Mission

Peer Ministry (PM) is the student-led faction of the Campus Ministry office at Regis High School that unites students in collaboration with Campus Ministry to actualize three primary components of religious formation and student representation at Regis: liturgy, retreats, and social justice work. PM works to ensure that student needs, particularly those of a spiritual nature, are understood and met by Campus Ministry and administrative programming. We aim to respond to the call of Pope Francis by building a culture of encounter at Regis. We empower students to explore social justice issues and engage in substantive action to improve inclusivity and diversity at Regis as a form of faith-based service. Fostering this culture of encounter ensures that Regis meets each student where they are in their spiritual journeys, and that we hold fast to the Ignatian ideal of cura personalis. 

Peer Ministry has established a spirit of open collaboration with the IDEALS Committee to help center the group’s work around the Ignatian tradition and faith-based vision of social justice. Together, PM and IDEALS aim to advance diversity, inclusion, and social justice initiatives by engaging students in dialogue and service to positively shape the cultural, spiritual, and academic values of the Regis community. This collaboration offers active involvement in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work. Together these groups focus on the implementation of student-inspired proposals for social justice in Regis’s curricula, extracurricular initiatives, and culture.

Roles:

Peer Ministry Leadership Team (PMLT)

The Peer Ministry Leadership Team brings together a diverse group of students driven towards serving the Regis community. Students are responsible for the creation, development, and implementation of programs that can better affect the experiences of Regians. Our group of leaders serves as facilitators and guides to empower the sharing of faith. Leaders are selected through a rigorous application process that highlights the diverse skill sets of Regis students. Leaders cover all facets of the Regis experiences through their work across school-wide liturgies, retreats, and additional programming. Students properly reflect the Ignatian charism as they serve as positive role models to their brothers. The goal of PMLT is to invite students to be more involved with their faith while feeling connected to the heart of the Regis community, Campus Ministry. Leaders serve as a voice for the Campus Ministry Office and are responsible for the recruitment of other students to participate in liturgical, retreat, and social justice-based programs. Throughout the year, the PMLT organizes and advocates for various proposals and initiatives with the goal of improving the Regis community to better represent and hear the student body. The PMLT also trains all Arrupes and Retreat Leaders (see below) to enhance the implementation of Peer Ministry programming.  

Retreat Leaders (RLs)

The Regis High School retreat program offers students the opportunity to take time away from their busy academic, athletic, and social lives for prayer and reflection. While on retreat, students reflect on and discuss issues that affect their daily lives. Our retreats are constructed to empower and develop the spiritual and emotional aspects of students. We prioritize meeting students where they are in order to support them on their spiritual and physical journey throughout high school. Our retreat program is student-led in order to emphasize that students are the living examples of Christ in our community. Each year students are required to attend one retreat, and many choose to participate in more than one. Retreat Leaders play an essential role in using their knowledge of the gospel to assist their peers on their spiritual journeys while growing and enhancing their own faith. RLs remain dedicated to developing and enhancing their leadership skills and practices—both in and outside of retreats—by actively incorporating recommendations from the PMLT and Campus Ministry Office in their ministry. 

Arrupes

As appropriately named after Fr. Pedro Arrupe, social justice stands at the center of Arrupes’ ministry, awakening and engaging students in Jesus’s call for love and solidarity. Arrupes regularly attend Social Justice Advocational Training to explore timely and historic social injustices and to learn how to enact change in their communities. Arrupes use their knowledge of social justice to engage their peers in meaningful conversation, especially among underclassmen, with the hope of inspiring and inciting transformative and just action at Regis. This format seeks to provide all willing and interested students, no matter their year, with the opportunities and resources to explore pressing questions of social justice. Regians who, at any point in their spiritual journey, discover a passion for social justice may elect to register for this role. Being an Arrupe requires a year-round dedication of time and effort to self-education and community service, whether it be contributing to Ignis prayer services, conducting advisement group discussions, or collaborating with clubs on service projects. 

Ministries:

Cultural evolution must complement systemic change, otherwise the resulting discord will fail to accurately reflect the needs of the community. Therefore, student feedback and suggestions must valuably contribute to shaping curricula, and it is essential to educate all students and faculty, not only those in positions of authority, on current and future changes in the community. We face a severe lack in communication and collaboration between our administration, teachers, and student body that is stunting our progression. To effectively make systemic and cultural improvements at Regis, we must heal this divide. To do so, it is imperative that we establish new initiatives and adapt existing roles in the community to combat social injustices.

Ignis

Ignis, a student-led and student-designed prayer service offers a retreat environment through an everyday lens. The latin, Ignis, meaning “fire” inspires Regians to have a passion for the liturgy of the Word while relating it to their daily challenges. Student leaders select, research and develop the readings, reflections, and music which concludes with discussion and fellowship. This unique space blends both peer engagement and religious practice, while students bring contemporary issues to a communal prayer experience. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, students have continued reason for needing and wanting to get together to remain connected in a spiritual sense. 

PM and IDEALS Town Halls 

In order to interface with IDEALS, Regis’s student-led diversity, equity and inclusion committee, PM and IDEALS leaders will collaboratively organize town hall meetings during select assembly periods each trimester to minister to the student body concerning the status of our social justice work at Regis. The principal objectives would be to inform the student body and faculty of the ongoing social justice initiatives of Peer Ministry, IDEALS, and various diversity clubs, to explain the purpose of our committees’ missions, and to engage the community in a town hall-format Q&A/suggestion session. These town hall meetings would allow student leaders to share their work and progress with the wider community and would foster a culture of encounter (to borrow Pope Francis’s term) that allows all students’ voices to be heard. The town hall will be open to all students, and attendance, although encouraged, will not be mandatory. Our hope is that students authentically and willing show up to listen, learn, and ask questions. The meeting will follow a two-part format: (1) a presentation from leaders of IDEALS and PMLT and (2) an opportunity for question-and-answer from student attendees. The event may take place in person or as a virtual webinar. 

Social Justice Advocational Training (SJATs)

SJATs seek to educate and engage students in collaborative work and dialogue on issues of social justice in our world and at Regis. Led by select members of the PMLT and faculty, students who discover a call for social justice may attend these educational sessions to explore and learn how to address topics including, but not limited to, migration, climate change, race, queerness, poverty, gender, and mental health. A wide variety of resources, provided by IDEALS, faculty members, and PM, will address injustices and provide practical solutions with the hope of inspiring students to make substantive change in their communities. Available to all students, especially underclassmen, this advocational training serves as an introduction to the values and work of Campus and Peer Ministry while teaching students how to meaningfully contribute to social justice-based service and conversation.