School Leaders Speak About… Academics

“We exist to make disciples…spiritually, academically, and socially.” As an institution whose primary focus is the equipping of students through discipleship, CCA has maintained a standard of excellence in all three aspects of its mission statement. Second in the list, but by no means least in the school’s tool belt for gearing up student disciples, is academics.

Just as the spiritual and social equipping is vital, a strong and rigorous academic education enables students to bring Christ’s light to a different type of mission field: the intellectually incomplete and spiritually lost world. A thorough and widespread academic knowledge prepares the doctors, lawyers, teachers, and future ministry leaders rising from CCA to play an effective and impacting role ministering in their specific fields.

CCA provides students a foundation that will motivate them to aspire towards God’s best for their lives because He calls us by His own glory and excellence (2 Peter 1:3). After ten years of aspiring to fulfill this command from Christ, one of the school’s key founders is also reminded that “unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain” (Psalm 127:1).

I recently had the privilege of sitting down with Executive Pastor and Head of School, Pastor Mark Davis as he reminisced over the
early days of the school, explained his heart after witnessing its tremendous growth, and commented on what he hopes to see
accomplished in the future. Here’s what he said…

CW: As CCA celebrates its ten-year anniversary, what are your feelings as you look back and see how far the school has advanced academically?

PM: I think some of the big differences, from the early years of the school to today, is that we have a much larger staff and we have a greater investment in materials and resources.  Also, our course offerings have broadened—especially in the areas of Advanced Placement, Dual Enrollment, and honors classes. As we’ve opened up those opportunities for the more gifted and motivated students, it has been great to see the positive environment of academic motivation among the students grow to the point where more and more students want to take part in the more challenging courses. It has also been great to see how our teachers who are committed Christians are not settling but are continuing to improve and strengthen the quality of our academic program.

CW: How did your desire to start this school begin? How did God reveal His plans?

PM: My wife and I have seen how Christian education molds and shapes kids so much more in depth than a youth ministry or children’s ministry ever can. School has the kids thirty to forty hours a week; church ministry has the kids for one or two hours a week, so the ability to really mold and shape them is significantly greater if you can have the home, the church, and the school all on the same page. It’s like a three-legged stool that a student sits on and when all three legs on the stool are like-minded and spiritually strong, then a student has a strong foundation to grow from.

CW: What is the biblical importance behind having a Christian school that is strong academically?

PM: Scripture talks about “whatever you do, do it as unto the Lord,” and when we do that, we’re going to be a witness and testimony to a lost world or to certain areas of society that we can sometimes only penetrate if we have the education and credentials. So whatever the arena of life, God has gifted us with a mind and I believe we should develop it as far and fully as we possibly can with excellence because we represent Christ.

CW: What do you hope to see CCA’s academic program become in the next ten years?

PM: I want us to be able to minister to a broader range of students rather than just a lower level student, or just an average student or just an
upper level student because we’re here to serve the body of Christ, primarily the body of Christ here at Calvary Chapel. I’d love to see more creative hands-on experiential learning and some new programs that could take a student’s interest deeper. I love seeing some of the things our students are doing through internships with writing, radio, TV, and fine arts. I really would love to see students who could combine their education with some experience and drive their education home a lot further. One of my other goals is to see an increasing number of our students seek out Christian higher education and learn to deepen their biblical worldview in whatever academic pursuits they choose.

CW: As we get close to sending off to the world another graduating class, what would you say is the biggest graduation gift CCA can present a high school senior?

PM: The greatest gift we could send them off with is the complete knowledge of who Jesus is, who they are in Christ, what they’re called to be, and what they’re called to do; and that they see it as a calling and not just a career. This will not only really prepare them for life but it will prepare them for eternal life.