As I sit at our dining room table, a black-and-white photograph of bananas hangs next to our fiddle leaf fern. My wife shot and developed the photo for a college photography class. Angel didn’t know it then, but she was in the waning years of film photography. Much of her class was spent teaching students to develop film properly.
Developing film required the use of a dark room. One would go into a room that had no light. Even the most negligible levels of light can destroy a negative. The film cassette was opened, the film was removed and placed into a reel. That reel was placed into a film tank, covered with liquid film developer at just the right temperature, and agitated periodically. Two additional chemicals were added: stop bath and fixer, which stabilized the photo, and finally, the film was rinsed, soaked, and hung up to dry for several hours. It was only after this that the printing process could begin.
When I was ten, my parents gave me the family camera for my class train trip to Benson, Arizona. I was thrilled. Seated next to my buddy Aaron, I snapped shots of the stunning desert landscape and took candid shots that captured the big personalities of my classmates. I had 24 shots and chose each shot deliberately to avoid wasting a single one. We got home, and my parents took my film to the photo shop to develop it. Three days later we got the call. It was ready! I couldn’t wait to see my incredible shots. Ansel Adams, eat your heart out!
We got home and I began thumbing through picture after picture of… my blurry index finger.
Angel ruined many rolls of film as she tried to perfect the developing process.
In the world of digital photography, the cost and the time of development disappears. A photo is snapped and appears without delay. Social media means that those photos have a potentially massive audience.
It was my parents and sisters who witnessed the extraordinary journey of John’s index finger. Today, hundreds or thousands would have been privy to my embarrassment.
It’s one thing to have my foolishness revealed. It’s quite another for my folly to mislead or injure others. In our digital era, far too many are thrust into the limelight without undergoing the slow development process in the dark room. Leaders and followers are both worse for the wear.
There are several reasons why many skip the darkroom.
1. We valorize youth.
Ancient cultures esteemed the elderly over the young. Today, it is the young who are glorified. We love their energy, awed by their technological savvy, and enamored by their beauty. This mutes the voices of those we think are past their prime and amplifies the voices of the young.
2. We want the next big thing.
Our culture fears being “on the wrong side of history.” We clamor to keep up with the ever-changing ethical, cultural, and fashion trends. We want to be the first to discover the next new artist, influencer, or preacher. We want to be part of a movement, part of something bigger than ourselves.
3. We want it fast.
We don’t want to wait for shows to drip out one week at a time, we want entire seasons dropped so we can binge them. If someone drops a powerful viral TikTok video on a particular subject, we want to hear their opinion on all subjects.
I’m not suggesting that we don’t listen to young voices. Paul, after all, urges Timothy to confidently lead and not let others despise his youth. However, I fear our danger is in the opposite threat: despising older people.
If you are a young leader, I encourage you not to skip the darkroom of your leadership journey. Don’t focus on trying to grow your platform or expedite your leadership journey. You need time to develop. God will bring those he wants you to speak to in his due time. But we cannot shortcut his journey of maturation. Here is why shouldn’t skip the darkroom.
1. For the sake of our souls.
The most dangerous space for a leader is having his charisma outpace his character. Look no further than the number of child stars who bottomed out after achieving fame because they didn’t have the strength of character to withstand the demands of fame. When we look to the Bible, the scriptural demands of leadership are heavily weighted toward godly character. If you look at the qualifications for elders and deacons in 1 Timothy 3, for instance, only one attribute has to do with gifting, and even that is downplayed. Paul doesn’t say elders must be excellent or compelling teachers, but rather that they must be “able to teach” (1 Tim. 3:2).
2. For the growth of our thinking.
A learner never stops growing. As a 45-year-old, I am a much more nuanced thinker about any number of theological, leadership, and other issues than I was as a 35-year-old. As a 35-year-old, I had far more maturity in my thinking than I did as a 25-year-old. Age doesn’t equate to wisdom, but you can’t have wisdom without some years under your belt. While youth can bring passion, age can bring perspective. If I have to choose, I will opt for perspective every time. If we want our thinking to grow, we ought to seek wisdom before we seek an audience.
Moses was 80 years old, forty of those spent as a shepherd before God appeared to him in a burning bush and called him to lead his people out of Egypt. David spent years in obscurity, running for his life, before God had him step into his anointing as king. God has called us to a dark room to mature into the men and women he has called us to be.
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Photo by Avery Evans on Unsplash