Mars Hill Statement of Purpose

I am applying to Mars Hill Graduate School to seek a Masters of Divinity, and so I am posting my admissions essays here. Let me know what you think; I have to email them tomorrow.

Essay 1 - Statement of Purpose
Submit a Statement of Purpose essay which may include: What element(s) of your story motivate your desire to study at MHGS? How do you personally understand & identify with the mission & vision of MHGS? What do you hope to learn about yourself, God, the world and others while at MHGS?

I remember a couple of years ago I had been reading through the Old Testament starting in Genesis, and I was so moved by the stories. The Old Testament has some of the best stories I have ever heard, involving kings, prophets and average ordinary people and how they walked with the Lord – or didn’t in some cases – and how many of them experienced God in these really amazing ways that really seemed a lot more real than the way I had been experiencing a relationship with God. After all, I have never had a real audible conversation with him, and he’s never saved me from being burned in a fiery furnace, and I’ve never been led through a desert for forty years by the presence of God in the form of a cloud which also fed me bread which fell from the sky every morning. It really kind of made me jealous, that even though we were all redeemed from sin by the same Jesus Christ, it seemed like these people who lived before Christ became flesh got to experience his presence in a way that looked a lot more concrete than the way I had been experiencing a relationship with him.

I’ll never forget the day while I was sitting on the Capital Metro bus on my way home and thinking about all of these Old Testament characters and how they got to experience God. I think on this particular day I was thinking about the way David, the “man after God’s own heart”, walked with God in a way that seemed so intensely real and personal. In comparing my relationship with God to his I admit I was slightly frustrated by the differences I saw, and I offered a silent prayer in my head, “God, why can’t I have the depth of relationship with you that David has?” Almost before I could finish the thought an answer came back.

“You can,” was the silent but quick reply back to me.

My pursuit of ministry is nothing more than a follow up of that answer to prayer – to be whatever an Old Testament “man of God” looks like in today’s world, whether for me it’s a pastor or a missionary or whatever. I just feel an incredible pull towards serving the Body of Christ in some more direct, vocational capacity.

So where does Mars Hill come into the picture?

An emphasis on the Biblical text is, of course, critical to me when thinking of a place to pursue an M. Div. I feel like the Bible is a lot more than the simple “handbook for living” that it seems to be defined as in so many churches today, and I think this view is expressed well in the doctrinal statement on the “About MHGS” page of your website. Instead of hundreds of bullet points explaining your official position on this theological point or that one, you have a simple but profound statement whose point is only to say that you believe in reading the Bible, and it then goes into only a bit more detail on how you read it. I think that is revolutionary in its simplicity and nothing short of exact when it comes to accuracy. If we are to hold on to the Bible as the inspired Word of God, then I think we would be fools if we didn’t study it in such a way that its words impacted every aspect of our lives. I think that this school’s vision is consistent with the priority and authority that should be associated with the Biblical text.

I originally heard about Mars Hill from the Campus Crusade for Christ staff member who discipled me in college, Will Walker. He told me that if I wanted to go to a seminary which will change my perspective on life and also change my attitude towards the world, then I should go to Mars Hill. And that’s really what I would love to have. It seems like the more stretching and molding and challenging my soul endures the stronger the Lord’s hold on it will become. I’m a pretty young guy, with a lot of sanctification that I will undoubtedly undergo between today and the day that I die, and it seems like your vision with regards to training souls to live lives worthy of the gospel is aligned with the Holy Spirit’s vision for my soul as well.

Furthermore I feel like scriptures are very clear when it comes to the importance of evangelism. We live in a world that often asks the right questions but automatically rules out Christ as the answer. I firmly believe that he is the answer to a lot of life’s toughest questions and it really makes me sad to see all of the people who seek his answers in such dead ends as addiction to drugs, sex or themselves. I really believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the most universally applicable set of ideas ever, and somewhere along the way the church has somehow come to be viewed in many circles as irrelevant to life. I think this is probably one of the greatest tragedies in human history, and I think we should seek to engage our culture in a way that emphasizes that our great faith is not just one for people who lived two thousand years ago, but one that is absolutely crucial to a full life in any historical period, and particularly today in 2006. The importance Mars Hill seems to put on engaging our culture in an effort to better convey the gospel by meeting people where they are at, highlighted even by the name that was chosen for the school, is very exciting to me as a potential student.

I imagine that if I was admitted to Mars Hill I would have a pretty intense three or so years worth of stretching, challenging spiritual growth. I would expect to come out of the experience a much more qualified and capable ambassador for Christ in my increased knowledge and abilities to communicate and articulate that knowledge. I think I would probably also grow in empathy for the disenfranchised peoples of the world, and also I would likely become more and more broken hearted for the lost people in the world who don’t know the love and grace of Jesus.

And most importantly I imagine that a few years on Elliot Avenue would foster in me a deeper love for Jesus Christ, and this is why I would like to pursue a Masters of Divinity from Mars Hill.