"Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, as indeed you do.”
1 Thessalonians 5:11
Our theme this year is "Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, as indeed you do.” Legos are a wonderful toy, but this year we will also be using Legos to teach many important lessons. Imagine receiving one Lego block. You are given the challenge to build something with your Lego piece, but you cannot use anybody else’s Lego blocks. What could you build with one Lego block? Not very much! At school, we all have gifts of different shapes and sizes but when we work together, we can build up our school community.
We will also use Legos to help “build” important character traits and skills into our lives. This year we will focus on a different trait or skill each month. They include respect, organization, problem solving, relationships, perseverance, kindness, empathy, integrity, and communication.
God wants us to use our time and talents to encourage each other and build each other up. We will also use Legos to build each other up spiritually. We want our students to grow closer to God, and one way they can grow closer to God is if they help others grow closer to God. This is just one reason we use prayer buddies at church. Our older students are paired with our younger students to help them learn how to act and participate in mass. If you join us on a Friday morning at church, you will see our older students getting just as much from this time, if not more!
At Danbury Catholic we use PBIS strategies with our students to encourage correct behavior. Isn’t this the same thing as building each other up? Jesus asks us to build each other up with encouragement, just as he did with his disciples and followers. Every time we discourage someone and tear them down, we are causing pain and injury to that person and to Jesus. It is almost as if we are pulling out nails and stripping away boards of that person’s house and making it weaker. We want to help one another as we grow closer to God. This year’s theme, "Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, as indeed you do.”, helps us encourage each child to love themselves as God made them. We hope you will help spread this message as you help your child become the person God wants him/her to be. May God bless every member of our Danbury Catholic family. May we all remember to live 1 Thessalonians 5:11 every single day.