Band History

Let’s start at the very beginning, but before we do that, we want to state that our main purpose for everything that we did and do is to bring glory to our savior Jesus Christ. In 2003 The Baciu brothers started the band Emanuel. The Emanuel band had six original members. The singers were Jenny Cornici and Jackie Micula. Sergiu Baciu played guitar and sang as well. Michael Baciu played bass. George Baciu played piano and Jason Baciu played drums. During this early point of our musical journey many of the band members had very little experience playing instruments or singing with other people. Michael and Jason started learning their instruments right when the band started. Most of the band members had individual instrument lessons from our Church’s music director Ghita Tise. One thing that was odd for a youth band during that period was that we didn’t have a mentor or teacher that specifically helped our band. We learned how to arrange songs and learn to play together by ourselves. In retrospect it would have been easier to have had someone help our band, but we probably wouldn’t be as determined and disciplined as we are now. Emanuel started out by playing in Sunday school worship for a while. Things changed when Flo Popa, the youth leader in charge of worship at the time, asked us to play one or two songs for youth service. A few months after that we were leading full worship sets during Friday night youth service. As we continued to advance as a band we started to mature spiritually as well. (Below is slideshow/video we made in 2006 as we were transitioning from Emanuel to Emanuel United)    

                                 

            Emanuel continued until 2006 when the band added new members and became Emanuel United. The new members were Jeremy Tomuta on electric guitar and Alex Tzankov on voice and guitar. During this time our band members were really into Hillsong United hence the “United” addition to our band’s name. That was actually only partially the reason why we added “United” to our name; the main reason was we started incorporating guest instrument players and singers during this period of our band. We wanted to give youth members a chance to lead worship. Some of our past partners in worship include Aron Ianchici, Elvis Venter, Ruth Tomuta, Alex Herlo, Flavius Herlo, James Herlo,  Dani Alex, Vlad Alexa, Sorin Leahu, Alex Leahu, James Andra, Nicole Lela,  etc. (If we forgot anyone let us know or if we spelled someone’s name wrong) We still have guests now as seven38, but not as frequently as the Emanuel United period. During this period we also started to learn a lot of new songs. To keep up with all these new songs we had practice two times a week, Mondays and Thursdays. We tried to incorporate a new song each service and this is a habit we try to continue as seven38. As we got older it became harder to stay consistent with practices and it seemed we were not as passionate, this among other things led to a series of unfortunate events which resulted in some band members leaving Emanuel United. Not all things were negative in the latter part of Emanuel United existence during this time several members of the band were baptized with the Holy Spirit. Around this time God put a new found passion and a new vision for worship in our hearts. We knew we had to radically change for the better. This ultimately led to the creation of Seven38.

 

 Emanuel United disbanded in 2010 in order to give way to the Seven38 band. For us to take the leap of faith to leave Emanuel United, band members, and everything we became accustomed to in order to go into a totally different type of band/style was difficult for us. When we started Seven38 we wanted to start off right. We picked and instituted a weekly day of fasting. When our church started to offer bible studies for youth we created our own bible study because we had couldn’t attend theirs because we had practice on the same day. We also had an extra meeting once a week were we just focused on new ideas for youth service and where we occasionally worked on writing songs. The biggest emphasis for us is placed on our personal relationships with God, then our relationships with each other and the youth. One of the purposes of the Seven38 band was to help lead the youth to worship God in any atmosphere, style of music, and in other different ways. We felt at the time (seven38’s creation) that worship had become monopolized. That all different bands that rotated leading worship, including us to an extent, basically played the same songs, had the same style, and sounded similar. There was nothing inherently wrong with that, but we truly believed God called us to be different and to do more. A source for inspiration for us was our experiences at Church of God Winterfests. We really felt free to worship God in new ways. We wanted to create an atmosphere of worship similar to our experiences at Winterfest. As a result we started using different methods to accomplish our vision. We started to utilize stage lighting, videos, interactive games and activities, instrumental breaks, song arrangements and different musical styles. We are still building upon our strong foundation, continually looking for new ideas for worship, and doing our best for the Lord. Hopefully this band history has benefited someone in some way. Some might ask why take the time to write about a band's history, we believe it’s good to reflect and learn from the past, but more importantly it’s good to remember what God has done for us. As we look to the future we will strive to be innovative and obedient to God’s will. We have a lot more in store and we pray that we all will continue to grow closer to God and continue to worship together.