Fundamental to our identity as a school is our commitment to the lordship of Jesus Christ. One of the ways in which we celebrate and express this commitment to our Savior and King is to gather together for chapel every week. Chapel affords us the opportunity as a community to worship the Lord through song, prayer, testimonies, and the study of God’s Word.

GRAMMAR SCHOOL CHAPEL

Chapel serves as a “reinforcer” for the foundations of our faith for which everything else is built upon. At CCA, we recognize the importance of honoring and glorifying God through the corporate worship experience. Students experience how to interact with God together through prayer, singing, examining the scriptures together, Biblical teaching, and fellowship. While students come from a variety of worshipping backgrounds, they can all find a common thread in chapel that helps connect them throughout their school life.

There are two Grammar School  chapel services per week, divided by grade level: K-3, and 4-6. Chapel is led by the Grammar School Chaplain. All students participate in corporate prayer, singing hymns and worship songs, and hear a message based on Biblical teaching almost every week. Specific classes will periodically offer special presentations throughout the year. Parents and faculty are always welcome and encouraged to attend chapel.

“Highlighting” is also a unique component to our chapel services. Each student in Grades K-6 gets recognized for their gifts and how they use them amongst their peers and teachers. In Grades K-6 the students’ primary teachers make special presentations with the student standing by their side. The students always look forward to being highlighted and they learn from a very early age that each one of us is special and has different gifts and abilities, fulfilling different purposes in the eyes of God.

UPPER SCHOOL CHAPEL

Each week, the Upper School meets on Wednesday mornings for a 45-minute chapel service. This service includes a time of student-led praise and worship, corporate prayer, and then the study of God’s Word and his work in our community. Both the Logic and Rhetoric Schools have student worship bands that lead the community in songs of praise. The rotation of chapel speakers, as well as the theme for chapel each year, is managed by the Upper School Chaplain.

At least once per month, the Upper School meets all together, grades 7-12. On the other weeks during each month, the Logic (7-8) and Rhetoric (9-12) Schools meet separately. This “hybrid” program is an intentional choice, as it allows us to cultivate Upper School unity and address themes and topics that may pertain to one school but not the other. Additionally, this hybrid approach allows each school to have its own distinctive elements when meeting separately:

Logic School Chapel Distinctives: Highlights

One of the most important elements of Logic School Chapel is our highlighting program. Each 7th grade student in the Logic School is “highlighted” once during the year in chapel. This means that one of the Logic School teachers creates a piece of word art that celebrates prominent characteristics of a student that have been identified by both student peers and teachers in the Logic School community. Highlights  include encouraging comments from their teachers and family members, mixed with fun pictures and the hopes and dreams of the student in their own words. Family and friends often attend these chapels because of the powerful impact these highlighting chapels have upon each student and upon the Logic School community as a whole.

For our 8th grade students there is a special “highlight chapel” to celebrate the class collectively. The teachers prepare a multi-media presentation that highlights each 8th grader individually. The students are presented with a piece of word art highlighting their class’ attributes and encouraging comments by their teachers. Finally, each 8th grader receives a Bible with personal notes from their CCA teachers past and present that can be used in their Bible classes as they move into Rhetoric School. It is a special time, rich is spiritual significance.

Rhetoric School Chapel Distinctive: Class Chapels

In the Rhetoric School, students have many opportunities to take ownership of the time and space. Each grade in the Rhetoric School is responsible to run one chapel service per semester, a process overseen by the Chaplain and their homeroom teachers. The students in each class relished this opportunity last year, and these class chapels were widely regarded as some of the most impactful of the school year. This is in no small part because students had the opportunity to hear how the Lord had been faithful in the lives of their peers.