The Historic and Future Role of the CCM at MC

MC’s connection to the Presbyterian Church, USA, provides an underlying yet unifying framework for all our activities and classes at Maryville College. 

But what does this mean? Does it mean that MC is a Christian college? What does it mean for those who have no religious beliefs, or consider themselves skeptics? How has this connection influenced our past, present, and future as Maryville College students? 

For these questions and many more, there’s one place fit to answer them, and that is the Center for Campus Ministry (CCM). 

This isn’t just another building on campus, it’s both a historical and current representation of our connection to religion and spirituality. There’s no one better to answer these questions than Rev. Paul Earheart-Brown. 

As a former Maryville College student, Brown is immensely knowledgeable about what Maryville College was and what it is now.

“The heritage of the Presbyterian Church USA has been one of not being afraid to embrace these [skeptical] questions, permitting questioning to take them wherever it goes,” he said. “The heritage of this institution is one of giving space for those kinds of struggles and questions in an affirming, supportive and loving community.” 

Brown made it clear that Maryville College is not meant to “safeguard the boundaries of what our community is and be super dogmatic, demanding you believe the right things to be a part of our community.” 

The wonderful ideology of Brown and Maryville College as a whole is that “belonging precedes belief.”

“Today, young people still ask these questions of whether God exists or whether there’s justice in the universe, but the church is sometimes not a welcoming place that they feel like they can struggle with these questions.”

Brown touched on what the role of the CCM is for our students today and into the future; drawing on our heritage, he said, “our chapel community here fits a lot of that yearning in people’s lives for these questions of ultimate significance, so I see Maryville College as having faith-based initiatives that allow young people who may be disillusioned with the church to still find belonging and affirmation of these questions and struggles.” 

So how does this apply to MC students with no or little religious affiliation? What is this faith-based or religious touchstone meant to provide these students? Brown reassured that the CCM is a place for all students with or without a religious background.

 “I hope that the CCM experience here teaches [students] that there is another way to be religious, one that values community and belonging first, one that listens to each other and learns from each other’s stories, and from that, we can have grace for each other. 

“Every religion has its gatekeepers, its more fundamentalist, its more militant practitioners, and every tradition has its more fluid groups that value belonging over beliefs. It’s about engaging in conversation with all of those traditions and participating in interfaith dialogue, embracing that you don’t have to fit in these neat categories and that there’s value in that.” 

Another former Maryville College student and member of the CCM, Rev. Jessica Lewis, expanded on the history of religious practices at MC.

“It used to be that Maryville college students were required to go to chapel every morning and were required to tell where they went to church on Sunday,” she said, pointing out that she thinks this was not the best way to spread their message. 

Today, the CCM serves as “a ministry of presence,” which Lewis described by saying, “we are here if you need us, but we aren’t going to force you to do anything.” She called faith on campus “a thread that is threaded through a lot of things on campus”

“Sometimes they might find [faith] in the college woods, some might find it when they are with students from a different club or organization, some might find it in congregations or with faith organizations off campus,” Lewis explained. 

This idea of opening up faith to not just encompass chapel services led Lewis to echo Brown’s ideas, stating, “Maryville College is kind of this magic third way, you have colleges that are church-related that dictate what you are supposed to believe, and you have state school where faith is taken out of it. 

“A Presbyterian minister founded us; we were originally a seminary. We have some of those values, but don’t make everyone ascribe to a certain denomination or faith.”

The CCM’s mission is to be a ministry of presence that allows for speculative questions and integrating faith into learning and life. But there’s one last nagging question students might have: how does this benefit me?

Lewis eagerly jumped at this question, saying, “to go out into the real world can be scary and fearful, so already having that time at college to ask those questions of ‘where do I find hope and courage,’ ‘where do I find meaning’ are important things to fall back on. 

“To believe that you are valued tends to allow you to see the value in others as well,” she added.

The expansion of faith and spirituality is the expansion of love — to learn to love yourself and others, then to love “all of creation,” as Lewis described. It seems this old building in the center of campus is not merely pretty to look at but is meant to serve as a remnant of times past, a welcoming and safe place for current students and a place they can always think back on for years to come. 

This building is more than its history; it is a beacon of the call to love all things. Even during a cold, cloudy day, its lights stay on, perpetuating this “ministry of presence.”