Music Festival Reminds Participants to ‘Be the Light’

Story by Yocelin Morales, Class of 2024

This year’s second annual music festival, themed “Be the Light,” represented the second time all five schools from New Jersey Conference’s district partnered to make this event a reality. Students from Lake Nelson Adventist Academy (LNAA), Waldwick Adventist School, Vine Haven Adventist School, Meadow View Junior Academy, and Tranquility Adventist School recently gathered to praise and worship God.

Elements from the program included students singing in duos and choirs, while other students represented their school and orchestra using instruments, such as violins, cellos and the piano. Each school had the opportunity to represent themselves while simultaneously uniting with other schools. “We were able to have this music festival as … five schools coming together as one,” says Webster Sterling, the school chaplain, high school religion and business/economics teacher, senior class advisor and pastor of the Academy church plant.

This annual event gives students the opportunity to improve their talents, use them to praise God and potentially help listeners establish a deeper connection with Him. It also serves to help the students, themselves, grow closer to God.

Speaking to how attending a Seventh-day Adventist school provides students with a spiritual upbringing, Sterling says, “Evangelism is taking place in our classrooms every single day.” Other leaders share that, at the end of the day, God is the One who will always have us no matter what.

Stephen Lee, president of the New Jersey Conference, describes it this way: “Adventist education relies upon the Holy Spirit to lead and guide from morning till night.” LNAA students believe in this powerful Holy Spirit and the ability to allow God to use them to shine a light to the world.

Overall, the music festival served as a great reminder for LNAA students, staff and faculty to share God’s Word with others because, after all, that is their mission: to introduce people to God so that all can be united and praise and worship God as one in heaven.