About halfway through the tour, on my very first visit to CHA, we walked into the Morning Room.
“This is where we have our faculty devotions,” said Linda Ng, our Director of HR.
“That’s great! How often do you do devos together?”
“Every morning before school, actually," she said.
“But when do all your teachers make their photocopies and set up their rooms for first period?”
“They work around it.”
I was a little shocked. The morning minutes before the first bell is precious for teachers.
One thing was clear to me about CHA at that point: they prioritized faith above everything else.
And that’s still true today. Monday and Wednesday, every week, CHA faculty read a passage of Scripture and pray for one another, for our students, and for our families. On Thursdays we all worship in song together – and we sing loudly! And then there is Testimony Tuesday. Each Tuesday, we hear a testimony from a different faculty member.
At CHA, what we care about most is that God is the First Thing. Our whole purpose is that each student is equipped and inspired to follow Jesus for a lifetime of loving service of others – that each of us would love God with our whole heart and love our neighbors as ourselves.
Our faith is at the center of how we teach. Our first “Teaching Commandment” for our Living Curriculum Teachers is to “Always Explore What God Might Think about the Content.”
Bible classes are a core course in our academic program, and our students not only attend but participate in weekly chapels and mentoring, and GO! Week. This participatory spirit is built up by our vibrant Student Life and Leadership programs.
Our athletics programs focus on what it means to love God with our strength and to lead and play an important role in community. Our arts programs focus on what it means to love God with all our heart.
We recently received a deeply encouraging note from a CHA alumnus expressing his gratitude to both his parents and foundation in faith he built at CHA:
“I attribute the strong foundation of my Christian faith to wonderful parents who sent me to a school with loving teachers and Bible class five days a week.”
CHA is not a nominal Christian school or one that is “historically affiliated with” Christianity. That means we don’t just say we are a Christian school on our website and then hope that those values trickle down to our students. We don’t compartmentalize our faith to an optional, once-a-week morning chapel service or religious holidays. Our faith is not a symbolic or peripheral part of our identity.
Instead, we put following Jesus as the cornerstone of all of who we are: we are all about putting God first and having an impact on the world in the name of Jesus Christ. Our faculty and staff pray that your kids will come to know and love and truly follow the Messiah.
If your kids are not at CHA and you’re wondering whether or not their parochial school is truly leading them to Jesus – or realizing that their public school might be actively leading them away from Jesus, please seriously consider CHA.
If your kids or grandkids are beneficiaries of CHA’s faith-first commitment, consider a gift to our school this Christmas. We need your support as we seek to have an impact on our broken world in the name of Jesus.
