Evangelist's flock growing

More and more, Bishop T.D. Jakes' influence begins to resemble that of another contemporary African-American icon — Oprah Winfrey.

His spiritual empire has recently grown to include "Mama Made the Difference," his latest inspirational tome, which hit The New York Times best seller list a few weeks ago. There is his national television ministry, too; his counsel with American presidents and star athletes; his work with hurricane victims; expanding missions in Africa; and revival-like conferences around the globe that draw hundreds of thousands.

But for the 48-year-old evangelist, none of that would exist were it not for what happens on Sunday mornings. On one such Sabbath in early March, the west Dallas freeway, Spur 408, began to clog before 8 a.m. as thousands hurried toward The Potter's House.

Inside the arena-like nondenominational church, after rousing hymns sung by a massive choir, Jakes emerged to pace the length of a broad altar, a stout man in a custom-tailored suit and white goatee, shouting one minute, whispering the next, dancing, then standing rock still, his bald head glistening with sweat.

If that's all he was, just theatrics and style, Jakes might still be preaching to small crowds in his native West Virginia. Instead, "what brings audiences to tears, Sunday after Sunday, is his compassion," Texas Monthly's Skip Hollandsworth wrote in April, "his understanding of people's deepest fears and doubts."

Witness that recent Sunday.

"The challenge is when you have defined yourself through a dependency, or a co-dependent relationship or issue or area of bondage or a simple thing like poverty," Jakes says that Sunday in March, speaking to a congregation that was 90 percent black. "You would be surprised at the people who would not give themselves permission to prosper because they are accustomed to seeing themselves as poor. When you try to rescue them, they come out physically but they don't come out mentally because they are so used to being the victim because they're hooked on their pain. ...

"The way to break your tie with the past is by your fascination with your future.

"Step into your destiny!

"Step into your future!"

No person can speak with such insight about human suffering without suffering himself, and Thomas Dexter Jakes has suffered greatly. He was the youngest of three children born to Odith and Ernest Jakes, (she was a teacher, he a janitor,) and will never forget the virulent racism of his native West Virginia, and from visits to the Deep South where his parents grew up.