NYI Africa leadership team meeting.
Youth form an integral part of the Church and any organization. They need motivation, training, and empowerment to grow in the ministry of reaching out to nations. This requires more team building activities and strategizing to bring cohesion and teamwork. In February, the Africa NYI Leaders had a seven-day team building.
The NYI Africa, Regional Council Members met in Nairobi, Kenya, from 12 to 18 February 2022 to pray, listen, strategize, analyze, and receive training to enhance the effectiveness of the youth ministry in Africa. The guests were; Africa East Field FSC, Dr Musa Kunene, Senior Africa Nazarene University Religion lecturers and ANU students, Regional Office Coordinators (finance and urban ministries), and different facilitators who contributed to the success of the meeting.
The objectives of this meeting were to analyze the current state of NYI and increase team cohesion. To create awareness of all factors involved in making decisions regarding the development and growth of our youth ministry and to develop a specified plan to be more effective and relevant in our programs and projects.
The team received daily devotions from Dr Kunene, focusing on Isaiah 54. He challenged the NYI leadership to enlarge the place of their tents because the time had come to expand our tents, stretch our tent curtains, lengthen our cords, and strengthen our stakes.
Workshops on mental health and self-awareness, strength finding, unearthing the leader in you, cross-culture orientation, authenticity in African youth, and transformational leadership were among the many pieces of training the leaders received. Calebe Luo from KenSHIN Coaching conducted the strength finder to allow the team to study individual and collective strengths and identify areas that need improvement. Knowledge of personal strengths is an essential factor for any leader. This allowed the team to explore individual and collective strengths and identify areas that needed improvement.
We had the Regional Communication Coordinator, LoReal Burton, join the meeting via Zoom to facilitate a discussion on Authenticity in African Youth. This was to help determine how the youth ministry can embody the region’s four values, clarify the external influence affecting the African Youth, and discuss possible solutions to helping our youth be authentic.
The Africa Region Personnel Coordinator, Michelle Eby facilitated Youth in Missions & Cross-culture Orientation for the leaders to understand the cross-cultural missionary work within Africa.
The Regional Director, Dr. Daniel A.K.L Gomis joined in via Zoom to speak about transformational Leadership and Self-reflection. He encouraged proper planning, encouraged the FYCs to spend time with the youth leaders, and forged means of involving them in the growth of NYI.
Our NYI Global Director, David Gonzalez, brought his greetings via zoom and shared more on the NYI 100-year celebration and NYC.
On one of the days, NYI leaders met with some of ANU’s management board members, staff, faculty, and students. A meeting to discuss how NYI and ANU can collaborate was held over a delicious meal. Each Field Youth Coordinator (FYC) met with ANU students from their respective fields. We encourage all our youths to consider studying at ANU, where “What begins at ANU transforms the world”. ( https://www.anu.ac.ke/ )
On the last day of NYI meetings, there was a time of prayer and partaking in the Holy Communion together.
