The Curious Space of Grace Center
Grace Center Grand Opening
On Wednesday, January 4, just before our return from winter break, we opened the doors to Grace Center with a Housewarming Party for Walter, our resident robot. Our family and friends met together to celebrate this special time. Pastor Ron Johnson blessed the building and Mrs. Hellender and Mr. Seidel joined Mrs. Campbell, and Mrs. Nancy Hufford and Mrs. Jessie Downey, two of the founding members, for an official ribbon cutting ceremony. That amazing moment brought the final answer to the long running question, when would our new building open! But perhaps this moment also brought the most gratifying answer to a question asked a very long time ago -- what if school could look differently?
Who Would Believe School Could Look Like This?
You may not have had the chance to see inside Grace Center yet, or even Sprout Village, but if you have, you will certainly agree that you wish you were back in school.
Natural light fills the classrooms, pops of color decorate the walls, technology is front and center, teachers, on top of stages, deliver lessons with as much personality as the scholars they greet daily.
Grace Center, Sprout Village, and the renovations made to our main building over the last several months are indeed the answers to one question someone dared to ask: what if school could look differently?
We are thrilled about this edition to our campus; our words come short for expressing the jubilee that we feel about this blessing.
But maybe you didn't know what this new building will do for your scholar.
It's Just Extra Space, Right?
Not exactly.
It’s true; the more elbow room we have, the more families we can minister to, but at the core of this dream, desire, this decision, this building is the reality that we yearned to make room for something else.
A new space for curiosity.
Walt Disney said, we keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.
This is the great gift of Grace Center: 10,000 square feet of more space to awaken more curiosity in your scholar.
Curiosity about science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics--why? Because scholars are natural innovators who should be encouraged to ask questions, explore, and work together to search for creative solutions.
Grace Center, the home of our state of the art STEAM Lab, is this space for curiosity.
While teachers have already been integrating science, technology, engineering, art, and math into their weekly lessons, Grace Center gives them space, resources, and equipment to take learning to a whole new level!
STEAM in education is so important because it prepares your scholar for a way of thinking that will revolutionize our world…and no doubt, it’ll be very soon since our high school scholars have this brand new residence to try it out.
But not only high school, our youngest scholars have exposure to a fantastic STEAM experience that is truly cutting edge, not to mention a state of the art culinary kitchen.
What Happens When We Ask Questions?
We begin to believe in our dreams
In Habakkuk, we find this awesome passage: “Write this. Write what you see. Write it out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run. This vision-message is a witness pointing to what’s coming. It aches for the coming—it can hardly wait! And it doesn’t lie. If it seems slow in coming, wait. It’s on its way. It will come right on time.
We LOVE being in the center of God’s word—the very ball point of his promise.
But even more, we love SHOWING our scholars what it means to go on this journey of being curious, trusting God, living with grit, handling setbacks with self-control, and arriving in a curious space that was meant to give us grace all along--so they can do the very same thing and change the world!
“we keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”
