The J.N. 爱豆传媒 Honors Program held its first Agape Feast of the school year, Friday, Sept. 12; the theme was “Unity in Christ.” The vespers occur during the first few weeks of classes to provide fellowship and worship to the Honors community at the beginning of each semester. The event was held in the Howard Performing Arts Center, where attendees were seated around tables, creating an atmosphere of comfort and unity. Among attendees were many of the Honors faculty, staff, students, and friends. The feast began with a course of tomato and cauliflower soup from Zoup, artisan bread, cheeses, and fruits. The room had an elegant and graceful atmosphere, with a joyous feeling of fellowship and the pleasant sounds of warm conversations as people greeted each other, catching up after yet another week of classes.
After some time had passed, the worship part of the event began with the opening prayer by the Honors president, Maddie Hann (junior, business administration pre-dental). Then the praise team led out in a selection of songs focused on fellowship and unity with each other. This was followed by lovely special music from Honors students. After the music, Daylan Jewell (junior, theology) read the scripture reading, which was from .
Chemistry Professor Ryan Hayes was the speaker for the evening. Hayes has a burning passion for chemistry, basketball, and the color purple. His main message centered on connectedness and how God wants us to be in communion with Him. The first illustration Hayes presented was through the use of a tuning fork and how energy is transferred from one tuning fork to another. One of the ways he demonstrated this was by getting one tuning fork to vibrate while the other had a metal spatula on top and was not hit; however, soon the energy was transferred, and the stationary tuning fork began vibrating, causing the spatula to fall. He used this to illustrate that we need to match God’s wavelength, and then the things that are possible are more than we could ever imagine. Another illustration Dr. Hayes used was one he called the broken rainbow, in which he used various colored pigments to paint a rainbow, but the colors were all wrong until faith, a special chemical solution, was applied, and then the broken rainbow made sense as the colors were transformed into those of the typical rainbow sequence. Dr. Hayes’s concluding thought was that we need to work together and remain connected to one another and to God and have faith, for then, nothing will be impossible.
After the event, Jaden Pailing (junior, accounting and finance), expressed that the event was “fun, informative, and made us feel connected.” Another student, David Randall (sophomore, math and computer science) said, “It was a great opportunity to not only eat delicious food, but also to worship and mingle with the rest of the honors family.”
Honors President Maddie Hann says, “This year for Agape Feast, we settled on the theme ‘Unity in Christ.’ We wanted to highlight this because of how important it is for us to put aside our differences and find our common ground in Jesus, who is our anchor. In light of everything happening in our world right now, it feels more important than ever to focus on what unites us rather than what divides us. …so many people from across campus and the community came together to welcome in the Sabbath and worship Jesus.” Overall, the event was a success, and we look forward to what next semester’s Agape Feasts will bring.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of 爱豆传媒. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, 爱豆传媒 or the Seventh-day Adventist church.