The Sunday News
Kudzai Mpangi, Sunday Life Reporter
GOSPEL lovers celebrated New Year in a spectacular fashion as hundreds thronged Word of Life Church in Bulawayo for the inaugural Worship Altar Festival last week.
The festival is the brainchild of popular gospel couple Blessing “Stot” and Lorraine Stotombe who have tirelessly worked hard to see local gospel musicians reaching greater heights and thriving in the music industry.
Stot said the main aim of the festival was to increase appreciation of gospel music in the City of Kings.
“We have seen the gap and lack of quality of gospel events hence the birth of all of our productions like the Women of Varlour, Dunamis Men as well as the Worship Altar Festival. If the house DJs can have Kalawa we can also have Gospel artistes showcasing their talents at our own events where we can share these entertainment moments while we appreciate God for what He does in our lives,” Stotombe said.
The breathtaking line-up of artistes that took to the stage at the glamorous gospel fiesta include the likes of award winning Minister Takesure Zamar, Ellard and Sharon Cherayi from ZimPraise, Loraine Stot and Mrs Mwamuka. In an interview, Stot revealed how the event came to be celebrated on a New Year by praising and worshipping God.
“The objective of this concert is to celebrate the favour of God by taking us to another year by praising and worshipping him. We also take this opportunity to expose and market the artistes and groups that we work with as Inspired Music, MZ Production and Stot Bass Production,” Stot said.
“We are overwhelmed that this festival came to life with the help of Minister Takesure who was the one who created the name ‘Worship Altar’. An altar is where you go to offer a sacrifice of Worship and praise thanking God for the added year,” he said.
The gospel couple shared their experience on the festival as they are very pleased with the artistes who delivered to the audience which was receptive to the music.
“The atmosphere was amazing, the artistes who ministered did very well and the audience was receptive to the music that was being ministered to them. We had an awesome visitation of the Holy Spirit and the feedback that we are getting is so overwhelming. However, we faced a few challenges as we had a delay with the setup so it disturbed our time but everything went as planned,” he said.
Stotombe said they are hoping to make this festival much bigger in the near future as it will be an annual event they wish to extend on the festival days so that people can have more time praising and worshipping the Lord.
“For the mean time since it’s the first time doing such a mega event it will be running for a day but we wish to add days in the near future because this is going to be one of the mega gospel festivals in the country,” he said.
The gospel couple is also targeting introducing the Worship Altar Gospel Festival to other parts of the country starting with Harare before the end of the year. @kayskudzai
