Tubah: Bambili Baptist Church music group, Unique Stomers, launches first album.

The founder and leader of the Unique Stomers, Yancho Divine, said the main aim of the group is to change what people think about gospel music, particularly in church. 

“Over the years, people have made music in church just become a phenomenon, but we want to be able to shift people’s attention to the fact that music is an important aspect in the church and so should be done carefully. If you listen to our songs, you will discover all of them are sermons designed to lead people through a particular message, and we are looking to raise a group of musicians that will go to other churches after this and be able to build music in those churches,” he explained.

The concert, according to the founder, was intended to let people know about Unique Stomers.

“We have been in hiding and so we wanted our church to receive these children and to let people all over Cameroon know that there’s a group like this coming up and we are doing this kind of music,” Yancho added.

Yancho said after the concert, they will continue with their lost-found experience, which is an evangelistic program that will see them move out to different neigbourhoods around Bambili to do good music and preach the gospel to people. 

“We are doing all of these things not because we deserve salvation at some point but because God in his glory has chosen to give us salvation. And so, we want people to understand salvation rightly and our songs are intended to do this. Almost all of our songs are directed towards salvation and Grace,” Yancho noted.

Enter Pastor Femengwi Ezekiel

Speaking to The Guardian Post, the Pastor of Bambili Baptist Church, Rev Femengwi Ezekiel, who expressed his delight to see young people using their voices to glorify God, also drew a narrative of how the group came about.

He said he made this group in early 2020s, there were lots of controversies surrounding the group especially in relation to the gene of music that they were using. 

“…you know rap music is actually something that is not very popular in our culture, it’s just a growing gene of music and introducing it to the church has actually been a problem and if you read reviews on this, you normally will discover that there are lot of divided opinions as far as this is concern,” the Pastor said.

He further explained that when he made the children, he had as vision to build first, believing that any life that is holy and sanctified can use any available tool so far as it is not evil to bless the nation.

“I saw rap music just as a tool in their hands but I wanted that their content will be commensurate to their performance. If their performance outweighs their content, then we may get to a dangerous end,” the man of God said. 

Rev Femengwi continued by saying that the Unique Stomers are the first group in the church that are able to turn his sermons that he preaches into songs, which are theologically sound and edifying. 

Rev Ezekiel continued that the sole purpose of the concert was to raise funds for them to get equipment and start doing out reach. 

“So I have very high prospect for this group trusting that the Lord will lead them into the future,” the Pastor said.

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue No: 3145 of Friday June 21, 2024