Mark Salomon of the Southern California band Stavesacre is your prototypical new-millennium rocker -- tattooed, literate (with a book out) and often on the road. Oh, he also is a Christian.

When Stavesacre formed in the mid-'90s, it did what a lot of rock bands with Christians do: It played Christian clubs and festivals and made albums that were sold mainly to Christians.

But for its fourth album, the band is on an exodus, of sorts, from that industry. With Stavesacre released last week on the wholly secular Nitro Records, band members hope the focus will be more on music and less on what they believe.

''We are trying to do what every other band does: just get bigger and continue to do what we love,'' Salomon says.

They're not alone. At a time when Christian music is one of the hottest niches in the business, a small wave of artists who cut their teeth there is pushing beyond its borders. As a result, more artists with Christian leanings are flying under the religious radar, showing up everywhere from MTV to the Billboard charts.

Two trends are behind the musical moves. First is the tenor of the post-Sept. 11 music business, which has mainstream labels more accepting of music that reflects faith. Second is a brewing aversion by some artists to the church-state separation of Christian musicians into their own sub-genre.

In recent weeks, the Billboard charts have been peppered with secular-label releases by bands that started in the Christian music industry. Among them: Blindside's Silence and Project 86's Truthless Heroes. Out Tuesday: Chevelle's Wonder What's Next.

''The labels are discovering there's essentially an amazing AAA farm club,'' says Mark Joseph, author of The Rock and Roll Rebellion: Why People of Faith Abandoned Rock Music and Why They're Coming Back. ''If a band can convince a label they can turn a profit, many labels will turn a blind eye to orthodox notions of faith in music.''

By no means is there a mass exodus from the Christian industry, which is robust. With such stars as Third Day and Michael W. Smith, the genre posted $920 million in sales in 2001, according to Frank Breeden, president of the Gospel Music Association (GMA).

A small but growing part of those sales, however, is from artists on mainstream labels -- including P.O.D., gospel singer Yolanda Adams and gospel duo Mary Mary -- that also sell in Christian bookstores. Even Stavesacre's new album has Christian market distribution. ''Crossover now means crossing into our marketplace,'' Breeden says.

Among the reasons for change:

* Escaping a label. For some, the idea of ''Christian rock'' -- once parodied in a Seinfeld episode as ''very positive'' but ''not like those real musicians'' -- has become too narrow a definition for their art.

''We're all Christians, but that's not what our band is about,'' says Paul McCoy of 12 Stones. The band is on tour with Wind-Up Records label-mates Creed, another band with Christian overtones that is hugely successful in the secular market. ''Once you have that (Christian band) label, you tend to lose a lot of the people you're wanting to target with your music.''

For all its success as a Christian-theme band, P.O.D. shunned this year's Dove Awards, the GMA's version of the Grammys. (Breeden notes, however, that he has a plaque from the band thanking him for the GMA's help with sales.)

''We don't really want to be a part of it,'' P.O.D. singer Sonny Sandoval told The (Nashville) Tennessean in April. ''We're not trying to be a part of this little -- it's almost like a secret-society type of thing.''

Meanwhile, some bands are so touchy about the Christian rock tag that they don't even want to talk about avoiding it. Blindside, Chevelle and Project 86 -- bands that have at one time courted the Christian market -- all declined interviews; publicists said the bands don't call themselves ''Christian.''

''They'd just be putting themselves back in the box they're trying to get out of,'' says Doug Van Pelt, editor and publisher of HM, a magazine that covers mostly Christian rock. Not coincidentally, Internet chat boards for some of these bands have fans asking, ''Are they still Christian?''

* Boosting sales. The multiplatinum success of P.O.D. -- and even less blatant but still Christian-leaning bands Creed and Lifehouse -- has whet the appetite for bands looking to break beyond the niche.

''Obviously we're not some corporate rock band,'' Stavesacre's Salomon says. ''But we have to think about those things that make the most sense for us when it comes to paying the bills.''

Formed in Southern California in the mid-1990s, the band with influences from The Cure to Black Sabbath carved a devoted following on the Christian circuit. But Stavesacre's first three albums, on the independent label Tooth and Nail, which features mostly Christian-based bands, sold about 90,000 copies combined. ''That's not the kind of growth we're looking for,'' Salomon says.

* Artistic license. Whether it's true or not, some artists perceive that working in the Christian industry would limit their art.

''I didn't want people to tell me what to write about and have a rule book of how to write songs,'' says Lifehouse lead singer and songwriter Jason Wade. Lifehouse began as a church worship band, and Wade remembers a woman returning a CD of the band's early songs because the words weren't ''Christian'' enough.

''Subject matter that deals with brutal honesty sometimes offends people that just want it to all be perfect,'' he says. DreamWorks signed the band and recently worked a deal to have Sparrow Records sell Lifehouse's new album in Christian bookstores.

Driven as it is by hit radio formats, the Christian market also tends to shun artsier fare, which Kevin Max of the platinum-selling Christian group dc talk found last year when he released a solo album, Stereotype Be. With Middle Eastern sounds and provocative lyrics, it didn't fly off Christian bookstore shelves.

Still, Max says, ''It did cause a lot of people within the Christian subculture to say, 'Do we have to write lyrics about God? Do we have to write Jesus into every sentence? Or can we write songs about human struggles, about human relationship and pain and questioning and doubt?' ''

* Spiritual matters. Mini-sermons and worship segments are a legacy of Christian concerts, but that leaves some bands chafing.

''I am not a preacher; that's a spiritual gift I don't believe I have,'' says Salomon, who also has written the autobiographical Simplicity (Skeleton Key Publishing, $20). ''Because of the society we live in . . . we're taught that anyone in the public eye must automatically be some sort of leader, and because I'm a Christian, I simply must be a preacher. They go to our show and we don't preach, and they think we've turned our backs on God.''

Salomon says he has turned a cynical eye toward the Jesus-junk culture he has found on the Christian circuit, such as T-shirts showing Jesus in Terminator-style sunglasses and the caption ''I'll be back.''

''After awhile the joke wears thin,'' he says.

Whether these stirrings will bring more change to the Christian industry -- or the secular charts -- remains to be seen. Still, even the GMA's Breeden sees something positive in the discontent: