Pastor Billy Joe Daugherty
April 23rd, 1952-Nov. 22nd, 2009
Today is a very sad day for me. As I write this on Nov. 22nd, 2009, I just received news an hour ago that after a month long battle with cancer, Pastor Billy Joe Daugherty, one of the world’s best known pastors, passed away early this morning and moved up to his eternal home in heaven. He was 57 years old. He was my pastor for many years before I moved away from Tulsa in 2007. He was not only my pastor, but my mentor and my personal friend. He pastured one of the largest churches in the nation, Victory Christian Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
This man was my friend. No , I can’t claim that I was one of his closest friends in the world, or that I was a part of his inner circle of best friends, but I did share a friendship on a personal level with him that was very valuable and taught me a lot about living a life for God. I would like to share some of those memories I have of him with you if you will let me.
Billy Joe Daugherty believed in me when others did not. I was the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and I quit the Klan and came to his church in 1990. I dedicated my life to God and learned under his ministry. Still there were those who believed that God would never save a former KKK member and certainly would not use him in the ministry. There were a few people who wanted me to leave but Billy Joe wanted me to stay. He had me preach for him several times and even lost a few church members who resented him continuing to support me and have me preach from his pulpit. He never abandoned me as a friend, even when I was hard to love. We once had a disagreement back in 1998, and I didn’t speak to him for a few months. He called me up on the phone and I was sort of rude to him, but he said, “Johnny I am thinking of you, I love you, miss you and you are always welcome back at the church. If I have done anything wrong to you Johnny, please forgive me.” With arrogance, I thanked him for calling and didn’t ask him for forgiveness.
A few weeks later, a girl who was a close friend of mine who attended Billy Joe’s church, committed suicide. I was devastated. I was thinking about walking away from the ministry about the time this happened. I was driving my car with tears in my eyes, when suddenly I felt the need to talk to Billy Joe. As I pulled up in front of his house, he walked out onto the front porch in his socks, and in spite of all I had said and did to him, he held his arms out to hug me as I walked up onto his porch. We sat and talked for the longest time, and he explained things to me that I don’t believe anyone else could have at that point in my life. I asked forgiveness for the way I had treated him. He forgave me and still believed in me. I asked him if I could come back to the church and he said “Of course you can!” Not only did I come back but he put me in the ministerial fellowship of International Charismatic Bible Ministries on which he was on the board. He made a beautiful video in 2006 about choosing to forgive in which featured himself, me and the late Rev. Wade Watts that you can see on youtube.com.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtyJId_620c
Pastor Billy Joe loved me and taught me the ways of God, and not the ways of man. There are some people who are on this earth today who can give a special prayer of thanks to God for Billy Joe taking the time to help me grow in God, because if it were not for what Billy Joe invested in me, some of them would have had broken jaws, their butts kicked, their houses burned down and maybe even worse because of what they did to me. I wasn’t exactly a nice little wimp when I was head of the KKK. I had been used to being a leader and in gang life all my life, in addition to being a pro wrestling champion, so it would take me awhile to renew my mind after I got saved and some church people did not take this into consideration. They kept pushing me on more than one occasion simply because either they were jealous of my ministry or just plain didn’t like me. Billy Joe was always there and saw it for himself and Billy Joe always told me, “Johnny Lee, see to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” (Hebrews 12:15)
He never got bitter at anyone. I used to needle at him sometimes just to see how far I could push his buttons but he never lost his cool. At the church one night, I showed up with a whoopee cushion, a hand buzzer and some other things I purchased at a novelty joke shop. I went to shake his hand with that hand buzzer and he jumped about 4 feet in the air, but he didn’t get mad. A rather large lady did though when I placed the whoopee cushion in her seat and she told Billy Joe I needed to act my age and not my shoe size! Ha Ha! I got Pastor Sharon with the hand buzzer too and Billy Joe came looking for me outside the entrance door and then told me to behave myself! He didn’t get mad and said it with a half smile but I didn’t bring the joke stuff back to church anymore after that either. He was a pastor to me in making sure I was taught the word of God and since I have a worldwide public ministry also, he took the time to make sure that I represented Jesus in the right way. After all, I was a member of his church and whatever I did reflected on him. He made sure I was grounded in God’s word before releasing me into the ministry. He ordained me. He supported me. He was mentor to me and even when busy he took the time to call if I needed him or to go to lunch with me. He chastised me when I needed it and encouraged me when I needed it. There was that time that my ex-girlfriend Cynthia and I showed up at the church picnic with non-alcoholic beer and I teased Billy Joe asking him if he would like a beer! He gave me this look and then we told him it was non-alcoholic. He made the point to me that we knew that, and now he knew that, but does everyone else know that one of the ministers was drinking non-alcoholic beer? He explained about abstaining from the appearance of evil and causing people to be a stumbling block. ( 1 Thess. 5:22; Romans 14:13) I put it away after that.
He used to do imitations of Flipper the Dolphin when he preached years ago, and he could do that like no other. I bought him a Flipper ink pen that made the Flipper sound when you pressed the button. He got the biggest kick out of that. Then there was the time it snowed during a Wednesday night service and I ran outside after church and made snowballs and was pelting people and people were inside the door and told Pastor Billy Joe I was on the loose with snowballs. He came outside and made some of his own and threw them back at me. Being a former football player he had better aim than I did! I lost that battle!
Billy Joe used to take me with him to go do crusades in the low-income projects of North Tulsa, which is about 99% African American. I walked around knocking on doors with him to invite people to the tent revival. I never will forget what happened. He knocked on a door where you could smell the marijuana smoke and three big black dudes who looked like gang members came to the door and Billy Joe said “Praise the Lord guys! Look who I have here! I want you to meet the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan!” My heart almost dropped. I was not packing a gun and the first thought in my mind was “I’m dead!” Then one of the Black guys threw open the door, and reached out towards me and smiled and said, “Hey I saw you on TV! Let me shake your hand!” Two of the men came to the tent and listened to my testimony and gave their lives to Jesus when Billy Joe gave the alter call. He always was led of the Holy Spirit and seemed to know exactly what he was doing.
The first time Billy Joe invited me to preach for him at Victory to do a Sunday night service, I asked him if I could invite Rev. Wade Watts to come speak with me. He said that was a great idea! There was a group of people who attended Victory that hated me and they began to pray against the meeting and for God to open Billy Joe’s eyes as to what kind of evil person I was and to cancel the meeting. Of course they were praying this behind Pastor Billy Joe’s back. They didn’t dare say it to him. The meeting was advertised all over town and there was a big flashing marquee in front of the ORU Mabee Center that had our names on it. The KKK in Tulsa got wind of the meeting and sprung into action. Two twin brothers, Dennis and Daniel Mahon who were once my right hand guys when I was in the Klan, snuck into ORU Mabee Center and being experienced electricians they burned out the wiring system causing $300,000.00 worth of damages. There were no lights in the building when we pulled up in front and fire trucks were everywhere. The people who were praying against the meeting were dancing and jumping up and down slapping each other the “high five” thanking God for answering their prayers and canceling the meeting. $300,000.00 damage and these so-called “Christians” were celebrating! They celebrated too soon though, as Pastor Billy Joe drove up and told us to move everything across the street to the gymnasium and we would have the meeting there. Being a denominational pastor, Rev. Watts was not raised in the word of faith circles. He was not familiar with positive confessions all the time so when Pastor Billy Joe walked in the room, Rev. Watts stood to his feet, and said, “Pastor Billy Joe, I’ve been to Alabama and the Devil was there. I’ve been to Mississippi and the Devil was there. I’ve been to Georgia and the Devil was there. Now I’ve come here to Oral Roberts University, and the Devil is here.” Pastor Billy Joe immediately looked at Rev. Watts and said, “No Sir Rev. Watts! The Devil is not here! We ran the Devil out of here! We are giving no ground to the Devil! This place belongs to Jesus and we give Him glory!” Rev. Watts said “Oh OK.” I took Pastor Billy Joe aside and said, “Billy Joe, Rev. Watts doesn’t understand the Word of Faith,” and Billy Joe said, “I had to say something to him otherwise he would have went out there on that stage and told everyone that and would have alienated half that crowd.” Billy Joe was 100% right. Rev. Watts gave to no credit to the Devil that night when he spoke. We had 2000 in attendance and 200 people got saved at the altar call! To God Be The Glory like Billy Joe said!
As for the wiring job the Mahon’s did to ORU’s Mabee Center, the insurance cut a check for a million dollars and ORU rewired the entire Mabee Center and was able to purchase some additional items that were needed too! Dennis Mahon drove over to Billy Joe’s house one night and claimed to have put White Supremacist racist literature all over Billy Joe’s house and under the windshield wipers of their family vehicles. He also bragged that he cut one of Billy Joe’s tires on his car. I told Mahon he needed to get his life right with Christ and repent and he refused. Billy Joe told me to stay away from Mahon because he was crazy and to have nothing else to do with him. I followed Billy Joe’s advice and never spoke to Mahon again. In the spring of 2009, the FBI surrounded the home of both Dennis and Daniel Mahon in an early morning dawn raid and arrested them both as they were charged with mailing a letter bomb to a Black man in Arizona which exploded, crippling his hand. If he had turned the box the opposite way he would have had his chest penetrated with shrapnel and most likely would have died. They both are being held without bail and face spending the rest of their lives in prison. As Billy Joe always preached what the word says, “Touch not my anointed and do my prophets no harm. (1 Chronicles 16:22) The Mahon brothers reaped the seeds they had sown. (Galatians 6:7)
Billy Joe Daugherty amazed me on more than one occasion. Once a guy hit him at the altar call and as Billy Joe turned around to walk away he hit him again, and then security grabbed him. Billy Joe was bleeding and just kept right on preaching. Billy Joe didn’t want to press charges but the police did. He went to see the man in jail and the man refused to repent and even threatened him again. Later the man wrote Billy Joe a letter apologizing .
Another time Billy Joe amazed me was when Rev. Watts and myself were invited back to preach in 1996 and I took the service myself because Rev. Watts didn’t make it. He had been battling diabetes and gangrene had set in and so the day before we were scheduled to preach, his leg was amputated. On Monday morning I went over to Billy Joe’s house and picked him up in my car and we drove to McAlester, Oklahoma to visit Rev. Watts in the hospital. He was lying in his bed cracking jokes as Billy Joe and I walked into the room. Billy Joe told me on the way home that Rev. Watts had a special spirit about him, to be able to joke after having his leg cut off. He told me he personally could not do that and be in that good of mood and I told him I couldn’t either. As we were visiting with Rev. Watts, the Sheriff walked in. Rev. Watts went to introduce the Sheriff and he recognized Pastor Billy Joe and then turned to me and said, “You don’t remember me do you?” I replied, “I think so. You look familiar.” The Sheriff said, “I was on the Highway Patrol (State Police) back years ago when you were down here with the Klan harassing Rev. Watts. I came up and started telling you and your gang off for passing out those KKK pamphlets.” “Oh yes,” I replied. “You were the cop that after I told you we were in our legal rights to distribute the pamphlets, you said if you even found one on the ground you were going to hold me responsible and arrest me for littering. I think the fine was up to a thousand dollars, so we all packed up our sheets and left.” The Sheriff replied, “Very good memory! Yep..that was me!” The following Sunday Billy Joe was preaching. His services are carried on national TV. He told the story about how he and I went down to visit Rev. Watts and met the Sheriff. Billy Joe was telling how he stood back and listened to the conversation and said suddenly he realized that all those stories Rev. Watts and I had been telling were true! I said to him after the service, “Billy Joe you have known me now for a few years and you mean to tell me that you weren’t sure if my stories were true or not?” Billy Joe laughed and said, “Well Johnny Lee if I ever had a doubt in my mind, I don’t now! I’m a believer!” Ha Ha!
Pastor Billy Joe was really tired that morning and Pastor Sharon had made me promise that I would not keep him talking all the way down to McAlester as it was a long drive. She told me that if he wanted to sleep to let him. As soon as Billy Joe got in my car he kicked off his shoes and reclined his seat and went to sleep. I am one of these drivers that just can’t seem to drive without music, but I had to that day because I didn’t want to keep him awake. I had lots of questions to ask him and due to the fact that he pastored one of the largest churches in the USA, he didn’t always have a whole lot of time available so I wanted to use this time for talk. I had promised Pastor Sharon though, that I would not keep him awake talking so I felt it was more important to keep my word to her, so I didn’t disturb him on the way down but he was wide awake returning so I got most of my questions answered on the way home.
We discussed a lot of things that day. I was a little egocentric at that time in my life when it came to dating, as I had four different girls that liked me from the church, all at the same time. I liked all 4 of them. Three were on Pastor Sharon’s praise and worship team and one was in the church band. They were all fighting over who was going to get to be my girlfriend. I was such a player in those days. I remember telling Billy Joe that I found it hard being attractive and the object of desire for so many girls. Pastor Billy Joe shook his head and explained to me in so many words that I needed to come down off my high horse and realize that it is the anointing the girls were attracted to and not because I was some sort of modern day Elvis or something along those lines. He also explained to me of why I needed to set boundaries when it came to dating and conduct myself as a man of God. I didn’t end up with any of those girls after that.
Billy Joe also showed me how humble he was that day. I told him how I had been to Higher Dimensions church and how Pastor Carlton Pearson was driving a gold-plated black Cadillac and the Gospel singer Carman was driving a gold-plated Alexis. I asked him if I should upgrade my 86 Lincoln Towncar to keep up with ministry trends, and questioned him of why he only drove a 1991 Chevrolet Lumina when his church was 10 times larger than Pearson’s. Billy Joe told me that if that is what those guys felt they needed to do that was up to them but his car was worth a million dollars to him. I asked for him to explain and he did. He told me that if he needed to raise money to feed the poor or anything to get the gospel around the world, the people who give are not going to be hindered in their giving because of what he drives. He told me I had nothing to be ashamed about driving an older car. He said, “Your car is old but it is nice and well kept and people will not be hesitant to help you get the gospel out if they don’t see you driving a gold plated Cadillac.” He taught me a valuable lesson that day. Our job is to represent God and gain God’s approval, not man’s.
He practiced what he preached in not only what he drove, but also lived in a regular modest house, and he and Sharon shopped at Wal-Mart all the time. When I was invited to Carlton Pearson’s wedding, it was by invitation only. Many well-known ministers from around the world were there. I was given a seat on one of the last two rows in the back. I saw some very well known preachers come in and ask the ushers to seat them in the front. Then Billy Joe and Sharon walked in. One of the ushers immediately recognized them and asked if they wanted to be taken to the front, and Billy Joe said, “No, we will just sit here in the back next to Johnny Lee.”
You see, my friend Billy Joe Daugherty was not about being recognized and being given superstar status. To him there was but ONE Superstar and His name is Jesus.
Well these were just some stories of memories I will always have of my friend, Billy Joe Daugherty. I will say now what I have said to other friends and loved ones that have gone on before. This isn’t good-bye but so long for now. I will see you again, Billy Joe!
There is an old Jewish saying that goes something like "He who finds a faithful friend, finds a treasure." Well I can truly say I found a treasure in Billy Joe Daugherty, because his friendship was a treasure, and the things I learned from him, I shall keep in my heart, soul, mind, and walk with God forever. This is just my story of a great man God allowed me to know in life, who was perhaps one of the greatest of God’s Generals that ever lived. You can ask anyone who knew him and they would agree. That’s my story and tribute to my friend, Billy Joe Daugherty.
Johnny Lee Clary
Rev. Johnny Lee Clary
(918) 919-0105 USA
0411213232 Australia
P.O. Box 972
Miami, Ok. 74355
Official Website:
www.xkkk.org
