Brother Jim - The Campus Ministry

The Campus Ministry

After meeting Brother Jed in his home church about a year after his conversion, Jim Gilles arranged to preach with Jed at Southern Illinois University for a week during his vacation time. The two worked well together, and they arranged to work together for another week with Max Lynch and Cindy Lassiter the following spring. In the fall of 1982, Gilles began preaching full-time with Brother Jed, Max Lynch and Cindy Lassiter. He has since travelled nationwide to 328 colleges and universities preaching to students.

Gilles utilizes the "confrontational evangelism" variant of evangelism that is shared by many street-preachers and other evangelicals, who hope that a spiritual rebuke will influence sinners to repent. Brother Jim's confrontational style of preaching have resulted in him being arrested at least 30 times in the last 25 years for various charges ranging from trespassing, loitering, disorderly conduct, breach of peace and unreasonable noise on university campuses and public sidewalks.

Most recently, Brother Jim gained media attention when he filed a federal lawsuit against Murray State University in late September 2006. The lawsuit alleges that Murray State deprived him of his rights to free speech when he was told that he would have to stop preaching until he secured sponsorship from a campus organization. Gilles contended that he has frequented Murray State since the 1980s and never before required a sponsor. Giles lost the lawsuit when the court ruled Murray State's speech policy requiring speakers to obtain on-campus sponsors is legal. However, he reached a settlement to be allowed to speak on the Murray State campus in November 2007.