The Future Belongs To Bold Christian Creatives by Apostle Femi Lazarus: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Two Voices of a Rising Generation

Today's conversation brings together two outstanding creatives: White Berry, known as Son of the Prophet, the cinematographer and content creator who has become one of Africa's most recognizable Christian storytellers, and Dara Speaks, the spoken word minister whose words hit like fire every time she opens her mouth.

From Mimicking Bishop Oyedepo to Building "The Handler"

You suddenly came online and announced that you were switching from mimicking Bishop David Oyedepo to what you're doing now, as "The Handler." What happened behind the scenes?

Before I went to minister at the Redemption Camp auditorium, around 2021, the Lord had already said to me that ministering there would be my last ministration in that form. I told my manager, once we minister at the Redemption Camp auditorium, that is our last ministration. I wasn't even meant to minister that day, I had gone to help my sister sell food. But an opportunity opened for me to speak, and afterward I was invited to see Bishop Oyedepo himself. That evening, another minister told me that what I had spoken about that morning was exactly what he had also written in his own book. When I went in to speak, the statement I made was not really to the audience, it was me speaking to myself, because it marked the end of a new beginning.

Vision is a fundamental requirement of all world changers, and world changers are focused visionaries. You get a word from the Lord, you get a vision from the Lord, and you stay with it until it stinks. That statement is what made me go viral, and I said it as a message to myself.

It took some level of audacity to leave what you were known for and switch for the unknown.

Yes. When I wanted to switch, I did not ask a pastor for advice, because I felt many pastors would default to asking whether I had prayed enough, or pointing out that what I was doing was already working. So I sought counsel instead from a business mentor and told him plainly not to be spiritual with me, just be honest. He asked what my heart was saying, and I told him my heart said I should stop. He said, if that is what your heart says, then officially do it. Earlier, a pastor I served under had his wife tell me something I never forgot: the more you journey in life, the light of your headlamp at night does not show you the end of the destination, but you have to start the journey, and as you go, it keeps getting clearer.

I recorded the announcement video myself, without even telling my team what we were shooting, because I knew if I told them they would talk me out of it. I edited it from beginning to end alone, so nobody could say I had been talked out of anything. It was really clear and plain to me: you need to leave in order to get to the next phase.

A Childhood Without a Photograph

One assumption people may have about you is that you came from a place where everything is put together and you're just a privileged young man enjoying yourself. Is that true?

I don't have a childhood picture of myself, there was no money to take pictures. The first photo I remember having was taken when I turned fourteen. My family, my parents and my brother and sister, stayed in a kiosk shop for twelve years while my father worked as a fashion designer there. People would say if you don't see us in the kiosk shop, we're not home. I learned to fast not because I wanted to, but because there was no food in the house, that is where my first seven-day dry fast happened.

While growing up I only had two shirts, a lemon Sunday-service shirt and a white one. I remember standing outside a restaurant once, watching other families arrive with their children, and asking myself what it would take to become great. At fourteen I told my mother I needed to go to the mountain to pray. I stayed three days with no phone, and that was the first time I heard from God. I thank God for those seasons, because if things had come easily, I might have misused them, and my walk with God also began in that season.

Measuring Success

How do you measure success?

I measure it by looking at where I came from and where I am now, like landmarks. In 2024 I went through a tough season during the transition away from mimicking Bishop Oyedepo. I had a deal worth about five million already on the table when the Lord said, don't stay in a place you have left. When I started doing spoken-style ministration my pieces were two minutes long, now they run to an hour. I have learned that comparison and the voices that ask why someone else is doing more than you can be devastating, but the answer is to keep reconstructing, asking what the next step is, and how to get better.

Building an Ecosystem, Not Just a Brand

The Handler brand is a movement in the body of Christ to push forward what God is doing. Underneath it sits a mother company, and it will eventually have its own leadership running its day to day operations, separate from my personal finances, so that it stands as its own account and its own brand. My biggest joy is telling a story of hope, a story that says it is possible, a story of the move of God. I am concerned with the history of what we are doing, because when you don't understand the history of what you're doing, misuse becomes inevitable.

Dara Speaks: From Being Silenced to Speaking Fire

You've been known for spoken word. Do you feel people project their opinions onto your craft?

A lot. Before spoken word, it was music for me, I have always been a singer, and I was put down repeatedly. In one competition a judge told me I was the reason someone who actually knows how to sing wouldn't win. When I started ministering, one of my videos passed nine million views, and of the comments I checked, the large majority were negative. I have deleted comments, blocked accounts, and had to learn not to build tough skin so much as to simply stop letting other people's opinions define me. I define me, not you. If an insult does not affect my bank account, I let it go.

Have you broken down in tears over this before?

Not from online criticism so much, but I received a phone call once from someone I respected who painted me as someone who slept around after ministering. That one didn't make me cry, it made me laugh. What made me cry was realizing that people wanted to fit me into a shape that wasn't me, and if I didn't conform, they treated it as if I were watering down my own craft.

Coming Out of Brokenness

Derpaspeaks was born out of brokenness, coming out of church hurt and a bad relationship. I lost the responsibilities I once had in church, and I became something of a black sheep, alone in that season between 2017 and 2018. I never trained anywhere to write, it started in my brokenness. Later, I realized that many of my pieces read like prophecies over my own life, things I spoke before I even understood I was speaking them.

Life was not easy before that either. My father was among the Christians affected by violence in the north of Nigeria in 2010 to 2011, and everything I had planned for my education fell apart. My school fees went unpaid for years, I only cleared them and became eligible for service six years after I graduated. During that season I worked as a vocal coach in the mornings, in a bar kitchen at night, then as a market merchandiser from morning to evening, and later at a spa.

An Unscripted Spoken Word

I'm broken. Helpless. Everything I placed my hand on crumbled down, and it looked as if I was about to drown. Regardless of what you think, the reality is you have a responsibility. Who you were does not define who you are. What you did does not limit what you can do, and when you understand this, the stronger you will stand. It's okay to cry, but check properly behind your neck, there's a label on you, hand-crafted by God. He didn't assign his angels to make you, he made you himself. You were created because someone was creative. You will fall, you will fail, you'll be broken, but with Jesus you have risen, you are healed, and you are an overcomer. Before you doubt his love, doubt your doubts, because there are prayers you haven't prayed yet, there are songs you haven't sung yet, and now is the time. Your position is not based on how you feel, it is based on who he is. He is God at all times, and he is big enough to be enough, and that's more than enough.

Building "Ample Room"

I have a community called Ample Room, built around listening to how young creatives think and what they've been through, because they cannot keep creating only out of brokenness. We have scrapped competition entirely from it. Too many Christian creatives try to step on one another so their own light can shine, but I don't need to dim anyone's light for me to shine, that's why it's called Ample Room, there is space for everyone. I want it to grow into something like an academy, an umbrella across nations, so people in the diaspora know they are not alone, not just gathering around events but functioning as a system, like a production house where music, dance, drama, and fashion each have room to exist.

On Marriage and Ministry

Do you fear that marriage could affect how this ministry is perceived or accepted?

People love the glamour, but they don't see what is behind it. I've been told by a pastor that the way I speak on stage might scare men away, as if that boldness on a platform makes me a challenge to live with at home. But that's a different persona from who I am off stage. My biggest fear for creatives is that the happiest single person becomes the saddest married one, not because something bad happens, but because sadness can come from being with someone who doesn't value your fullest expression of freedom.

I would support my wife fully if she were a spoken word artist, because what she carries is a burden for a generation, she has to say what needs to be said. I've watched people's platforms grow quiet after marriage, as if seriousness with life only begins then, and I don't want that. Marriage should amplify what someone is doing, not kill it.

Closing Word

What makes your destination possible is not just your determination to get there, but your ability to reinvent yourself along the way, and to stay flexible through different seasons.