He Can Get an Amen!

Bishop T.D. Jakes on his near-death experience, passing along Potter's House, and having Oprah as his first podcast guest.

This year is the 50th that Bishop T.D. Jakes has preached the good word and the 30th that his Potter’s House has spread that message from its southern Dallas sanctuary. The Potter’s House has grown to become one of the largest churches in the country and now occupies four campuses and operates nearly 60 distinct ministries. Now that he’s trading pastoring for podcasting, we caught up with the famous Christian clergyman.

It has been 20 years since I had the honor of meeting you and profiling you for a D Magazine cover story. A lot has changed since then, including your look. Talk to me about the beard. I’ve had the beard off and on. It just went white. I earned this gray hair, and I wear it unashamedly. I’m at that age and stage now. And I’m enjoying it.

We’re talking almost a year to the day since you had a massive heart attack onstage in front of your congregation. Tell me what you learned from that experience.

Well, that was a very interesting experience, because my first thought was “God, can you wait five minutes till I am off here? Did I have to have the heart attack in front of the world?” Had I got to the hospital five minutes later, I probably wouldn’t have made it. Of course it’s been a point of reflection, and it has a lot to do with me bearing down even harder on “What do you want to do with the second half of your life?” It leads you to an inflection point that I was headed toward anyway, but it expedited it because I’m quickly moving into the legacy stage of my life, while I am still able-bodied and still have the energy to be able to contribute.

“Part of transition is being mentally and emotionally and spiritually in a place where you can let go.” -Bishop T.D. Jakes

The second half of your life? If I do the math, that means you plan to live to 140.

Well, I don’t mean that literally. I mean, you can die at 20. None of us really knows when that’s going to come. So I don’t make my decisions based on dates that aren’t promised to me. Let’s not quibble about numbers, because who knows who will outlive who.

In July, you handed leadership of the church to your daughter Sarah and her husband, Touré. How often do you go to church and then, after the service, tell one of them, “That’s not the way I would have preached it”?

You know, part of the transition is being mentally and emotionally and spiritually in a place where you can let go. One of the things that helps me to let go of what I was doing is to grab hold to what I am doing now and what I’m about to do. It’s not always easy because I’m used to being in charge of everything, and I do preach from time to time at the church. But I’m giving them an opportunity to translate the Gospel into the language of their generation and to reach their generation without a whole lot of my baby boomer ideas in this Gen X world.

Do you announce ahead of time when you’re going to be preaching, and then do the seats fill up a little quicker on those Sundays?

[laughs] Yes, I do announce when I’m going to preach, and I would say they fill up a little differently. The old-timers that are used to my style of preaching are more apt to come out than the younger ones. I think Touré and Sarah draw as many people, but they may be in different age demographics.

Your new podcast is called NXT Chapter With T.D. Jakes. Could you not afford to buy an E?

[laughs] I think it is our attempt to be hip and modern and edgy—and to prepare you for the fact that I’m going to be talking to all kinds of people, not just preachers, but businesspeople, CEOs, hip-hop artists, movie directors. I’m concerned about the direction our country is going in. I think that this country desperately needs a voice that brings them together and brings some sense of calmness and unity in the midst of our diversity like never before.

For your first episode, you landed kind of a famous guest, Oprah Winfrey. How nervous were you talking to her?

I’ve been to her house several times. So I wasn’t nervous at all. In the interview that I had with Oprah, we almost forgot the audience was out there. Because we do have conversations. There’s certain things we understand about each other. To hear how she thinks and who she hires and why she did her work in Chicago as opposed to Hollywood—there were so many things to talk about. One of the things that I admire most about her is she always knows when to walk away. She walked away from the talk show at the right time. A lot of times people don’t know when to quit. She’s been masterful at knowing when to cash in her chips.

Besides the podcast, what else is the T.D. Jakes Group working on?

We’re doing real estate development. We’re acquiring property. We’re redeveloping mixed-income housing. I’m doing entrepreneurial work because we’ve had 350,000 Black women laid off in a week. We’re talking about educated, highly trained women. Our Good Soil app connects them to capital. African American women and Latina women go into business more readily than any other people group, but they don’t have equal access to credit. And I’m still writing books. I’m writing a book called Anchor, because the anchor allows a ship to move in a storm but not lose its way. We have to have the flexibility to change with the times, but we have to be anchored in our core values so that we don’t drift into becoming something that we actually are not.

Part of the next chapter of your life, at least recently, has gotten pretty complicated. Help me understand some of the recent headlines that I’ve read about you.

Well, I don’t think it’s getting complicated. Disinformation and misinformation didn’t just hit me. It hit all kinds of people all over the country. When you’re a highly visible person, you get a turn. And it was my turn. But it wasn’t true, and the FBI never called me, and my wife didn’t move to Canada, and I was never subpoenaed or anything like that. But I’m a big boy. I’m a grown man. And I am not upset. I knew the FBI wasn’t going to find me on the tape anywhere. I’ve never had any idea of the people’s personal lives with which I do business. I got a chance to be the only preacher on Revolt [television network] preaching the Gospel to the hip-hop world. That’s what I was interested in, and I had no involvement in any of their personal lives.

All right, Bishop. You take care of yourself.

I’m going to do it. I’m doing it. I’m trying.

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