Christian education should be within reach for every family. This generation of students should be genuinely prepared for God’s call on their lives. Young image-bearers should be formed in every sphere of their being. And education should integrate God’s story and God’s world at every turn. These convictions shape our vision to provide an accessible, world-class, whole-child Christian education that continually helps students flourish every day, in every way.
Four key words in our vision shape how we live out Denver Christian’s mission and help our students flourish. Over the next few weeks, we will explore each part of our vision in more depth, but each word matters. Accessible describes our commitment to making Christian education financially attainable for more families. World-class is the standard we use to achieve our mission. Whole-child is our approach to students flourishing. Christian is how we integrate learning into God’s story of redemption.
The pillars of our vision have been present throughout our school’s generational history. This fall, we are seeing them take shape in some exciting new ways. By God’s grace, more families continue to want to be part of this work at Denver Christian. We recently crossed the 1,000-student enrollment mark, expanded to a fourth section of first grade, and welcomed more students in each division than at any other time since moving to this campus. We don’t take God’s blessing for granted, nor are we pursuing growth simply for growth’s sake. We want to grow into a right-sized school in every division and grade, one that is large enough to offer a robust range of outstanding programs in all six spheres of growth while ensuring we are small enough that every student, in every grade, is seen, known, and loved. As we grow, new opportunities are emerging for our students as they prepare to engage the world with Christ’s power and love.
Over the past year, we have expanded opportunities for students across academics, college and career preparation, athletics, worship, and the arts. We hired Heather Mueller as our Director of Career and Technical Education and have since launched a high school internship program, expanded our career and technical education courses, and opened Thunder Cafe.
We also expanded our college programming by providing students with access to Maya Learning for college research and hosting a college application case study night to help students through the process. Following a national search, we welcomed our first full-time director of College Counseling this fall, Dr. Stephen Campbell.
In athletics, we added both girls’ and boys’ tennis. In worship, we launched a fifth-grade worship team. As our elementary school has grown, we also began two elementary chapels, one for K-2 and another for 3- 5. In the arts, we divided our traditional K–8 musical into separate K–4 and 5–8 productions, giving more students the opportunity to take the stage.
None of this happens by accident. It happens because this community of families, churches, and educators has chosen, generation after generation, to say yes to the challenging and intentional work of raising up children in the way they should go. I am so grateful to be walking this road alongside all of you in this generation. We trust that the same God who has been faithful to Denver Christian for 110 years will continue to be faithful today as we follow all that He is calling us to do.