As parents, what do we want for our children? What do we want them to be? What and whom do we want them to love? What do we want them to know? What matters the most?

I am a man of many “loves”. I love college basketball (Go Duke!). I love folk music and singer-songwriters. I love beautiful sunsets and a snowy day. I love great books and satirical comedy. I LOVE the Latin language. Now, you might look at this list and feel it is pretty hollow and incomplete. And I would have to agree. Will my life or my day be defined by a good book or a Duke loss? I sure hope not! While these things are all “good”, they are not the essentials, they are bonuses, the cherry on top. They are not the things that matter the very most.

At NCA, we take this perspective on all of life. The essentials are not necessarily the “stuff” of a student’s studies. For example, how many of us remember what log and sin are, or all of the parts of a cell, or can explain how a musical scale is built, or can name 5 plays by Shakespeare, or can recite a few lines of the Illiad, or do 30 pushups, or paint a nature scene? I’d wager that very few of us could. (I know that I certainly can’t!)

So then, what is education about? What are the essentials? At NCA we believe that who the student “is” matters much more than the “stuff” he or she knows. We want them to be something great for the world, someone their Creator made them to be: truly human. We want them to become passionate lovers of the God who made the world and lovers of one another, and lovers of the amazing world God has created. Or as Jesus said, we want them to “Love the Lord their God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love their neighbor as themselves.” We employ and utilize the greatest books, art, poetry, classical languages, music, biographies, and more to nourish our students on the most excellent things in the history of the human race, and sometimes the most tragic things. We want the students to learn to love everything around them properly in the context of their Creator and who they are as creatures.

To that end, it is my job to find, employ, assist, and enable an amazing team of men and women to model this kind of passionate, truth-pursuing life for your children. I am committed to making sure that NCA remains a place marked by godly, gracious, and gifted employees who want to see students grow into what their Creator has made them to be. I also am overjoyed that I get to teach in the classroom. It is a privilege to get to shape and influence the young men and women who will be the servant-leaders in whatever field of work or study they choose to pursue. They are my students and my “second family”, and I can say that I am absolutely thrilled at who I see them becoming in the Lord through their studies. They are learning to focus on the main things and have grown to understand what is not essential.

Would I love it if my son were to play college basketball? Or if he was to be an accomplished musician? Or an accomplished artist? Definitely. But I know what the essentials are. Everything else is just the cherry on top.

In Christ,
jon mccord

P.S. You can go here to see our specific goals for graduates spelled out.