WAU Students Lead Church Service in Belfast, Northern Ireland

On May 18 a group of WAU Honors College students and faculty presented the Sabbath School and Church service for the Belfast Seventh-day Adventist Church in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The group presented music, testimonials, and the morning sermon for more than 250 attendees at the church.

 

 

The group was in Belfast as part of a study-on-location class that is studying the life and writings of C.S. Lewis. After a wonderful trip to Oxford to see The Kilns, where Lewis lived for more than 30 years, the group took a ferry from Liverpool to Belfast and spent time exploring Belfast and Northern Ireland, including visits to C.S. Lewis Square and the birth home of the Chronicles of Narnia author.

 

Prior to the trip, Dr. Nicholas Miller, a professor of Law and Religion at WAU, reached out to the pastoral team at Belfast SDA church to let them know of the upcoming visit. After some email exchanges, Senior Pastor Todd Frias invited the student group to present the main content of both the Sabbath School and church services. During these services, students gave testimonials about their spiritual journey and their experience studying at WAU. 

 

 

“I feel like I’ve really found a spiritual home at WAU”, Erick Soledispa, a Junior Theology major, told the congregation. Another Junior, Daniela Cruz, described how studying at WAU led her to change her major to Theology and opened doors she never thought would be opened. Freshman Ali Bryan described how his passion for spreading ideas about Christ and his love on social media convinced him that WAU, with it’s location near Washington, DC, was the place where he needed to be for his university education.

 

Several of the students were featured in the music portion of the services. In addition to a full praise team — complete with keyboard, violin, and singers — the special music for the main church service was a beautiful rendition of ‘The Prayer’ sung by Richard Machado and Daniela Cruz. The sermon for the morning was delivered by Professor Mill and it featured interviews with some of the 2023-2024 Branson Fellows. As Miller talked about how to convey the idea of the Sabbath to non-Adventists, Shea Standish (’25), Gopi Sunkara (’24), and Ali Bryan (’27) reflected on some of the work they did throughout the year as Branson Fellows.

 

Traveling to foreign countries for educational and cultural experiences is a wonderful part of any university academic program. But being able to engage with other SDA church members in those foreign countries brings an added level of meaning to the trip. 

 

‘It’s a proud moment for a faculty member to see students representing the university in such a wonderful way,’ said Dr. Jonathan Scriven, the Associate Director of the Honors College and one of the organizers of the trip. ‘We are so thankful for the opportunity given to us by the Belfast Church. We had such a great time with their congregation that day. We hope we can return during a future trip.’