Thomas Dexter Jakes Sr.

1957 – present

Founder and senior pastor of The Potter's House in Dallas, and one of the most widely recognized preachers in American public life.

Biography

T.D. Jakes began pastoring a storefront congregation in West Virginia while working shifts at a chemical plant, and built from there to The Potter's House, which he founded in Dallas in 1996 and grew into a congregation of tens of thousands. His preaching is narrative and cadenced in the Black Pentecostal tradition, moving through a biblical story until it opens onto a listener's own circumstance, and he is unusually effective on themes of suffering, recovery, and dignity. Woman, Thou Art Loosed! began as a Sunday school lesson, became a book, a conference, a film, and eventually the template for a whole ministry-and-media enterprise spanning publishing, film production, and the MegaFest conference. Jakes came out of a Oneness Pentecostal background, and questions about his view of the Trinity followed him for years; he has since used explicitly Trinitarian language and has described his position as orthodox, though some critics remain unsatisfied. He is also identified by critics with prosperity themes, a label he has publicly resisted.

Legacy

Jakes is among the most influential Black preachers of the last half century, and the crossover model he built — pulpit, publishing, conference, film — has been copied widely and matched rarely.

Notable Sermons

Copyright & Usage

T.D. Jakes's sermons remain copyrighted by T.D. Jakes Ministries and The Potter's House. The archive is freely accessible for personal study but not for redistribution.

Where to Read More

• T.D. Jakes Ministries
• The Potter's House

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