Ours is a faith committed to putting its values into action through service and peacemaking, with an awareness of our obligations to one another in community and, to discerning together, what makes for a just and compassionate world.
Chapel at Rockway
Chapel is a key part of our community building at Rockway. Students, staff and faculty attend chapel twice-weekly to sing, pray and nurture spiritual growth, together. Rockway chapels create the opportunity for faculty, staff, students, alumni and other guests from around the world, to reflect on their faith journeys, how they see the world and their place within it.
These community gatherings give shape to the core of our school’s identity and mission to form faith…build character.
Chapel Theme 2024-2025
Beauty in the Ordinary
Look how the wild flowers grow: they don’t work or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you that not even King Solomon with all his wealth had clothes as beautiful as one of these flowers.
Luke 12:27, Good News Translation.
In our chapels this year, we will explore how paying attention to and finding beauty in everyday, ordinary things can connect us to others and to mystery. Paying attention to the ordinary can connect us to a bigger, more inclusive story that sustains us and gives us hope.
Throughout history, people of faith have found God in the ordinary. The Bible stories show us that God is in the ordinary – in our relationships and in our work, in sharing meals together, in our interactions with the living things in our environment. This is quite different from an emphasis on needing to know the right things or to be perfect to find God. Our experiences of ordinary life can grow and change us if we are willing to experience them fully.
Writer and liturgist Cole Arthur Riley says “My faith is held together by wonder – by every defiant commitment to presence and paying attention … Wonder requires a person not to forget themselves but to feel themselves so acutely that their connectedness to every created thing comes into focus. In sacred awe, we are a part of the story.”
The following benediction expresses this well:
“God of every beautiful thing, Make us people of wonder …Let the mundane swell with a mystery that makes us breathe deeper still. And by this, may we be sustained and find hope.”
Religious Studies Program
Rockway offers Religious Studies (RS) courses at all grade levels. These courses provide grounding in Christian values, beliefs and history from a Mennonite perspective, while respecting diversity of faith experiences amongst our students. We seek to equip students to discern values that will guide them as they participate and lead in their communities, churches and global society.
Who is God? When we look for answers to that question, we develop appreciation and respect for perspectives that are different from our own. Grounded in a Mennonite faith perspective, our RS program explores the resources of Christian spirituality while also making connections with other faith traditions and ethical systems, many of which are represented within our student body.
Community Peacebuilding Certificate
Youth Leading Change
Rockway has partnered with Mennonite Central Committee Ontario (MCC) to launch a new program called YOUTH LEADING CHANGE, a Community Peacebuilding Certificate Program. This program is a unique opportunity for Rockway students to learn in the community, develop a deeper understanding of what practical steps can be taken to build a more peaceful world, connect with their faith and develop important leadership skills in the process. If students complete all of the components of the program, they will earn an official Community Peacebuilding Certificate from MCC that they can use for scholarship and university applications. We know that community engagement and leadership opportunities are critical for students to gain entrance into the top post-secondary programs. This is an exciting opportunity that only Rockway students have access to.
Serving Our Greater Community
Enivro-Social Initiatives
At Rockway, we are committed to putting our faith into action by supporting our community. Every year, our Enviro-Social Committee plans student activities and events that align with the current needs of our community and the larger world. Over the last few years, Rockway students have participated in the Every Child Matters March, planned a pop-up Thrift store in support of The Working Centre and created wound care kits for people experiencing homelessness in our region. Recently, Rockway students collected school supplies for the Healing of the Seven Generations, an Indigenous-led organization, whose Backpack Program supports urban indigenous students in Waterloo Region.
Annual Christmas Food Drive
Every Christmas, for 30+ years, Rockway students, staff and faculty, alongside their families, raise a record amount of money and canned goods for House of Friendship’s annual food hamper program.
Our Food Drive is one of our most valuable relationship-building and long-standing traditions. It creates value for each of us at Rockway, for the House of Friendship, and for those in our region who find themselves in need of food, dignity and encouragement.
