The Second Great Awakening of Christian Education?

On a sunny Thursday morning in September, a few dozen high school students gathered for a weekly chapel service at what used to be the Bottom's Up Bar & Grill and is now the chapel and cafeteria of Smith Mountain Lake Christian Academy. Five years ago, the school in southwestern Virginia had just 88 students between kindergarten and 12th grade. Its finances were struggling, quality was inconsistent by its own admission, and classes met at a local Baptist church. Now, it has 420, with others turned away for lack of space. It has grown to occupy a 21,000-square-foot former mini-mall, which it moved into in 2020, plus two other buildings down the road.