Rooted and Ready: Riverside Christian’s New Look
In this blog series, “Rooted and Ready,” we will look at how Riverside Christian is preparing it’s students to be Rooted in Christ and Ready for Tomorrow in order to fulfill our mission to develop students who are prepared, both academically and spiritually, to serve the Lord Jesus Christ through their character and leadership.
The Purpose: A logo is much more than a piece of art. It is a symbol; a representation of a body of people, a business, or a cause. At Riverside Christian School, our logo means much more to us than something we stamp on envelopes and embroider across uniforms. Our logo communicates our mission to our students, our families, and our community and opens the door to share with others why RCS is such a great place. Our original logo was not consistent and was difficult to use across the board. As a school body, we strive for excellence in everything we do at RCS and we knew it was time for a logo that reflected that.
The Process:
When first dreaming up what our new logo would look like, we knew we wanted something that would stand the test of time. After receiving advice to simplify our logo with a crisp, clean look we began to pray over the symbols that would represent our school to the rest of the world. We knew we wanted to keep our school colors navy blue and gold. Navy blue represents trust, loyalty, wisdom, holiness, and truth. Gold symbolizes knowledge, faith and wisdom. Both of these colors represent our school values and have been with the school since 1973.
“You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it.” Psalm 65:9
As a result of our move from West Valley to a brand new building in Terrace Heights, WestSide Christian School transitioned to Riverside Christian School in 2002. In our rebranding, we wanted a logo that would not only represent our heritage, but would also represent our schools name and mission. With the Yakima River being a vital source of life to our vibrant valley, Riverside Christian’s name sprang out of this resource. The Bible references rivers over 150 times as a source of life to land, plants, animals and peoples, as well as a symbol of the opportunity to forever quench our thirst and receive eternal life with Jesus Christ. “…but who ever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:14
At Riverside Christian, our desire is for our students to be rooted in Christ so that they may live a vibrant life, that would not wither, but blossom with opportunities to share the gift of new life with others.
Another strong biblical symbol that we wanted to keep in our logo was the shield. As Christians we are called to put on the armor of God which includes the shield of faith. “…in addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” Ephesians 6:16 The image of shield has a long history of protection against our enemy and faith in our Protector.
In today’s culture, we realize that our students face trials and temptations at every corner.We wanted our logo to remind them that they must put on the shield of faith to protect themselves from the lies of the Devil. Each day we pray that God’s protection would cover our school, our students, and their families.
The Final Product:
After many months of prayer, collaboration, and decision, we believe that our rebranded logo represents both our school and our mission in the Yakima Valley in a fresh, new way.
To learn more about Riverside Christian School, please contact us at 509-965-2602.