LeRoix Hampton Breakthrough 

LeRoix Hampton (Boston 1998), who went home to be with Christ in 2019, presented a reflection about the impact of DVULI on his life, and it was never published. A minister to youth and renowned gospel music producer, LeRoix touched millions with his passion for God’s truth and belief in the people God created. In honor of Black History Month, DVULI pays tribute to the legacy of LeRoix Hampton by sharing his unedited breakthrough reflection with his DVULI family and with the permission of his daughter, Chantel Hampton (Orlando 2023). 

In the fall of 1 998, it all started coming together for me. I was nominated to interview for the DeVos initiative and to my surprise I was fortunate to get selected. Out of all of the youth workers, I felt the least qualified. However, I was encouraged by our city coordinator to press past the fear and accept this new and very important challenge. 

I was a youth music minister who wanted to help kids find their voice by developing a platform for them to explore their musical talent. I come from a family of leaders and had cautiously convinced myself that I was doing a decent job based on the number of youth and staff that I was representing. However, the definition of leadership took on a whole new meaning once I was in a training environment with other youth leaders who shared the same love and compassion for their youth ministry as I did. The initiative turned on a switch inside of me and for the first time I was exposed to the true meaning of leadership. Furthermore, I realized that I was on my way to learning things about myself that I never knew. For instance, I learned through the DISC profile what my leadership style was and how it positively as well as negatively affected my family and the young people I was asked to lead. Through the initiative, I was introduced to core values, and I immediately gravitated to accountability, empowerment, and interdependence. Learning and teaching these core values to the youth allowed them to mature in their music, school, with their peers, and in their families. Their parents and the members in the church witnessed the positive results in the youth. 

I immediately began sharing and implementing more of my DeVos training material to the young leaders in the choir. I hand-picked a few young people and began to listen to their hearts and dreams. This was a different twist from my approach to leadership in the past. There was a time when I felt as though I had to come up with the ideas and try to become all things to all people. Changing this mental model was revolutionary to me. My life and ministry began to change when the youth started sharing their vision and their ideas with me and their peers. The young people inspired each other every week to share their faith with both the church and with other youth in their community. As a result of listening to their ideas, we eagerly accepted many local charity engagements and fundraiser events that would help raise awareness to life-threatening diseases, poverty, and social issues. This was the first sign of a real breakthrough for the choir and me. I had no idea that allowing young people to live out their ideas would generate overwhelming change in their lives. The young people realized that they were making a difference in the lives of others with every engagement. The choir’s popularity began to expand and we were receiving press from ABC World News, local newspapers, and local TV documentaries. As a result of our heightened visibility, there was an influx of youth from the surrounding community joining the church and getting involved with the choir and other youth-related activities. A brand-new world opened up to me that I could have never imagined possible.

I often think how privileged I am to have received these tools that have helped me as a husband and a father. There were many times I would share these tools with my daughter Chantel when she was only 14 years old. She was privy to many of the conversations that her mom and I had about what I had learned from the local workshops. I truly believe sharing this information with her helped shape her life as a student and as a musician. One of the experiences that stood out for me is when I was invited to participate at a national workshop in Grand Rapids and I brought Chantel to lead praise and worship with me. She was only 16 at the time. However, the impact of that trip was priceless. She wanted to participate in all of the workshops for that week. She was especially blown away with systems thinking and upon returning home, she rehearsed and began to apply everything that she had learned. As a result, at the age of 16 Chantel graduated from high school one year early and got more involved with working with the youth in our community. She was asked to develop music trainings and workshops for youth organizations and churches in Boston and New York. All of this led her to receiving a full scholarship to Berklee College of Music where she graduated with honors. She is now the youngest faculty member at Berklee College of Music. Chantel also serves as a Program Director for our nonprofit organization, STAND INC.  

I do not share this to boast over my daughter as though she is an anomaly. I share this simply to say that communicating these tools has produced amazing results over and over again in the lives of the young people who participated in our workshops and trainings. It took a few years for me to put all of this information together. But I strongly believe that if I did not have the DeVos Initiative training as a springboard, and the support and patience from the DeVos staff to guide me through the program, I would not be walking in my purpose and experiencing my breakthrough. I am still a work in progress, and some tools have taken me longer to understand and apply than others. However, the tools that I am able to use, such as systems thinking, scenario planning, shared vision, and the core values, continue to be a constant in my ministry. I have faced many obstacles and setbacks, and many times I did not see how my vision would ever come to pass. God would often remind me that He did not forget me and that He uniquely orders my steps. It was in those special times when a young person from my old choir would reach out to me and tell me the impact that I had in their life and how much they learned from the training that I received from the DeVos initiative. It is a wonderful feeling to hear that they remembered those meetings that we would have in one of the church’s classrooms and I would share my brand-new notes that I got from attending a weekend retreat. I know that God’s plan and legacy for my life includes me sharing what I have received and applied from the initiative with as many young musicians and artists as I can. 

Lastly, the choir is no longer in existence and many of those young people have gone on to have families and careers of their own. What’s so cool is that 16 years later my breakthrough plan is still being lived out before me. 

Published with the permission of Chantel Hampton (Orlando 2023).