On Saturday, May 17, Lisbon Falls Christian Academy will celebrate its 40th anniversary.

This private Christian school with a peak enrollment of 120 students and an average of 70, has continued its mission through seven presidential administrations, or stated in other terms — through vinyl records, eight-track tapes, cassettes, CDs, iPods and iPhones — as its students preferred method of listening to music.

Straddling the cassette and CD eras, I attended LFCA from kindergarten to my high school graduation in 1998, representing 13 of the 40 years of its existence.

Although I wasn’t present at its inception, I knew its history: LFCA was founded in 1974 as the vision of the Rev. Kenneth MacDonald, then pastor of Lisbon Falls Baptist Church.

Inspired by the thought that a Christian education should be an available option for children and their parents, he envisioned a school that taught Christian values in addition to a quality education.

The school has operated with that philosophy ever since. The school’s curriculum incorporates traditional Christian practices such as Bible memorization, corporate prayer, personal devotions and student chapels, but its curriculum is by no means traditional.

Using the School of Tomorrow curriculum, the student is responsible for his or her own work, and classrooms are equipped with supervisors and monitors that ensure the classroom maintains an appropriate environment for enabling the student learners to establish their own goals and to problem solve on their own.

Supervisors assist students with subject area content and ensure that students are achieving their self-established goals for each day.

The advantage of a curriculum like this is that the student will learn how to think critically, plan and organize tasks in order to complete their work for the day, week and year. Students learn this practice from kindergarten all the way to high school graduation.

Using this curriculum, LFCA has served me well after high school graduation through college graduation and over the years during my career. Both the knowledge and the Christian principles that comprised the school’s formal curriculum helped me to succeed in life after graduation.

Aside from these benefits, however, I also reaped the benefits of a dedicated staff that cared for each students and willingly made great personal investment to help each one succeed. I remember multiple occasions where staff stayed well after hours to help me finish a project or test. Their time at LFCA was not only a job but also their ministry; so their passion for helping students learn not only etymology, algebra and chemistry, but also how to be better people was nothing short of inspired.

Because of the benefits LFCA provided me, my family has chosen to extend our association with LFCA. My oldest child is now attending kindergarten at LFCA, 28 years after I started my education there. What LFCA offers is decidedly different and certainly an alternative to more traditional educational venues, and, for that reason, the academy can excel at reinforcing the values I am trying to instill in my children at home.

In a world of mixed messages, the consistency of a Christian education is priceless to me as a parent. For that reason and for all the many benefits it afforded my own education, I celebrate with the school as it celebrates 40 years of providing a viable option for Christian education to parents and students in Mid-coast Maine.

Saturday, May 17, will be a family day at LFCA, from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. with a light luncheon being served at noon. There will also be an open house for the public to view the academy from 2-4 p.m. LFCA is located at 555 Lisbon St. in Lisbon.