees. "I think this protocol is going meet the needs of all faith groups-Christians, Muslims, Hindus and others-while at the same time respecting the application of the Education Act.”

But until the board accepts the proposal, the Friday Lunch Group will continue to meet outside. Even if they are allowed back indoors, the students in the group will be forever changed.

"They’re no longer just students,” says Bonam, "and they’re no longer quiet Christians. They’re little revolutionaries, scaled-down models of Jesus Christ Himself. I’m so proud of them.”