He Was Born A Deacon: Two Lessons My Grandfather Lived By
- Dionne Joyner-Weems
- 12 minutes ago
- 5 min read
He would have been ninety-four today—born April 17, 1932.
My grandfather, Leroy Joyner—better known as Deacon Joyner—was the kind of man who didn’t become a deacon… he was born one. Even before Pentecost Baptist Church in Baltimore, Maryland, even before the title was ever spoken out loud, there was something in him that belonged to God.
And if I’m honest, we were both Aries—forces in our own right. We disagreed. I fussed, he preached, I responded. And somewhere in all of that, he loved and respected me more for it. So much of who I am—my faith, my voice, my confidence—was shaped by watching him.
This isn’t just a remembrance. This is a retrieval.
Because if you knew my grandfather, you knew he had a way of setting the stage. He would say, “Whether you want to hear it or not,” right before what he called “speaking his piece.” Truth be told, no one was ever really resistant—he just liked priming the congregation. And once he said that, you knew he was about to give you something you needed to carry.
Over time, I realized those weren’t just words. They were lessons. And if I had to narrow it down, there were two that shaped me most. But before I share those, I think you need to hear from him yourself. I once called my grandparents while guest hosting Today with Dr. Kaye on Morgan State University’s radio station, WEAA—and in that moment, you get all of him. (November 10, 2022)
Lesson 1: Put God First
My grandfather didn’t just talk about God. He lived from the truth that God is real—living, breathing, and present in everything. Not in a performative or loud way, but with a quiet reassurance that brought him comfort… and, if I’m being honest, sometimes annoyed me.
“Grandpa, are you still coming up to Baltimore this weekend?”
“Well, Dee, I can’t tell you for certain… if the Lord makes a way.”
“The Lord made a way—it’s called 95 South!!”
“God’s will” was his answer to any question he didn’t want to commit to, which often frustrated me. At the time, it felt like a deflection—like he was avoiding a simple yes or no. But now, I understand it differently. It wasn’t avoidance. It was alignment. He had truly surrendered his plans in a way that I was still learning how to do.
I spent much of my childhood with my grandparents, not just because that’s where I wanted to be, but because that’s what our family needed. My uncle Ronald had cerebral palsy, and even as a child, I was trying to make sense of it. My father once told me that Ronald wasn’t born that way—that he came home as a healthy baby, and after a hospital visit, something changed.
In the 90s, those commercials would come on TV—“If you or a loved one has been impacted by medical malpractice…”—and I would turn to my grandmother, serious as ever, and ask, “Do we need to sue?” I was that child. Loud in conviction. Certain that something needed to be done. But my grandparents found their justice in the Lord. Not in courts. Not in compensation. In God.
Every weekend, I was with them, and that meant one thing for sure—I was going to church, whether I wanted to or not—slip, stockings, the whole uniform. And before church even started, there was already an assignment waiting for me: Bible scriptures. I can still remember how soft the pages felt in my hands—thin, delicate, almost sacred. I remember asking why some of the words were in red, and they told me those were the words Jesus spoke. In my childlike mind, I took that literally, like when Jesus spoke, red words came out of His mouth.
To my grandfather, there was no problem, no person, no fear bigger than God. And if you could just get your hands on the Bible and read the Lord’s word, it would be your salvation.
Lesson 2: All You Have Is Your Name
My grandfather was born in 1932 in Georgetown, South Carolina, and descended from the Gullah Geechee people. A place where the land still remembers. And trust me, you don’t come out of Georgetown without carrying something in your bones—the salt air, the soil, the stories passed down without paper. The kind of knowing that doesn’t need to be explained because it’s lived.
That Canteen and Joyner bloodline wasn’t just family—it was lineage. People who survived, adapted, and made something out of what they were given, even when what they were given wasn’t much. You could feel that on him.
Like so many others, he made his way from South Carolina to Baltimore—part of that great, unspoken migration. Not just written in textbooks, but lived in the decisions of people who knew there had to be more. He joined the Army, and like many men of his generation, he didn’t question service—he understood it as responsibility, as duty to country and service to God, both rooted in discipline and obedience.
Somewhere in all of that—in the land, the migration, and the structure of service—he formed a belief he passed down to me: All you have is your name. Not your title. Not your money. Not what people think they know about you. Your name. Your word. Your integrity—what you stand on when everything else gets stripped away.
Even after returning to South Carolina, my grandfather stayed connected to Maryland. When Wes Moore ran for governor—and won—it brought him a deep sense of pride. Every time we spoke, he reminded me that he was praying for him and his family.
One day, while attending an event where the governor was speaking, I shared that with him—that my grandfather, all the way in South Carolina, kept him lifted in prayer. By the end of the evening, I received a video message from the governor. (September 4, 2024)
Getting that video to my grandfather took effort—I sent it to my father, who sent it to my cousin, who drove to my grandparents’ doctor’s appointment just to play it for them. And that moment stayed with me.
To hear his name spoken by someone he respected so deeply—someone he had been quietly covering in prayer—felt like affirmation. Not just of who he was, but of how he moved through the world: quietly, faithfully, without needing recognition.
And yet, in that moment, it found him anyway.
My grandfather, Deacon Leroy Joyner, would have been ninety-four years old this Friday. And his lessons live on—in how I pray, how I speak, and how I carry my name.
This isn’t just a story about a man. This is a story about a granddaughter who was loved, shaped, and covered…by a deacon who was born for exactly that purpose.
And a legacy that was never meant to end with him.
“If I had a thousand tongues, I still couldn't thank you enough.”~ That Part!
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