Advent Praise 2025 reminded patrons that “it ain’t over”

Dec 25, 2025 News

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By Shermon Hawker

(Kaieteur News) – The evening of December 20, 2025 was the culmination of a very much taxing, yet successful calendar within the local Seventh-day Adventist arena, a night where the young and old converged to blend energies and form a massive coalition of worship, basking in the riveting exhibition of rich talent assembled for this year’s staging of the annual year-end concert, known far and wide as ‘Advent Praise’.

In tandem with Youth Congress, Advent Praise is one of the flagship events of the Guyana Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. It has been a must-have on the yearly calendar, and being hosted within the final days of the final month, gives the event strong symbolisms of toasting to a successful completion of the year, crowning it off with an emphatic celebratory statement. With an ever-infectious anticipation, the production by custom, is infused with savory singing, poignant poetry, and delightful drama from an illustrious array of well-endowed performers.

Beginnings

The title ‘Advent Praise’ was coined in 2003 by the then Youth Ministries Director, Pastor Exton Clarke, now president of the organisation. However, the concept had its birth back in 1983, being the brainchild of Pastor Laurence London, whose year-end musical events made prototypes for what is now the most yearned for event of the year in the SDA community here.

Some 42 years on, the Advent Praise stage has been a catalyst for many talents, both unveiling noteworthy performers to the world, as well as serving as a familiar sweet spot for the seasoned and established. The event is eloquent with purpose, and each song, poem and dramatic presentation is neatly stuffed into one concise idea of creating a profound worship experience. It is part of a compound programme; its precursory event is the trailblazer/year-end convention held during the day for constituents’ summaries and awards, after which patrons would pour into the center that evening for the show.

2025 Lineup

Purposely themed ‘It ain’t over’, this year’s edition featured Trinidadian guitarist Kashiff Wilson, and vocalists Surinamese Denice Pique-Pollard, UK-based Guyanese De Andre Ifill, Shaquana Goodluck, Summer Gentle, and other prolific acts.

Ifill, who is all too familiar with the event, detailed two dreams since fulfilled: having the opportunity to stand in the spotlight on that grand stage, and also being invited from abroad to feature again. The vocalist summed up Advent Praise as “a big thing.”

“Attending Advent Praise is one thing, but being able to participate in Advent Praise is a totally different thing. In my younger years when I used to attend Advent Praise, sitting in the balcony or wherever, I always envisioned myself standing there and performing, and being able to be backstage with all the other performing artistes…. it’s a surreal feeling. It’s a dream come true and a blessing,” the singer pitched.

The buildup

Trizanna Atkins, who heads the AP committee, expressed her excitement to deliver the production for 2025 with all its stunning twists, concepts and surprises. She promised prior to the event that it will be seasoned with laughter, worship- an all-round good time.

“This year’s production, I would say it has a bit of variety to it. We’ll be having a children’s choir….and for the first time we’ll be having a triangulation of our guest artistes,” the vocalist noted in the buildup to the grand concert.

Customarily, the lineup includes local acts and prominent guest artistes headlining- in most cases, a foreign performer. The chief organiser explained that instead of one individual being branded guest artiste, three individuals featured.

“We’re putting the three of them together. That is our main artistes presentation. That is something I’m excited about.”

A prime focus over the last few years has been that of engaging local acts. Special consideration was made for these this time around too, Atkins stated. “Our local performers who have been producing their own music…. we are this year creating a stage and an atmosphere for them to feature their music so that our Adventist population and other denominations, they’re going to be able to hear good gospel music.”

Persons quickly snatched their tickets to be a part of the worship celebration.

Cometh the hour

In every regard the perfect event to wrap up the year, many individuals finally exhaled. Advent Praise was here. Everything promised was graciously delivered to satisfied patrons, from the meticulous and masterful strumming of the guitar by Wilson, which proved all too magnetic to an enraptured audience which handed him his deserved adulation, to Pique-Pollard’s soulful and therapeutic rendering, coated with elements of her native dialect which massaged many hearts into sweet surrender.

Ifill swayed and thrilled the audience with his thick-layered vocals encased in a reggae-styled performance as a highlight of the evening, while Summer and Shaquana, with original pieces from their budding catalogues, witnessed from their individual spotlights through stirring testimonies transported by the mesmerism and flavor of their exquisite vocal prowess.

The dramatic performances had no deficiency of its intended effects, and the message it sought to convey was resoundingly clear to the well-engaged audience. Every act of the evening measured up to satisfaction.

Atkins summarised the event as a success, aligning her opinions too to feedback garnered post-production.

“Persons would have said it was a good production…..It was a good production and we look forward to bettering next year. The crowd was very receptive, and the message came out in every aspect of the production.”

An abiding and beneficent integer

Throughout its history, the event has lent its unique spotlight to many prominent acts. Figures the likes of Trinidadian Bj’orn Pierre, as well as Guyanese gospel heavyweights Samuel Medas, Saiku Andrews, musician Earl Bishop and saxophonist Roy Stewart, among others have created lasting musical memories at the significant event.

The National Cultural Center in Georgetown has been home to Advent Praise for decades, but the event had a temporary relocation to the nearby Olivet SDA Church, due to the protocols surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Under new arrangements then, the event was meticulously coordinated with in-house performers for an online audience. This welcome improvisation was done in 2020 and again in 2021, but the feverish crave for the outdoor return of the production was an SDA pandemic in its own right.

Ever satisfied, ever desiring more

“This is not just an Adventist audience, it’s a wide variety. And that support system, that joy, that excitement and the fact that people look forward to this production every single year, that is what drives us. It’s not just that. It’s worship at the end of the day, and any avenue, any event, any large gathering that can cause persons in a room to just have that one moment together praising God, that is what pushes us to do what we do when we plan and when we prepare for the programme” Atkins affirmed.

Indeed, the concert reels in a net of every identification and smashes demographic barriers with its immense appeal to man, woman, boy and girl of all ages.

Ordinarily, as the last note of the evening fades into oblivion and the concert is wrapped up, merry hearts file out of the facility satisfied. Almost immediately, however, there is a marked dullness that consumes many who hankers for the next event, ever wanting more of the beloved event. From rousing vocals and catchy lyrics that fasten themselves to the mind and escape the lips without conscious prompt, to punchlines from scenes that becomes popular byword for weeks, and the songs that worked emotional surgeries on an entire audience, this writer can attest to the heartbreak of its conclusion, and the anticipation that haunts for an entire year just for another experience of what’s truly the greatest night in Guyana’s Adventist sphere…. Advent Praise.

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• Advent, Denice Pique-Pollard, Kashif Wilson, Praise, reggae gospel

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