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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 the Campus Center!
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.”
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.