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Photo by Erin Nelson.
Heritage Christian Academy new location
Lynn Gurganus, headmaster at Heritage Christian Academy, stands in front of what will be the main entrance of the school Academy at what is now Grace Life Baptist Church in McCalla. Heritage Christian Academy will move campuses this summer and open the McCalla location in August.
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Photo by Erin Nelson.
Heritage Christian Academy new location
The future space of Heritage Christian Academy’s library at what is now Grace Life Baptist Church in McCalla.
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Map of the locations.
The families and faculty at Heritage Christian Academy have been on somewhat of a roller coaster ride of emotions in recent years as the school eyed moving away from the Shades Mountain community several times — only for the deals to fall through.
And just when everyone thought they were ready to stay put and build a new building on the campus of Shades Mountain Community Church, the situation changed again.
An unexpected and unsolicited opportunity opened up last year, and now the 170-student school once again is preparing to move. But this time, things are different.
The school already has closed on the purchase of the Grace Life Baptist Church campus in McCalla, so the deal is done, headmaster Lynn Gurganus said. There is no speculation.
Gurganus said the hand of God was evident in making this church campus available. “What I have witnessed in the last several months is impossible,” he said.
After a move to Riverchase fell through in the summer of 2017, Shades Mountain Community Church, where Heritage Christian Academy was founded in 1974 as Shades Mountain Independent, offered the school 3 acres across Tyler Road from the church, right next to the gymnasium and baseball and softball fields.
The plan was to put a new school building there, but the terrain is so rocky that it was going to be extremely expensive, Gurganus said. That meant delays until more money could be raised.
Then in May of last year, the president of the school board, Brad King, went to meet with the secretary at Grace Life Church in McCalla to help her with financial planning as she neared retirement.
King was friends with the pastor of the church, Joel Frederick, and Frederick began showing King drawings for the new church building that Grace Life Baptist is constructing on 72 acres along Interstate 459.
In passing, he mentioned that if King knew anybody who wanted to buy their present church facility, it was for sale. Frederick didn’t know King was president of the school board at Heritage Christian.
King explained about Heritage Christian’s failed attempts to move in the past, and their brief encounter turned into a three-hour meeting, King said.
That began a series of conversations as the two parties explored a sale. In late September, school officials announced to parents that they had made an offer to buy Grace Life Baptist’s 6-acre campus for $1.5 million, Gurganus said.
The next day, Grace Life Baptist received a cash offer for more money from another church, but the congregation at Grace Life Baptist in late October chose to accept less money and sell to Heritage Christian instead.
“It was a terrible business decision probably for our church to make, but it was a unanimous, enthusiastic endorsement from the church,” Frederick said.
The congregation at Grace Life was very impressed by Heritage Christian’s mission, passion, and quality of Christian education it would bring to the McCalla community, Frederick said.
“Our church loves young people. They love to invest in children. This just resonated here,” he said.
Gurganus said the campus at Grace Life Baptist is exactly what Heritage Christian needs. The school needed at least 30 classrooms, and Grace Life has 48 classrooms, plus a 500-seat auditorium and kitchen. Grace Life also is leaving all the seating for the auditorium and the lighting, sound and kitchen equipment, which is probably worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, Gurganus said.
There is no gym or sports fields, but God is working out those details, too, Gurganus said. There is room on Grace Life’s new campus for a baseball field, and another nearby church, Flint Hill Baptist, has a gym and incredible softball field that Heritage Christian may be able to use until it can build its own sports facilities, Gurganus said.
As for the classroom space, Heritage Christian will be able to move into the Grace Life Baptist campus this summer and be ready to start school in its own facility in August, he said.
If they were staying on the Shades Mountain campus, it likely would be several years before they could build a new building, Gurganus said. And the $1.5 million they paid for Grace Life Baptist’s facility probably wouldn’t even cover the site prep work on the Shades Mountain campus, he said.
Though Heritage Christian already owns the Grace Life property, Grace Life is paying rent to continue using it until its new campus is ready by the end of this year, Frederick said. The two groups will share space until that point.
Heritage Christian also is building partnerships with other churches in the McCalla area that are excited about a Christian school moving there, Gurganus said.
About 77% of the students currently in K-3 through 11th grade plan to make the move to the new campus, Gurganus said. Even though the new campus is 11-12 miles away, it’s just as close to home for about a third of the students, he said. Tuition will also be lower because the school no longer will pay rent, he said.
Heritage Christian will provide bus pickup from Shades Mountain Community Church to assist families.
But for some, the change in location won’t work as well, so they are looking to move elsewhere, he said.
The school hopes to make up that enrollment loss with new children whose parents find the new location appealing, King said. An interest meeting at Grace Life Baptist came close to filling the auditorium, and that was confirmation that this is a good move, he said.
“We’ve seen God’s hand in it so much that we believe that He’s going to provide.”
