THAT’S PRACTICAL. My Johnny Derouen Story. Psalm 27:4.

Image: Johnny Derouen’s first day at FBC Houston, spring of 1984. Also pictured, Joel Nettles. Photo courtesy of Lance Vinson.

The story goes that in the early ‘80s, Associate Pastor Felix Wagner interviewed 70-some people before he found the right man for the job. Let’s call it 77—the perfect number. After a two-year quest, First Baptist Houston found the perfect man: Johnny Derouen, the Lake Charles native currently doing great things in Muskogee.

Soon he was in Houston, playing his guitar and laughing a little too loudly. Laughing and smiling. The man radiated joy. The first thing you noticed about Johnny was his smile. He was always smiling. And it was real. Genuine. He could laugh at the dumbest jokes from awkward teenagers struggling to be funny, to be cool, to be something. Teenagers are so self-conscious and uncomfortable. It’s the Island of Misfit Toys. Everyone trying to find themselves and fit in somehow, and here’s this man who would embrace every child and make them feel SEEN and HEARD. The man loved kids. He loved me.

I don’t know the secret to a successful youth ministry. Is it on-the-job training? Do they teach a formula in seminary? Or do you just come in and try to make things fun? I don’t know the secret.

But if there is a secret, Johnny knew it. His impact was immediate. Suddenly everything was exciting and funny and warm and incredible. There was nowhere any kid would rather be. If you invited high school friends, you knew they would love it and want to come again. Everything Johnny touched turned to youth-ministry gold: there were parties and concerts and rallies and overnight retreats and people covered in shaving cream and Richard K. with his fireworks and there were pranks and skits and Vic Kaiser and Chris Wolff on stage making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches under their arms and Bart Glatt eating the sandwiches and everyone howling with laughter. Endless laughter. And there was noise. So much noise. Summer camps, winter retreats, Disciple Now events in homes, and mission trips out of the state or the country. We knew how lucky we were. The youth group was suddenly this thing, this force. It was hard to explain, but we knew we were lucky to be a part of it. It was one of the most exciting things any of us would ever experience.

I remember the first time I paid Johnny a compliment. I had watched him for months.

“I’ve never seen you get mad at anyone.”

It seems an odd comment forty years later. But at the time that was important to me. My father, who had been teaching boys in Sunday school for years, had a different reaction.

“You know what I like about Johnny? The man loves his family. He’s got his priorities straight. Plus, he’s from Louisiana.”

Speaking of priorities, I started attending the youth services on Wednesday nights. It was called Priority. It had had that name forever. But Priority was Johnny’s baby now. In the summer of 1984, he began a teaching series he called “LOVE, SEX, AND DATING.” A bold title for a youth ministry, but the topic was relevant and necessary. I showed up, willing to give this man who never got mad a chance. I was hooked immediately. This stuff was GOLD!

Johnny is famous for talking fast. Years later Korean students at Southwestern Seminary begged the professor, “Slow down, Doctor Derouen, please!”

But if talking fast were a measure of enthusiasm, no one was more enthusiastic about youth than Johnny. In his thirties, I remember him asking whether youth ministry was strictly a young man’s game. I thought he was crazy, crazy to doubt his extraordinary, timeless gifts. And again, he was so enthusiastic about working with youth. If you’ve spent any time around Johnny at all, you’ve heard him talk about revivals:

Every great revival has started among young people. Revivals and revolutions–whether for good or ill–they always begin with young people.

Once I discovered that this man who talked like an auctioneer drinking Louisiana French Roast was dishing out all the best answers to life’s hardest questions, I learned how to write as fast as he could talk. It was too good not to. In fact, I skipped right over notetaker and went straight to transcriptionist. I wrote down Johnny’s outline, each point in Roman numerals, sub-points in capital letters, and every word of every illustration. I never looked up and never stopped writing. I was still an angry child who hated school. In tenth grade, I could ignore everything that happened there all day long. But Johnny was offering these lessons that just blew me away. Even then, as a child practically raised in a pew, I considered Johnny’s teaching life-changing.

I will never forget it. I was absolutely, fully engaged. And it all started for me on Wednesday nights at PRIORITY with a summer unit called “Love, Sex, and Dating.” I was so awkward and immature. I knew that dating was way-off in the future. But I was going to master those lessons. Johnny prepared a banquet for us every week, and I was determined to catch every morsel, every crumb of truth.

Johnny won me over. He was so nice. I loved to talk to him. He would look at me and as hard as he tried, I saw it. The same thing I saw in the eyes of most adults. He would look at me, and stare into my soul, and his eyes would glaze just a bit. There was this flicker, the tiniest flicker.

But I saw it. It meant Johnny did not get me. No problem. Most people did not. I could accept that. I was this artistic, creative, hyperactive square peg. I talked too much and three comments out of four would be off-topic to everyone but me.  I could be pouty and aloof, or talkative and obnoxious. The mood swings were unpredictable. But Johnny was kind and patient and he smiled and was genuinely interested. I knew that even though he didn’t get me, he was actually interested. He was willing to listen and try. That was more than enough. Johnny loved me. On some level, the man loved me.

Then Johnny took a page from the John Bisagno playbook and hired an old friend who was nearly his complete opposite. Bart Glatt was Mr. Spock to Johnny’s Captain Kirk. Bart understood me at a glance.

I attended everything. If Johnny was talking, I was going to be somewhere writing it all down. Looking back, I can sum up Johnny’s curriculum in one word: DISCIPLESHIP.

Johnny taught us the basics of discipleship: How to spend time with God. How to pray. How to sing not only about God, but to God. To pray as you sing: In my life Lord, be glorified, be glorified. How to read the Bible in a way that was not quite so haphazard, but organized and beneficial to a teenager. Beneficial and even interesting. Week-in, week-out, month-after-month, season-after-season, Johnny taught us the nuts and bolts of discipleship. He gave us the tools to disciple ourselves.

Johnny said his role was the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, according to Ephesians 4:12.

That a minister’s job is to work himself out of a job, to teach people how to disciple themselves.

Years later my wife and I found ourselves raising teenagers without Johnny Derouen. We wondered how parents disciple their own?

And then we remembered another thing Johnny always said: discipleship is caught not taught.

So we prayed and hustled and tried to pass the torch, and somewhere along the way I found myself using an acronym: R.A.M.P.S. READ the word, APPLY the word, MEMORIZE the word, PRAY the word, SHARE the word. These were the things Johnny taught us.

Johnny taught us that knowing God was not some ethereal kind of meditation. It was not incense and bubble baths and “self-care.” It was not about lighting candles, playing music and “feeling some kinda way.”

Where others talked about a Christian-candle- aromatherapy- lava- lamp kind of situation, Johnny offered us practical steps.

Knowing God was simple: Give your life completely to Jesus. Spend time reading the Bible and books about the Bible in a format that will hold your attention. Memorize something now and then. Change your behavior AND your thoughts to conform to God’s word. Pray more—and sometimes pray for things described in the Bible, and sometimes pray words from the Bible. And finally, learn how to talk about the Bible with your friends. Because you love your friends, right? Johnny talked about the Bible with us because he loved us. We knew he loved us.

These are the basics of discipleship. The great thing about discipleship as Johnny taught it was that there are simple, concrete steps. There are things you can DO.

Johnny also taught us some of the greatest verses in the Bible, each one providing practical steps to growing in Christ. Things like:

“Pray without ceasing” 1 Thessalonians 5:17. Never stop praying. That’s practical. (It may not be easy—but it is practical.)

And the next verse: “In everything give thanks” 1 Thessalonians 5:18. Be thankful. That’s practical.

“Present yourselves to God and your bodies as living sacrifices,” Romans 12:1. Make your whole life a sacrifice to God. That’s practical.

And the next verse: “Be not conformed to the world” Romans 12:2. Don’t be worldly. That’s practical.

“Let no unwholesome word proceed out of thy mouth,” Ephesians 4:29. Watch what you say. That’s practical.

“Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven” Matthew 5:16. Glorify God by working hard for the right goals. That’s practical.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths” Proverbs 3:5-6. Trust God and seek him with every decision. That’s practical.

“Be anxious for nothing, but instead pray about everything, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds” Philippians 4:6-7. Don’t worry. Pray and trust God. That’s practical.

“Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee” Psalm 119:11. Defeat sin by memorizing relevant Bible verses. That’s practical.

“No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man, and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able to bear, but with the temptation will provide a way of escape, so that you may be able to endure it” 1 Corinthians 10:13. There’s no temptation you cannot handle. That’s practical.

“For we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God and to those who are called according to his purpose” Romans 8:28. Never give up hope in God’s sovereign plan. That’s practical.

The list could go on and on. Johnny taught us so many things. Practical things. Things young people could DO. Concrete things. Action points. Practical, simple steps that would cause you to grow closer to God.

And then one day someone asked Johnny about his favorite Bible verse.

“What’s my favorite verse?” He smiled. He grinned, as if he knew something we did not. Looking back, I can tell you what Johnny knew. He knew how we would react.

We would be flummoxed.

Bewildered.

Perplexed.

And this was not like Peggy Bain’s favorite verse. Peggy, one of Johnny’s favorite youth workers, was never one to pass up a great gag, never afraid to poke a sacred cow. Ask Peggy her favorite Bible verse, preferably in front of a crowded room, and she’s going to hit you with some King James:

“At Parbar westward, four at the causeway, and two at Parbar! First Chronicles 26:18!”

Peggy has belted out that cryptic verse at every hilarious opportunity for decades.

But of course, Johnny took the question a bit more seriously.

“What’s my favorite verse? My favorite verse is Psalm 27:4: One thing I ask of the Lord, this only do I seek. That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”

As a 17-year-old, I remember sitting there listening to this man, this font of wisdom, this amazing pied-piper of an answer man, a man who would one day be regarded by thousands of not only laymen but also clergy as nothing short of a spiritual father. A legit SPIRITUAL FATHER. He was our spiritual father. And we knew he loved us. He loved me. And he could quote from memory so many practical texts from James, from Paul, from all the epistles and Proverbs and the gospels. And his favorite verse is this psalm about what now?

I was flummoxed.

Bewildered.

Perplexed.

All you want in life is to dwell in the house of the Lord? What house? And you want to gaze on what? Gaze on the beauty of the Lord? How? Last I checked, God is invisible. And you want to seek him in his temple? What temple?

That’s not practical!

That’s not practical at all.

This man who had taught us all the most straightforward, concrete truths about knowing God said his favorite verse in all of the Bible is this abstract, Christian- candle- aromatherapy- lava- lamp kind of situation?

What are we supposed to do with that information?

Of course, you can imagine what I did. I scribbled it down. I wrote down the verse, and at some point I memorized it. In the years since, I have read, pondered, reflected, meditated, considered, analyzed, thought about and talked about it ad nauseum, the way you never stop talking about unsolved mysteries: there’s D.B. Cooper, there’s the Bermuda Triangle, and there’s Johnny Derouen’s favorite Bible verse.

Here is this young husband and father, this John Wayne super-fan, this driver of a black Pontiac Firebird complete with the hoodbird decal, this college track star from McNeese, this super-nice youth guy, this freakishly gifted people-person with a gift for simple, straightforward answers, CONCRETE answers, PRACTICAL answers–and his favorite verse of the Bible is this abstract, opaque thing, this verse I can’t get a handle on? This passage with words as slippery as olive oil?

One thing I ask of the Lord, this only do I seek. That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple, Psalm 27:4.

It was at this point I realized Johnny was not quite as simple as he may have hoped to appear. There were layers to this powerlifting, body-building onion. For high school kids, sure, he could provide a wealth of simple answers and concrete steps. But in his own spiritual life, Johnny was operating on another level altogether. Johnny loved one of David’s psalms. David, the tender shepherd who was also a giant killer, the harp-playing poet and singer who had commanded thousands of men in hundreds of battles. David was a man of contradiction. Perhaps Johnny was too.

Perhaps this super-nice guy was like David. He was a tender warrior. Johnny was a man so strong, he was content to be humble in every situation, to give preference to others no matter how childish and awkward they might be.

Maybe the secret to youth ministry is to be overwhelmed by God’s love for the young people in your charge.

Because Johnny did not simply love me and all my rococo awkwardness. Johnny loved all of us. Generations of us. Here was a man with powerful talents like David’s, but whose talents were often eclipsed by the music of his humble, dis-arming, almost shocking love for people. Johnny was Christlike enough to soft-pedal his own talents, leading us to glorify God even when that meant overlooking the man who brought us into God’s presence. The man sometimes worked seven days a week. And yet, he made it all look so effortless.

As the cliché goes, when it came to spiritual matters, he may have been teaching us kids to play checkers, but Johnny was playing chess.

And the thing is, I like a man of contradiction. I like David. I like gray areas and nuance. I like the interstitial space where things are deep and murky.

But Psalm 27:4? I’m not sure I understand the appeal of this passage even now. Maybe I never will. And it’s Johnny’s favorite verse? Out of all the verses in the Bible? Forget me saying he did not get me. Truth is, I probably don’t get Johnny! Because I’ve had forty years to think about it, and I still don’t know if I understand Psalm 27:4.

But I know it’s about worship, a prayer to know God better and enjoy his presence. Yet there always seem to be so many things going on … Maybe I’m still too hyperactive for Psalm 27:4. Maybe I will never get there.

But I can keep thinking and praying and keep hoping to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.

Because I can tell you one thing. When I look at Johnny Derouen, I want to know Jesus like Johnny knows Jesus.

I want to love Jesus like Johnny loves Jesus.

I want to dwell with him, gaze on his beauty, and seek him the way Johnny does.

And I want to rest in him as King David speaks of in another psalm. I bet Johnny loves this one too:

“Surely I have composed and quieted my soul. Like a weaned child resting against his mother, my soul is like a weaned child within me” Psalm 131:2.

I can rest in God. I can trust him. I can do that. That’s practical.

May God bless Johnny Derouen.

AΩ
This story inspired by a conversation with Randy Streetman.