2026-2027 MBA School Theme: Respect. Love. Serve.

For too much of human history, we have confused how we see ourselves—and how we imagine others see us—with how God sees us. We measure our worth by our successes and failures, by our appearance and abilities, by acceptance or rejection, by the voices around us and, perhaps most painfully, by the voices inside our own heads. But God has been telling us a different story from the beginning.

This is part of God’s long game: patiently, persistently, lovingly teaching us to see ourselves and one another as He sees us. He has never abandoned that work. In Jeremiah 29:11, God reminds His people:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

From the moment humanity began behaving in ways that separated us from God, He began preparing His people for the revelation of Jesus Christ—hundreds, even thousands, of years before His appearing. God’s message was consistent: You are not defined by your failures. You are not defined by what others think of you. You are loved, known, and created for a purpose. And when Jesus finally came into the world, people struggled to understand what—or rather, who—they were encountering.

The general population of Judea did not fully understand Him. The leaders of Israel, who professed to be watching and waiting for the Messiah, did not recognize Him. The crowds who followed Him from town to town, eager to hear every word, did not fully grasp who He was. Even His closest followers—the small group who ate with Him, traveled with Him, witnessed His miracles, and spent day after day in His presence—struggled to understand who Jesus truly was and, just as importantly, who they were to Him. It took time for them to see it.

As the apostles reflected on their experiences with Jesus, they began to understand that His love had changed the way they should see themselves. Paul expressed it powerfully:

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”                                            —Romans 5:8

Our worth did not begin when we got our lives together. Christ loved us when we were still sinners. His love was not a reward for becoming worthy; His love is what reveals our worth.

John came to the same realization:

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”               —1 John 3:1

That is what we are. Not what our mistakes say we are. Not what our insecurities say we are. Not what someone else says we are. Not even what we sometimes say about ourselves. We are children of God.

And then there is Peter. Peter was far from perfect. He had rough edges, made mistakes, and sometimes spoke before he thought. Yet he wanted nothing more than to be called by God to serve. After experiencing Jesus’ grace and reflecting on what it meant to belong to Him, Peter wrote to the early church:

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.”                   —1 Peter 2:9

A chosen people. A royal priesthood. God’s special possession. These are astonishing declarations of our true identity. They remind us that the way we see ourselves—and the way we imagine others see us—is not the measure of our worth. God’s love is.

And that brings us to the heart of our theme this year: Respect. Love. Serve. Jesus tells us in Mark 12:31:

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Notice something important about that command: Jesus connects how we love others with how we understand ourselves. We cannot truly love our neighbor while believing that we ourselves are worthless. And we cannot fully understand the value of another person until we begin to understand the value God has placed in us. Our first goal this year is to help students see their own worth as a child of God so that they can begin to understand the true origins of respect.

Respect begins with recognizing worth. If every person is created and loved by God, then every person is worthy of receiving that same dignity from others. Once our students begin to see how much their Creator loves them—and not only them but the people around them—then we begin working toward our second goal: to help students see everyone around them as worthy of love.

Love begins with recognizing that we are loved. When we understand that God loves us—not because we are perfect, but because we are His—we become freer to extend that same love to others. And true love isn’t just a feeling or a verbal expression, it is best experienced as an act of service. Our final goal this year is to help our students put their respect and love into action every day in how they choose to treat and serve others.

 Service begins when love moves beyond words. Once we recognize another person’s God-given worth, we are called not merely to notice them, but to serve them. To listen. To encourage. To forgive. To help. To stand beside someone who feels alone. To put another person’s needs ahead of our own when the opportunity comes.

Respect. Love. Serve. They are not three unrelated ideas. They are three expressions of the same truth: every person has God-given worth.

We cannot live out our calling to respect and love others until we begin to understand how deeply we ourselves are respected and loved by God. And recognizing God’s love gives us permission to love ourselves—not arrogantly or selfishly, but honestly, with all our imperfections and “warts and all.” That means letting go of the negative self-talk that tells us we are not enough. It means refusing to let our mistakes define us. It means releasing the imagined judgments of others. And it means remembering that our identity is not determined by popularity, achievement, appearance, failure, or approval.

Our identity is grounded in the love of God. And when we begin to see ourselves through God’s eyes, something changes. We become able to see others differently, too. The person who annoys us becomes someone worthy of respect. The person who feels invisible becomes someone worthy of our attention. The person who has made mistakes becomes someone worthy of grace. The person who is different from us becomes someone worthy of love. The person who needs help becomes someone we have the privilege to serve.

That is the challenge—and the promise—of the theme we have chosen for this school year. See yourself as God sees you. See others as God sees them. Then let that vision shape the way you live. Because when we understand our worth, we can respect the worth of others. When we know we are loved, we can love. And when we recognize that we are so highly valued, we can choose to serve.

Respect. Love. Serve.

Not simply a school theme, but the lens through which we view others—and the way we choose to live our lives.

Written by Principal Dan Nicola