One Sunday morning during my junior year in high school, the pastor announced the church had hired a new youth minister. His name was Wayne Dismuke. Up to that point, I had attended the church for four years, and in that time the church had one youth minister resign and a new minister of activities filled in with some camps and socials in the interim. Following the service that evening, a group of the teenagers decided to grab some pizza. Wayne and his wife, Ann, were invited to join us. Not wanting to miss a chance to see what we “were made of” he met us at the restaurant.
I have heard that birds of a feather flock together, which means most of my friends were the kind that was ornery and funny. When the pizza arrived at the table, I told Wayne there were two cheese options. One was the parmesan variety, and the other was even better. The other one, in this case, was the little container of the dried pepper flakes. My “partners in crime” shook their heads in affirmation of my line.
Wayne lightly sprinkled the pepper flake “cheese” on his first piece of pizza. He looked up and asked, “Is this enough?”
“No, you have to put it on much heavier,” I told him in my immature humor, imagining his tongue bursting into flames.
Wayne coated the pizza with loads of hot pepper flakes. “How’s this?” he asked again.
I nodded in approval and watched him take a bite. I expected him to spit it out and start guzzling water and soft drinks to remove the pain of the heat in his mouth. Instead, he chewed it up, and without a tear in his eyes, he looked at me and said, “You’re right! It is good!”
I had met my match. I was so impressed that I did not realize Wayne’s next piece of pizza did not have any pepper flakes at all. Years later, he told me his mouth was burning up, but he was not going to let me win that night. As I said, I had met my match in orneriness and pranking. He was my youth minister at my home church, the First Baptist Church in Springfield, Missouri, for the next four years and remains a great friend to this day.
Wayne was one of the few adults, other than my parents, that saw my humor as an asset to my faith rather than a hindrance. He once told me the story of a lady in a former church that got onto him for his humor by stating, “It’s not recorded in the scriptures that Jesus laughed.” He quickly pointed out to her that it’s not recorded that Jesus went to the bathroom either, but we would tend to think he did! She offered to pray for him. He admitted he needed a “whole lot of that!”
He worked with one pastor that was notoriously neat. His desk was always clean on top. He kept projects and papers neatly in a file cabinet until he was to work on that particular item. When he was through working, he would put the item back into the cabinet. Wayne operated under a different organization plan where everything was on top of his desk in various piles. The pastor shared with him that a “Cluttered desk meant a cluttered mind.”
Wayne, a master of the quick-witted reply, responded with, “Golly Pastor, what do they say about an empty desk?”
When I returned to my home church as the recreation minister, Wayne was pastoring a church in Dexter, Missouri. During one visit, he introduced me to the famous barbecue ribs of the Hickory Log restaurant and some of the best Mom and Pop shop donuts I ever remember eating. We worked together on some statewide youth ministry projects, and it was a joy reuniting with him. Social media has given us a new opportunity to stay connected, even though we are three hundred miles apart.
Now this man has turned threescore and ten, or seventy years old. In the Bible, the number seven depicts holiness and perfection. By that math, Wayne is ten times completely holy and perfect. I know Ann, his wife, and other close friends may have some things to say about total holiness and perfection, but it is hard to argue with the math.
I think of the way the Apostle Paul mentored Timothy and the way Peter took in John Mark when I consider Wayne’s influence in my life. Proverbs 27:17 states, “As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend” (NLT). Wayne played this role in my life. In fact, I would paraphrase the verse to read, “As wit sharpens wit, so a youth minister sharpens one of his kids.” Wayne did not try to change my funny and crazy personality; instead, he taught me how to use it to glorify God.
I feel confident that most reading this story could write their own stories about Wayne or another people that were influential in the growing of faith and life. It’s fun when I look back on my life and see the people God placed at certain times to help me become the person that I am today. Wayne was one of those people.
I have heard it said that people come into our life for a reason or a season. Wayne, I think God put you on this world to offer some “pleasin” to the people that needed laughter, compassion, and direction toward the love of Jesus Christ.
Happy 70th Birthday Wayne!