As Mars Hill Academy celebrates 30 years, we’re taking time to reflect on the stories that have shaped us—stories of transformation, conviction, and God’s faithfulness. There’s no better place to start than the very beginning.
By Tom and Linda Thistleton, Mars Hill Academy Founders
Though those early days now feel like the distant past, they laid the foundation for the school we are today. We’ve done our best to remember and recount how it all began—briefly, but with hearts full of gratitude.
Tom had become a believer reading Francis Schaeffer, and thus, was converted to Christ and to worldview Christianity at the same time. He was really struck with how the Bible being true meant that EVERYTHING about life was changed. The following quote from Schaeffer is a good summary of this understanding:
“True spirituality covers all of reality ... the Lordship of Christ covers all of life and all of life equally. In this sense there is nothing concerning reality that is not spiritual.
Related to this ... is the fact that many Christians do not mean what I mean when I say Christianity is true or Truth. They are Christians and they believe in, let us say, the truth of creation, the truth of the virgin birth, the truth of Christ’s miracles, Christ’s substitutionary death, and His coming again. But they stop there with these and other individual truths.
When I say Christianity is true I mean it is true to total reality — the total of what is, beginning with the central reality, the objective existence of the personal-infinite God. Christianity is not just a series of truths but Truth — Truth about all of reality.”
We had begun homeschooling our two oldest children, Tom and Abby. We weren’t committed homeschoolers but just hadn’t found a school that embodied this comprehensive understanding of the Christian life.
We read an article in RC Sproul’s devotional magazine, “Tabletalk,” about a classical and Christian (C&C) school RC helped start in Orlando, FL. So, we called the school to learn more and were encouraged to move to Orlando or, at a minimum, to read Doug Wilson’s book, Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning. We ordered the book and both read it. The book, written in 1991, explains classical and Christian education and tells the story of The Logos School, which started in Moscow, ID in 1981.
Linda remembers thinking, “Eureka! We’ve found what we’ve been looking for.”
The book crystalized a lot of the thoughts running around in our heads. Providing a faithful Christian education was not simply an option for us, but instead something we believed the Lord required. Rather than move to Orlando (or Moscow, ID!), the Lord led us to stay in Cincinnati and start a school here.
In 1995, Tom attended the third annual meeting of the Association of Classical Christian Schools in Moscow, ID with 120 others. At the time, there were only 17 schools (now there are 500+ member schools and more than 1,000 likeminded educators who attend the conference every summer). He met many of the early pioneers, and the commitment to start a C&C school in Cincinnati was solidified.
The first thing we did was read a number of books on the Christian philosophy of education and Christian education in general. We knew we were running to something —not away from something. And we wanted to make sure we could clearly articulate the truth, beauty, and goodness of what we were running towards. As we read, it confirmed that possessing a Christian worldview isn’t something that automatically happens with conversion to Christ. Rather, it must be cultivated intentionally with diligence and perseverance over time.
Then, we started all the hard work of establishing a school. In the good providence of God, we asked the Cincinnati Enquirer (people still read newspapers in those days) to announce a public meeting. They did a feature story on us, which really helped get the word out. There were plenty of helping hands in those early days, including Carolyn Horton, who found the first church to house us; Kevin and Sharon Siepel, who helped on a number of fronts; and Roger Wismer, who was the first to join the Board along with Tom.
One of the key early challenges — beyond all the practical leg work (school organization, staffing, curriculum, advertising, writing, speaking, interviewing families, etc.) — was convincing people that their children would receive a solid education and be accepted into college. We had plenty of great stories from other classical, Christian schools, but we’d never taught a class or hired a teacher ourselves. We were aiming to start in August 1996 and didn’t hire our first teacher until May 1996. In fact, the start of Kindergarten was postponed a week, because we hired our K teacher one week before school began.
In the end, we did open our doors in August 1996 with three full-time teachers and 27 students in grades K–6; and the rest is history! While we always had a multi-generational vision for Mars Hill Academy, our initial focus wasn’t more specific than that —we were completely focused on opening the doors.
Looking back now, we are deeply grateful for all the Lord has done and continues to do through MHA. Today, with multiple children of alumni enrolled, we see the fruit of that original vision blossoming into something even greater: a thriving community committed to cultivating wise and virtuous men and women who glorify and enjoy God, faithfully applying the Lordship of Christ throughout all of life.