The Gray and the Black

The Gray and the Black--that’s what I decided to call the session when it was about to begin. Why? Because both of us guests—Brent Ropp and myself—were clearly the only ones in the room with silver-gray hair while the other thirty people there had jet-black hair, primarily because they were a group of young leaders who were all native Nigerians.

Meeting with Prosper Isichei, MANI's Director for the
Emerging Leaders Networki

When my friend, Prosper Isichei learned that I might have a free 12 hours in the capital city of Abuja before departing on an evening flight, he asked permission to recruit a group of his young “emerging leader” friends to gather for an informal time of learning exchange. “We would simply like to sit at your feet and learn anything from your years of leadership experience,” he claimed. Not really knowing what I was getting into, but feeling intrigued by such an open-ended request, I accepted.

What followed was about four hours of some of the most meaningful time I’ve spent in my years of ministry in Africa. With such freedom on presentation content, I prepared a PowerPoint covering eight “Life Lesson” that included such things as how to write a personal missions statement, developing a model of balanced personal growth, ministry and marriage, and the difference between being a leader and knowing how to lead. I felt that I was addressing a room full of thirsty sponges. Rarely have I experienced an interaction with 20 and 30-year olds where they hung on to every word I shared and followed up with deep, penetrating questions for personal application.

My guess is there are two reasons for such a positive reaction. One is that younger African generations tend to be regarded more as a threat by the established older leaders preventing healthy mentoring relationships from happening. A second reason is that what is often presented as leadership training tends to either be a highly academic lecture, a Bible Study sermon or some other top-down experience with little chance for interaction. Instead I paused at the end of each point to allow for plenty of personal application questions plus further insight to be shared by my colleague, Brent Ropp.

 At the end of the day, I asked for feedback about which topics were most relevant. It seemed to be a tie between balancing ministry and marriage and that of being a leader but not really knowing how to lead. The later was shared via a TED Talk video clip which was the first time any had seen such a thing. As a result, we brainstormed a bit about creating a similar TED-Talk-type ministry designed to share worthy ideas for the global mission world, something my son, Nathaniel is thinking seriously about doing. They were enthusastic about it. And, at the suggestion of returning to Nigeria with a prepared weekend seminar on balancing ministry and marriage, not only did every hand in the room go up but several seriously wanted to put their names on an advance sign-up list.

There was something amazingly refreshing for me about this one day interaction with these young men and women. It is even more fulfilling to think that some of the Life Lessons I’ve passed on to them seem to be worthy topics and truths that can help them become a generation with the capability to significantly advance God's Kingdom in their own continent and around the world.