Ignite Christian Academy® is very excited to announce that we have a new director for the Academy! Reverend Gary O'Neill joined the Academy in early January and has already hit the ground running!
For more than 20 years, O'Neill has served in various Christian education roles including teaching, administration, headmastership, and governance at both the K-12 and college levels. However, it was during his Master's program at Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary that he focused on Christian education. God used this time to help O'Neill develop and refine a biblical philosophy of education that is authorized in the Great Commission with shared responsibility between the home, church, and school. O'Neill has been increasingly burdened with the need to equip succeeding generations with the tools and perspective to live a Christ-centered life.
With a life verse of II Tim 2:15 where we are challenged to make divine approval the goal of our life, he says, "I'm pretty intense about my work, but I also enjoy reading, Bible teaching, hermeneutics, travel, and an occasional action video." O'Neill and his wife Priscilla are blessed with four wonderful children: Joseph, Elizabeth, Christine, and David, each of whom has made a personal commitment to Christ.
O'Neill has sought to use the analytical strategies he learned from his engineering management background to enhance the operation of several Christian schools. He emphasizes the need for continuous process improvement with a view toward making good schools better, and challenging better schools toward a legacy of true greatness.
"It's an awesome and sobering responsibility to take part in leading the most innovative Christian school and educational company in the world," says O'Neill. "Ignite Christian Academy is unmatched for accommodating the unique, God-given capacity of each child through its individualized, mastery learning curriculum as well as its state-of-the-art, Internet delivery system. I am both excited and deeply challenged to build upon this rich foundation."
O'Neill sensed God calling him here from Maryland after recently leading a dual accreditation effort at one of the historic Christian schools in the Washington, D.C. metro area. He says, "As I look back, I am still amazed at how God has put so many pieces in place over the course of more than ten years since my children first used AOP curriculum, my later school visit to the AOP Arizona headquarters, our high school conversion to full Switched-On Schoolhouse® with remote access, my pivotal meeting with President Beth Te Grotenhuis, and so many other events that have led up to today. Our God is awesome!"
The Academy faculty and staff look forward to working with Rev. O'Neill, and we are thankful that God has provided this new leadership for the Academy. Pray for God's continued blessing on the O'Neill family as God directs them and the Academy toward the future that He has prepared for us.