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Religious Life
The Center for Religious and Spiritual Life
Our Mission
The mission of The Center for Religious and Spiritual Life is to provide the campus community with spiritual and religious support, leadership, and opportunities for growth through the following seven tasks:
- Pastoral Care
- Spiritual Formation
- Purpose and Calling
- Mission and Service
- Interfaith Engagement
- Family Care and Engagement
- Connection to the Wider Church
Mars Hill is a liberal arts university. Its defining Christian commitment reflects the 150+ years of its Baptist tradition. The Center for Religious and Spiritual Life provides a safe place for students to share what is going on in their lives, and helps students, faculty, and staff integrate faith and learning. The service, worship, and fellowship times that our office offers provide opportunities to apply classroom learning to daily living. Here you will discover students and their mentors joining together to explore ways to put faith in action.
Through the Center for Religious and Spiritual Life, we sponsor weekly worship services, involve students in various student ministry groups, provide pastoral counseling and guidance to the college community, and participate in positive relationships with congregations and agencies who support our mission.
As you browse the rest of the site you will discover more of what we do and how we might be helpful to you. As always, we invite you to stop by and visit with us in Bentley Fellowship Hall!
Explore the Mars Hill University Religious Identity Statement
True North
One of the most important ways in which Campus Ministry carries out its mission is by organizing weekly gatherings, called True North. True North is the weekly chapel service at Mars Hill, held Tuesday mornings at 11:00 in Broyhill Chapel (unless otherwise noted). Although worship is a vital part of True North, the program is designed to examine that place where faith meets reason. Sometimes the service is designed to encourage thought, and sometimes it is designed to encourage the experience of worship. But always, it is about examining the impact of a living faith on the individual and on the world.
P&J Coffeehouse
P&J Coffeehouse, Peace & Justice Coffeehouse, is a space where you can come for FREE Camden’s coffee and a chance to hear from local partners about their efforts to promote peace and justice in our community, state, nation, and world.
“When you want a little justice with your coffee.”
Respect MHU
Mars Hill University is committed to fostering a safe and welcoming experience for all members of and visitors to the MHU campus community. The work of creating and maintaining an inclusive environment requires the efforts of the entire university, and we recognize that each member of the community holds some responsibility to foster an environment in which its members can thrive without fear of hate or bias. The creation of Respect MHU allows for the community to work together to report and address incidents of bias and hate on campus, thereby enhancing and contributing to the authentic pursuit of knowledge and truth that lies at the heart of our institutional identity and purpose.
Respect MHU is a structure that allows campus community members who have been the targets or witnesses of a bias incident to bring these incidents to the attention of university administration in an easily accessible and understandable manner.
Respect MHU builds community by:
- Creating a process whereby members of the campus community can report acts of bias and hate,
- Establishing a Bias Incident Report Team (BIRT) of MHU employees to respond to incidents of bias and hate and recommend potential next steps, and
- Working collaboratively across campus to reduce bias incidents and promote a more healthy multicultural learning and living environment.
Bias incidents are defined as harmful incidents – verbal, physical, or virtual – that target an individual or group based upon actual or perceived demographic or personal characteristics (including, but not limited to: gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, age, disability, or physical appearance).
Religious Life at MHU
An education which involves the whole person – mind, body and spirit – is the goal at Mars Hill University. This ambition corresponds to the instruction of Christ in Matthew 22:37, to ‘‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
The name, “Mars Hill,” is based on Acts 17, in which Paul ascended the Areopagos (or Mars’ hill in the KJV) to proclaim Christ to the intellectuals of Athens through reason and persuasive logic.
“Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.” (Acts 17:22-23, KJV)
“Mars Hill,” then, represents more than a location or a point in history. The name is a metaphor for that place where reason and faith intertwine and lay a foundation for nurturing intellect and character.
Mars Hill students may experience this crossroads of faith and reason through a rigorous and wide-ranging examination of the liberal arts, paired with the spiritual challenge and growth available through the work of MHU Campus Ministries and Christian Student Groups.