Morrison Heights Baptist Church
Visit our FacebookVisit our InstagramVisit our YouTube channel

RESIDENCY

PROGRAM

MORRISON HEIGHTS COLLEGE MINISTRY

RESIDENCY PROGRAM

Equipping and releasing leaders for Kingdom growth on college campuses.

WHAT IS A COLLEGE RESIDENCY

PROGRAM?

Morrison Heights College Ministry exists to make disciples of Jesus among college students.

To this end, we have created a residency program to develop young men and women as leaders in the church and to release them to engage areas of campuses that are underserved by the church. Residents make a one or two-year commitment to leading and serving within the college ministry while being coached by church leaders and pursuing a seminary education.

But maybe you're wondering... why?
Here's what animates us: seeing college students become followers of Jesus, own their faith, disciple others, and then take the Gospel to the corners of the earth.

Additionally, we have a burden for college campuses that are largely unengaged by local churches or on-campus ministries. Jackson alone is home to five residential college campuses that enroll over 30,000 students.

Thirty thousand college students — all of whom will give their lives to something.

We want to ensure that "something" is Jesus.
The reality is, in Jackson, the students who are easy to reach have probably already been reached. We can account for approximately 2,000 students out of nearly 30,000 students who have been reached by either a local church or a campus ministry. That leaves 28,000 students who are spiritually distant from God and his church.

As the church, we believe the solution to this urgent need is gospel presence and proclamation through missional families. We need leaders who are willing to go into the hard places on college campuses and bring the spiritually distant near to God.
With this in mind, the Morrison Heights College Ministry Residency exists to accomplish two purposes:
• To develop future leaders for a lifetime of service in the kingdom of God.
• To release leaders in a missional effort to engage spiritually distant portions of campuses in the Jackson metro.

We ask that you prayerfully consider investing in this kingdom effort and partnering with us to reach the campus and the nations.

WHO ARE OUR

RESIDENTS?

JAKE COTTEN

Hey, my name is Jake Cotten from Baton Rouge, LA. I graduated from Mississippi College in December of 2023. I like being outside, working out and learning new things.

This year Morrison Heights has blessed me with the opportunity to take the next step of obedience in my life. In 2021 I began to wrestle with the thought of vocational ministry. I was anxious and scared to voice that calling at the time. But God made a way for me to confirm my calling through the Morrison Heights College residency. I look forward to the Kingdom impact that the college ministry will have on college campuses across the Jackson area next school year. I pray that God will move in students’ lives across the Jackson area.

This is the first step of a lifelong commitment to obedience to the Kingdom of God in my life. Everything I do, I hope to do it for God’s glory.

CLAIRE JONES

Hey!
Before moving to Clinton for school at Mississippi College, I grew up in Wilsonville, AL. I graduated from MC in May of 2023 with a Bachelors of Science in Interpersonal and Public Communications. I love road trips, music, trying new restaurants, board game/movie nights (specifically The Bean Game), picnicking and any type of outdoor activity with good company!

My life before Christ was filled with insecurity and anger. God later revealed to me that the sin of my anger and bitterness towards others was the very thing in my own heart that separated me from God. As I now live in relationship with God, he has redefined security through the eyes of my Savior who has bought me with a price. Through His love, he has shown me the condition of my heart in anger and continues to fill me with His own kind and gentle Spirit.

God has used Morrison Heights in a significant way to grow deeper roots of love for Him, his people and those he continues to draw to himself. In the college ministry I was faithfully discipled for the first time. Leaders and peers invited me to labor alongside them as they cast the vision for what God was doing on University campuses. Through the faithful acts of college students to boldly live out their faith in pockets of lostness, I have gotten to see much fruit for God’s kingdom! Serving in this space, with these people, I am now convinced that God uniquely uses this time in college students' lives to create ripple effects of gospel proclamation to the ends of the earth!

This year, I believe the Lord has called me to serve on staff in Morrison Heights College Ministry by discipling college women and leading momentum for gospel advancement on MC’s campus. My prayer is that God would use our obedience to faithfully encourage and fan the embers of faith in the lives of these students to deepen their desire to worship him, and for them to seek for those around them to share in worship of their creator. I trust that as the Lord grows within these students a deeper zeal for Himself that He will use their lives to draw close those who have never had the privilege to hear Jesus’ name.

LANEY PIKE

Hey!!!
I’m from Gulfport, MS and I’ll graduate from Mississippi College in May 2024. When I am not in class at MC or serving in some way at Morrison Heights, I love to travel, watch movies, and hang out to build relationships with my international friends.

Before the Lord saved me I remember that, even at a young age, I frequently felt very lonely, confused and unsure about my purpose. Through the influence of my family at home as well as some amazing teachers and pastors at our local church, the Lord showed me that while I am broken and a sinner, He still loves me--so much, in fact, that He sent his son to die on the cross for our sins. Now I get to walk in the knowledge that the Lord is the only one who will ever completely satisfy me and I live my life fully for His glory and His renown.

I started coming to Morrison Heights before I even moved into my dorm my freshman year of college. From the first day I felt so welcomed and knew that this was going to be my church home for the next few years while attending MC. Here at Morrison Heights, I have learned what true discipleship looks like through huddle & community groups. The church has also been a big part in my walk in obedience to God's call on my life to serve overseas in International Missions.

As a college resident, I will be working alongside other residents and students in the college ministry to bring the gospel to the college campuses in the Jackson area. I am so thankful that the Lord has given me this opportunity to continue to bring the gospel to the people in my community.

My prayer is that God would continue to use me and this ministry to raise up college students who are on fire for the Lord and that we would continue to step out in boldness and faith and proclaim the gospel on the college campuses and ultimately the Nations.

ISABELLA SEGALLA

Hey y’all! I’m Isabella Segalla, and I graduate from Mississippi College this coming May of 2024.

As a military kid who has moved every couple years, my whole life has been a series of learning to trust God’s leading, and letting him work through the locations and seasons he places me in. I came to know him as just a child, but over the years, he has drawn me ever nearer, teaching me to lay down my desires for control or comfort, and teaching me to take up the cross of joyous, humble submission.

I believe that when God led me to MC in 2022 to finish out my undergraduate education, he was leading me not primarily to the school, but to Morrison Heights—my church. Here, I have been discipled and given opportunities to disciple others. I have gotten to go on mission and have gained a deeper vision of what it means to give my life for the cause of Christ.

As I look ahead to graduation, I believe the Lord is not done using me at Morrison Heights, nor using Morrison Heights in my own spiritual growth. I have been given a wonderful opportunity to continue investing my church’s amazing college ministry as a college resident.

My prayer is that through this journey as a college resident, the Lord will work in me to grow me into a more faithful disciple and disciplemaker, and that Jackson college students who have not yet been engaged with the life-changing power of the gospel will be. I am beyond excited to make God’s name great here among Jackson students and among the nations.

STORIES OF

IMPACT

JON HARDING

In the summer of 2020, as I prepared to transition into life after college, the multitude of different paths that my life ‘could’ take seemed overwhelming and led to a great deal of worry, overthinking, and general confusion. 

Despite the uncertainty, there was one immovable conviction that guided me through this season of big decisions: because my time on earth is “a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes”, I urgently desired to honor the Lord with my limited time, energy, and resources. I longed to leverage my life for something that counted with eternity in view. 

By the grace of God, the Morrison Heights College Residency gifted me the opportunity to walk in obedience to this conviction and gave me the platform to make a Kingdom impact among college students and the peoples of the Jackson area. 

My specific part in this effort to make a Kingdom impact was to focus on the engagement, development, and mobilization of freshmen students. 

One key moment stands out to me: a winter mission trip to the Mid-City neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana. I led a team of thirty students to spend a week in the city. The team experienced unity in a new and fresh way that was centrally founded upon gospel confidence and the need to meet brokenness within the city with the reconciliation found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. God used a mere eight days to re-order the lives and priorities of thirty students toward radical, missional living. As I was tasked with the organization and leadership over a short-term mission trip, this life-changing experience opened my eyes to the value of biblical shepherding.
Through my investment as a resident, we saw an increase in freshmen engagement from a handful to thirty-one freshmen involved in intensive discipleship (Huddle) and more than fifty freshmen engaged in missional communities. These freshmen are now sophomores who plan to disciple others this coming semester.
My time in the Morrison Heights College Residency equipped me with both education and skills, in addition to blessing me with valuable mentorship. The experience helped provide critical clarity in my call to vocational ministry, and showed me the true heartbeat of a gospel minister. I can confidently say that my time in the Morrison Heights College Residency led to spiritual and emotional growth unmatched by any other period of my life. God has used this year, his Church, and this program to bolster my faith in a profound way, give me my footing in gospel ministry, and most importantly, bring college students to discover the “surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”  

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few” — Luke 10:2 (ESV)

I pray that God would continue to raise up more laborers and MHCM Residents for the glory of his name!

OUR PURPOSE

We exist to proclaim the greatness of God through Jesus Christ as the eternal hope of all peoples.
Copyright © 2021 Morrison Heights Baptist Church
linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram