What is VCA?

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“Now strange words simply puzzle us; ordinary words only convey what we know already; it is from metaphor that we can best ascertain something fresh.” - Aristotle, Rhetoric

From the very beginning, VCA has tried to set a positive vision for our school and education. Oftentimes, school efforts are started on reactionary grounds, reacting to the ‘bad’ stuff in the public schools or to get away from the ‘icky’ stuff out in the world. The problem is, you can’t build a generational, thriving business, school, or church by being reactionary; in fact you can’t build your life that way either. In order to achieve success, the overarching conviction must be one of not running from something (i.e. the public schools) but toward something (i.e. classical Christian education).

With this in mind, what metaphor do we use at VCA to communicate this positive vision approach? VCA is a greenhouse. Greenhouse’s are settings for plants to survive and grow, especially during the times when they are most delicate. A greenhouse is a highly specific and controlled environment to achieve the desired end of the plants growing and thriving on their own. In a greenhouse, the master gardener sets the humidity, monitors the soil health, and gives appropriate nutrients so that when the time comes, the plant can be transplanted from one environment to another. Plants are not meant to exist in a greenhouse forever; they are meant to go out into the world to be planted in vegetable gardens, brought into homes to beautify a space, strategically placed in the landscape design, or planted in native soil to bear fruit.

You get the analogy. At VCA, we strive to offer an intentional Christian environment to help our students get the support and nutrients they need to grow in these delicate years, knowing that the purpose of our work is to send them out to be transplanted into a different environment. If all parties have done their jobs, the students, parents, and school, the student will thrive wherever they go. We don’t want students to be in this highly specialized Christian environment forever; Christ came for the world, so believers go to the world. But in these early years, we train, instruct, labor, prepare, pray for our students to be ready to be planted and thrive wherever they find themselves. 

VCA is not a cloister of monks to hide from the world nor are we a quarantine unit trying to keep ourselves from being contaminated; we are a greenhouse preparing students to be planted, beautify the places they go, and bear fruit in whatever work they set their hands to.