SANTA ANA, Calif. -- Late one evening in his tattoo shop, Sid Stankovits bent over the outstretched leg of Jeff Houston, who had his shoe off and sock turned down. To the buzz of his electric needle, Stankovits drew a picture on Houston's calf: a kneeling angel, followed by a cross and Easter lilies.

Tattoos tend to be on the secular side, featuring exotic flowers or the odd flaming skull. But in Stankovits' shop, and on his own skin, there are designs with a difference. Yes, he has one tattoo that says "Sid" and another of a crouching panther. But there is also a portrait of Jesus, a cross and a pair of praying hands."This is a job, but our lives are a ministry," said Stankovits, 27, proprietor of Sid's Tattoo Parlor, a tidy, brightly lighted space in a modest strip mall in this city south of Los Angeles. "We're totally blessed that we can bring our ministries into our jobs."

The three men who work at Sid's are born-again Christians. So are many of their young customers, who include Christian rock musicians, as well as others like 20-year-old Nick Crocker, whose left arm is marked by a banner proclaiming, "1 Thess. 5:17," the biblical verse in which the Apostle Paul says, "Pray without ceasing."

Three academic researchers who have studied Sid's have discerned a trend emerging, at least on the West Coast. They wrote a scholarly paper titled "Marked for Jesus: Sacred Tattooing Among a 'New Generation' of Evangelicals."

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In it the three say that "for a small but growing subculture within evangelical Christianity, religious tattooing is becoming an increasingly legitimate expression of individuality, identity and faith."

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