Expanding Horizons 2025, a Maryville College experience combining faith and learning, now open for registration
March 11, 2025
For more than 200 years, young men and women have come to Maryville College for knowledge of the world and of the spirit.
While the institution is no longer the seminary it was upon its founding, its close ties to the Presbyterian Church (USA) and its rich traditions of weekly worship and religious studies make it an ideal place for Expanding Horizons, a program for students who have completed ninth, 10th, 11th or 12th grades; display promising leadership qualities; and are eager to explore theology in a college setting.
Billed as a “theological institute for high school youth,” Expanding Horizons will return to the Maryville College campus June 22-27, and applications for the week-long summer camp are currently being accepted.
“Expanding Horizons provides a summer camp experience in that we eat, worship, study the Bible and have small group time together, through which the students grow close throughout the week, even after coming to Maryville College as strangers,” said the Rev. Paul Earheart-Brown ’15, associate chaplain at MC and director of the program. “However, Expanding Horizons is more than a summer camp, in that we introduce students to the College environment. They experience residence halls, the cafeteria and the programming we offer at MC.
“We also take students’ curiosity seriously and plug them into an academic environment where they learn from College professors and have their ideas and opinions valued. At Expanding Horizons, students will hopefully learn skills and develop leadership capabilities to help them succeed in whatever comes next for them after high school.”
Some Horizons lead to MC
For some of them — like Earheart-Brown — those experiences lead them later on to enrollment at the very institution where they attended the program. Lauren Huffstetler ’26, currently a junior at Maryville College, attended for the first time in 2022, when she was drawn to the program because of its promise of helping attendees unlock their leadership potential, and her desire to connect her faith to real-world experiences. When she got to campus, the theme that year — “The Soul and Food: How Food Has Shaped the Faith We Share” — intrigued her through its combination of history, culture and spirituality.
“Throughout the week, I had the opportunity to engage in deep discussions with mentors and fellow campers, get hands-on in the kitchen, and explore how food has historically played a role in faith traditions,” Huffstetler said. “Beyond that, the experience of tackling the low ropes course and the Alpine Tower with Mountain Challenge helped me step outside my comfort zone and develop confidence in my abilities.
“The small group discussions about faith, leadership and vocation pushed me to reflect on my own path, and the evening worship services created a space for connection and reflection. By the end of the week, I walked away with a strong sense of community [connection to] the Maryville College campus. I also gained a new perspective on how faith intersects with everyday life.”
“Maryville College is unique in that the close community MC offers to students, faculty and staff is palpable throughout the week, even in the summer,” Earheart-Brown added. “I also think our connection to the Smokies provides a sense of the sacred, as escaping to the mountains allows us to connect more deeply with creation in a holy way. We make sure to explore the mountains every summer!”
This year’s theme, he added, is “Created to Create: Caring for Creation as God’s Co-Creators.” The week’s activities will examine how the Bible portrays mankind not just as God’s creations, but as unique ones who have been given the gift of free will, and through it the ability to add their own creativity to the world. It makes people, he pointed out, “co-creators with God!”
“We will explore our own creativity while also studying the intersection of theology and ecology with both Religion professors and Natural Science professors,” Earheart-Brown said. “I’m not sure how themes have been selected in the past, but I try to begin by looking at a discipline on campus that intersects with theological questions, so the faculty partners are one of the first things I think about.
“I know that we have done a very similar theme to this one in the past using professors like Dr. [Drew] Crain, Dr. [Jay] Clark, Dr. [Phillip] Sherman and others, so since we have some institutional knowledge in planning a week around theology and ecology, I figured this would be a good theme for my first summer as director.”
Although he’s in the middle of his first academic year as a Maryville College staff member, Earheart-Brown was not only a graduate of the College; he’s also an alumnus of Expanding Horizons. He attended in 2010, and the experience was directly responsible for his enrollment at MC. In 2013, he served as a student mentor, just as Huffstetler has done (and will do once more) ever since she arrived as a first-year Maryville College student.
“What made Expanding Horizons so impactful for me was the balance between challenging myself and being supported by a strong community,” Huffstetler said. “The mentors I had in 2022 made a huge difference in my experience by guiding and providing space for deep discussions and helping me reflect on and expand in my faith journey. I wanted to return as a mentor to be that source of support for others. I also knew that coming back as a mentor would push me to grow in new ways by stepping into a leadership role where I could facilitate conversations, help lead activities, and give back to a program that had given me so much.”
Opportunities for faith, knowledge
That program, Earheart-Brown added, is designed to give campers an opportunity not just to grow in their faith, but to question it in ways that will lead to that growth. Exclusivity and rigidly dogmatic programming run counter to the Expanding Horizons formula, he added, and the Christianity embraced by the staff and the mentors is “joyful and life-giving,” he said.
“We don’t expect any student to fully agree with us on any of our convictions in order to participate and fully belong,” he added. “We believe deep conversation, even when profound disagreement is present, is the best way for all of us to dig deeper into the bottomless mystery we call ‘God,’ so embracing the questions of faith is one of our formative principles.
“We hope that students will experience a place where they can be empowered to ask the questions that they might not feel comfortable asking in other religious spaces, and be fully affirmed in their belovedness no matter what doubts or frustrations or church hurt they might bring.”
For the entire week of programming, housing and meals, the cost of Expanding Horizons is $550. The application can be filled out online at the Expanding Horizons website, and for those campers like Huffstetler and Earheart-Brown who choose to enroll at Maryville College after attending Expanding Horizons, the annual Expanding Horizons Scholarship, worth $500 in financial aid every year, will practically offset the cost.
But what cost is there, on the sustenance for the soul that Expanding Horizons provides? None, pointed out the Rev. Jessica Kitchens Lewis ’07, chaplain at Maryville College and former program director … but the benefits are incalculable.
“After leading Expanding Horizons for the past three summers, it has left an impact on my life, and I wish all high schoolers could experience the community and care that this week entails,” she said.
“Personally, I found that the combination of adventure, faith and community made this experience incredibly rewarding,” Huffstetler added. “You don’t have to have everything figured out before you arrive — Expanding Horizons is a space to discover more about yourself. If you’re even a little curious about attending, I’d say go for it. You’ll leave with friendships and memories that will stick with you for a long time.”