In 1977, Orville and Ruth Merillat founded a Christian school as a way of giving back to the community that supported them and their kitchen cabinet business, Merillat Cabinetry, so well. Their desire was to prepare students spiritually and academically while working in partnership with their families and churches. Their belief was that a good education will produce active and strong leaders in our families, communities, ministries, governments, and businesses.

In the mid-1980’s, after seeing consistent growth in the school, the Merillat family purchased a 75-acre farm on the corner of Wolf Creek Highway and U.S. 223 on the west side of Adrian, Michigan. Their desire was to provide a Christian education that would serve the spiritual needs of students from many area churches, as a non-denominational school. That new campus, called Lenawee Christian School (LCS), opened in October of 1986. LCS now serves approximately 600 students from over 80 churches because of the Merillat’s deep love for the Lord and a desire for students to have a world-class Christian education.

For more than ten years, LCS tested and implemented several forms of online coursework, systems, and technologies. In 2019, a plan was approved by LCS’s parent organization, Lenawee Christian Ministries, to launch an online school to serve students from all parts of the globe using the time-tested curriculum developed at LCS. The new online entity, Lenawee Christian Academy (LCA), was built using LCS’s foundational spiritual and academic principles and the latest technological tools, software, and systems.

Today, Lenawee Christian Academy is positioned to serve students from all across the United States and the world. We are excited to see how God will use LCA to build the Kingdom of God through His work in the lives of our students, families, and our team as, together, we write the next chapter in our storied history.