Chapel Christian Academy was an educational ministry of Limerick Chapel in Limerick Township, Pennsylvania. The school provided a Fundamentalist Christian education to students in grades K–12.
The Academy, better known as "CCA" by its students, was founded in 1974 as a ministry of Limerick Chapel, and as a part of the Christian School movement. Parents were encouraged to remove their children from the public school system due to lack of Biblical influence in the public school curriculum. The Academy was based on the Bible being the inerrant word of God; creationism was the basis of all scientific teaching at the school.
The school began with grades 1–6 and each year added a grade. In 1981, the academy had its first graduating class. Graduates from Chapel Christian Academy were encouraged to attend Fundamentalist Christian colleges such as Bob Jones University, Pensacola Christian College, also primarily encouraging studies in Teaching, Missions, and Music. The Academy had three major divisions: Elementary (K–6), Junior High (7–8), and High School (9–12).
Chapel Christian Academy was a member of the Keystone Christian Education Association and well known for always placing highly in the annual KCEA State Competition. The school thrived with a strong Senior High Choir, Junior High Choir, and eventually four levels of Handbell Choirs. The Academy students were viewed by their local Christian school peers as one of the higher levels of KCEA State Competition to compete against.
Chapel sports consisted of basketball, soccer, baseball (boys), and volleyball (girls). The school mascot was the Cougar, and a beautiful lifelike depiction was painted on the gym wall.
Financial problems plagued the church and school for years creating a division that caused a large number of parents and students to leave due to the disagreement which then caused the decision to close the Academy. The Academy resorted to a mainly computer-taught system in the 2006–2007 school year and finally closed its doors at the close of that school year.
Famous quotes containing the words chapel, christian and/or academy:
“I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door;”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“One memorable addition to the old mythology is due to this era,—the Christian fable. With what pains, and tears, and blood these centuries have woven this and added it to the mythology of mankind! The new Prometheus. With what miraculous consent, and patience, and persistency has this mythus been stamped on the memory of the race! It would seem as if it were in the progress of our mythology to dethrone Jehovah, and crown Christ in his stead.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“...I have come to make distinctions between what I call the academy and literature, the moral equivalents of church and God. The academy may lie, but literature tries to tell the truth.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1949)