A Church on the Growing Edge of Fayetteville
Rolling Hills Baptist Church sits on six acres on the northern edge of Fayetteville, Arkansas, on East Rolling Hills Drive, where the congregation has lived since 1962. The property was once part of the Stubblefield farm, donated by a longtime local Baptist family to the local Baptist Association so a new church could take root there. Rolling Hills was started as a mission of Immanuel Baptist Church and became its own self-sufficient congregation in March 1972.
The church’s identity has been shaped as much by the questions its members ask as by the answers they hold. The congregation describes itself as a friendly, Bible-based community that allows questions, values scientific thought and treasures creativity, and it grounds that posture in the four historical Baptist freedoms: soul freedom, Bible freedom, church freedom and religious freedom. After years as a Southern Baptist Convention church affiliated with the Washington/Madison County Baptist Association, Rolling Hills became a charter congregation of the newly formed Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in the early 1990s and has remained a leader within it ever since. Today the church is part of the Great Rivers Fellowship, formed in 2023 from the merger of CBF Arkansas, CBF Louisiana and CBF Mississippi.
Sunday Morning Worship at Eleven
Sunday mornings are the centerpiece of life at Rolling Hills. Worship begins at 11:00 am each week and lasts about an hour, with a livestream on Facebook Live at 10:50 am so friends near and far can join in. The service follows a familiar Baptist pattern with traditional touches and a broader musical range: a prelude, a chime of the hour, a Prayer of Encounter, hymns of praise, the Passing of the Peace, a Prayer of Intercession, a Hymn of Prayer, a children’s sermon, scripture readings, an offertory prayer, a doxology and presentation of gifts, special music, a sermon, a time of response, a benediction and a postlude.
Pastor Steve Sheely preaches a Bible-based sermon most weeks, usually as part of a series, and often without heavy church jargon so the message stays accessible to first-time guests. Music is led by Worship Leader Blair Higgins and Pianist Dale Beals, and the church leans into a hybrid style that aims to appeal across generations: traditional hymns alongside the music a younger congregation grew up with. A children’s sermon during the service gives even the youngest worshipers a moment to engage the morning’s text, and adults pass the peace as a reminder that relationships are as important as information here.
Sunday School for Every Age
Christian formation at Rolling Hills runs through the whole morning, not just the sermon hour. Two adult Sunday morning classes meet at 10:00 am. The Seekers class reviews books of the Bible or topical themes with spirited discussion and no “dumb” questions; it meets on Zoom with optional in-person viewing at the church. The Worthley Hall Education Class gathers in the classroom across from the sanctuary with coffee and light breakfast fare from 9:45 to 10:45 am and welcomes all ages and stages.
Children have their own classes. Preschool Sunday School welcomes infants through preschoolers with trained teachers and age-appropriate Bible stories. Children’s Sunday School gathers 1st through 5th graders for crafts, visual aids and Bible lessons designed to lay a foundation they can build on later in life. A youth group Sunday school meets on the first Sunday of each month from 9:50 to 10:50 am, and families can look forward to special children’s events throughout the year such as an Easter egg hunt, children’s sermons with Ms. Carri and an annual Living Nativity and Camel Ride in early December.
Midweek, Books and Prayer Groups
The church’s growth extends well past Sunday mornings. Midweek Mosaic is the Wednesday evening gathering where members and friends pray for one another, study together and build friendships in a casual setting that feels more like a meal than a meeting.
For men, a long-running book club meets on Tuesday nights at 6:00 pm, usually at Whole Hog BBQ (or San Miguel’s in some seasons). Over several weeks the group works through Christian-themed books, recent picks including Bob Buford’s Finishing Well and Martin Thielen’s What’s the Least I Can Believe and Still Be a Christian? For women, the Women’s Prayer Group gathers every second and fourth Thursday at 11:00 am for lunch and prayer. The gathering is open to all, the concerns shared there are kept confidential, and longtime members like Dolores and Loretta are celebrated in style.
Pastor Steve also posts short online devotionals under the heading “Steve the Pastor.” Inspired by pastoral needs during the pandemic, the video series works through topics such as the Song of Solomon, the Revelation, the Parables of Luke, the Psalms, prayers of the Bible, and difficult passages that can be easily misunderstood. A separate “Science and Creation” series engages thoughtful readers at the intersection of faith and scientific thought, alongside a church library where members can borrow from a curated collection.
A Worldwide Candlelight Service for Grieving Parents
For nearly two decades, Rolling Hills has hosted a Worldwide Candlelight Service on the second Sunday evening in December. Created for families who have lost a child of any age and from any cause, the service unites parents around the world in a single evening of remembrance. The local service includes special music, spiritual encouragement, words from other grieving parents, and the public lighting of candles in memory of each child, followed by a reception where families can show pictures and other mementos and connect with one another. Past keynote speakers have included the late Dr. John Farthing, founder of Parents Left Behind, and Imam Asselki of the Fayetteville Islamic Center, a reminder that the gathering is intentionally ecumenical.
A related Grieving Parents Support group meets year-round and gathers each spring for a lighter gathering called “You Don’t Have to Be Happy Hour,” an opportunity to see each other outside the weight of the December service. The Worldwide Candlelight Service is open to anyone in the wider Northwest Arkansas community, not only Rolling Hills members.
Bridge-Building: From the Food Shelf to South Fayetteville
Rolling Hills frames its community ministry under the heading “Build Bridges,” echoing Jesus crossing the boundaries of ethnicity, lifestyle, age, gender and economic status. The congregation supports a roster of partnerships that put that vision into practice every week.
Cooperative Emergency Outreach, known as CEO, is a cooperative of Washington County churches, located south of the NWA Mall, that provides food and rent and utilities assistance to people in emergency situations. Rolling Hills gathers items and delivers them weekly, and the youth group has joined in to help organize the shelves after a tour from CEO board members Jennifer Kidd and Maxine.
New Beginnings NWA is a local nonprofit that opened in 2021 to serve the chronically homeless in south Fayetteville. The congregation prepares and delivers a meal there once a month, and the partnership has become one of the church’s most visible expressions of mercy, with members gathering for special Thanksgiving preparations there as well.
The six-acre campus supports a Family Gardens program, where nine 12-by-4 container gardens give church families and neighbors a place to grow fruits and vegetables together. Surplus produce is shared with members and contributed to local food banks, and a couple of times a year the whole church turns out for a workday to weed, mulch and plant trees and flower beds. On the lighter side, a Little Free Library for Kids sits on the grounds so young neighbors can borrow a book as easily as they’d pick a flower.
The church also keeps a long-running partnership with the Marshallese community in Northwest Arkansas, joins in CBF Global Missions through prayer and giving, has worked with Kiva through a micro-lending program introduced by a member named Ms. Pat, and supports the Lee Street Community Center in Elaine, Arkansas. A Marshallese fellowship group has been known to join the workday crew to share in the gardening and grounds care.
The Pastor and the Staff
Steve Sheely began his pastoral career at Rolling Hills and returned in 2005 as the church’s pastor. A graduate of Oklahoma State University, he holds a Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (1987) and a Master of Sacred Theology from Yale University Divinity School (1990). His background in creative writing and drama shapes sermons that try to make each passage come to life. He has served on the Governing Board of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and on the Ministry Council, and has moderated the CBF of Arkansas, now the Great Rivers Fellowship. He also writes a FaithMatters column for the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He and his wife Marla, married in 1994, have three grown sons.
Yuna Hutchison serves as Activities Director and Office Manager, coordinating the many moving parts of the church calendar and children’s ministry. A native of Buenos Aires who also grew up in South Korea, she came to the United States with her husband Tyler and is a TESOL graduate who taught kindergarten internationally before landing at Rolling Hills. Blair Higgins doubles as Comptroller and Worship Leader, bringing her CPA training from her years at MANA Milk and a lifetime of music ministry experience to the keyboard and the choir loft. Pianist Dale Beals provides music for worship services and special events each week.
The Four Baptist Freedoms on East Rolling Hills Drive
Rolling Hills returns often to the four freedoms it lifted up at the founding of the CBF and that now guide its posture toward God and neighbor. Soul freedom is the conviction that individual believers have direct access to God without a priest or clergy as gatekeeper. Bible freedom is the belief that scripture, read contextually and compassionately under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has authority in matters of faith and practice, and that every Christian is free to interpret and apply it. Church freedom is the autonomy of the local congregation. Religious freedom is the conviction that church and state should remain separate, with freedom for religion and freedom from religion alike.
The same conviction shapes the church’s welcome. Rolling Hills invites questions, takes scientific thought seriously and prizes creativity, and the church frames its work in the language of “expressions of faith”: Encounter God, Make Friends, Grow Spiritually, Serve One Another and Build Bridges. Together those categories map a church that takes worship, relationships, formation, mutual care and outreach seriously without treating any of them as a box to check.
Visiting Rolling Hills
First-time guests find a friendly congregation on the north side of Fayetteville, with worship at 11:00 am on Sundays and a livestream on Facebook Live that begins at 10:50 am. Adult Sunday morning classes start at 10:00 am with coffee from 9:45 am, and the youth group meets on the first Sunday of each month from 9:50 to 10:50 am. Children from infants through 5th grade have their own Sunday school, and a children’s sermon is part of the worship service.
The church’s mailing address is PO Box 9088, Fayetteville, AR 72703, and the physical address is 1400 E Rolling Hills Dr, Fayetteville, AR 72703. Staff can be reached by phone at (479) 521-2660 or by email at rhbaptist@sbcglobal.net. Gifts can be given online, mailed, or sent through Venmo to @ROLLINGHILLS-BAPTISTCHURCH.