After the transition, Jakes will continue in his role as chairman of the T.D. Jakes Group, which includes his real estate company, social impact holding company and T.D. Jakes Foundation.
Bishop T.D. Jakes, who founded The Potter’s House and has led the Dallas megachurch for almost 30 years, announced at a Sunday morning service that he will be handing leadership of the church over to his daughter Sarah Jakes Roberts and son-in-law Touré Roberts.
“As I enter my 50th year in the public spotlight, I recognize the urgent need to address more challenges of our time, particularly the looming threat of a disappearing middle class, social unrest and closing opportunity gaps,” Jakes said in a news release prepared before Sunday’s service.
“Elevating Pastor Touré and Pastor Sarah as the new senior pastors of The Potter’s House, we will honor our rich history while embracing a future that demands innovative ministry for the coming age.”
Their appointment will occur later this year. After the transition, Jakes will continue in his role as chairman of the T.D. Jakes Group, which includes his real estate company, social impact holding company and T.D. Jakes Foundation.
Jakes’ announcement comes nearly six months after a major health incident that he later described as a “massive heart attack.” The health incident occurred while Jakes was delivering a sermon on stage last November.
That same month, Jakes filed a lawsuit against a former minister who accused Jakes of alleged attempted sexual assault.
Sunday’s service
On Sunday morning, Jakes delivered a sermon titled “Whatever God commands” on God’s call for unity. With his trademark humor and booming voice, Jakes urged his flock to compromise and put down their egos to prioritize unity with one another.
At the end of his message, Jakes raised his voice as piano and organ chords punctuated his words. Audience members cheered, clapped and danced, and a few dozen gathered in front of the stage with raised hands and bowed heads.
Bishop T.D. Jakes hands Potter’s House leadership over to daughter, son-in-law during Sunday service
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Jakes quieted the room as he began discussing the transition he said he’d been planning for at least six years.
“I have seen too many men build something and stay so long that they kill what they built,” the pastor said. “I cannot afford, especially after November, to risk something happening to me and you be sheep without a shepherd.”
“There’s some things I wanna do in the community before I get too old to do it,” he said. “I wanted to introduce to you your pastors,” Jakes said as he ended his announcement. His daughter and son-in-law walked toward the center of the stage, where Jakes embraced them.
“I know the crown is heavy,” Jakes said to them, as the audience applauded. “But I also know that if God is for you, who can be against you?”
“I think we can all agree that this isn’t how I saw my legacy play out,” Sarah Jakes Roberts said through tears. “I believe that, collectively, we can turn this city upside down and right side up.”
Anita Hosoda said after service she’s been attending The Potter’s House for 18 years and that her daughter was dedicated at the church as a baby.
Hosoda, who serves as a volunteer minister, said Jakes once calmed her doubts about ministry by telling her that everyone feels some doubt or fear when they’re called into ministry. He encouraged her not to “run from” her calling because of that doubt, she said.
“I’m very sad,” Hosoda said of the news of Jakes’ transition. “But I feel he did what he felt was necessary for the good of the overall church.”
Nayquinte White said Jakes was one of her husband’s heroes before the family moved to Dallas in 2010. They became church members in 2012, and White is now a volunteer in the church’s medical ministry.
“Every time we came to the church, the messages that [Jakes] preached spoke directly to what we were dealing with that week or day,” White said. “Bishop understood us.”
Advisor to U.S. presidents
In 1996, Jakes moved to Dallas and founded The Potter’s House, a nondenominational megachurch. The church now has locations in Dallas, Frisco, Fort Worth and Los Angeles and says it has 30,000 members.
Jakes advised U.S. presidents and was a featured speaker at the inauguration of former President Barack Obama in 2009.
He is known nationally for his sermons on TV and radio. In 1993, he began the weekly TV program Get Ready with T.D. Jakes. Since then, he has preached on several radio and TV programs, including T.D. Jakes: Crushing, Potter’s Touch and Kingdom Culture with T.D. Jakes.
A 2001 Time magazine cover story asked, “Is this man the next Billy Graham?” The Atlantic called him “perhaps the most influential [Black] leader in America today” in 2006.
Jakes gained a national profile after self-publishing Woman, Thou Art Loosed in 1993, which he first sold for $10. The book combines Christian Scripture with advice for women on healing and empowerment and has since sold over 2 million copies, according to The Atlantic.
He went on to host Woman, Thou Art Loosed conferences that drew tens of thousands of women and adapted his book into a 2004 movie about a woman dealing with abuse, addiction and poverty.
He hosted the final edition of the long-running conference in 2022, and passed the baton of his women’s ministry to his daughter Sarah Jakes Roberts. Jakes Roberts’ “Woman Evolve” conference in 2023 drew over 40,000, organizers said.
Sean “Diddy” Combs controversy, lawsuits
Jakes has often made headlines in the past year. He was mentioned once in a February 2024 federal lawsuit filed against producer Sean “Diddy” Combs, and was described as a potential ‘public image’ fixer for Combs.
Combs has been the subject of several recent lawsuits that have accused him of sexual assault and sex trafficking.
As public scrutiny of Combs’ behavior grew in 2023, unverified rumors about Jakes’ alleged ties to Combs spread on social media. Snopes, an online fact-checking site, said it found evidence that videos about Jakes and Combs on TikTok and YouTube were at least partially created with artificial intelligence.
Last fall, a Pennsylvania former minister alleged in videos on the YouTube talk show Larry Reid Live that Jakes attempted to sexually assault him.
On Nov. 24, Jakes suffered a health incident at his church. He later told The Today Show the incident was a “massive” heart attack.
On Nov. 25, Jakes filed a lawsuit against the former minister who accused Jakes of alleged attempted sexual assault. The minister’s brother then alleged in a sworn affidavit filed in the case that Jakes also attempted to sexually assault him.
Jakes responded to the allegations of attempted sexual assault in his own sworn affidavit, filed in February. In the affidavit, Jakes said the minister Duane Youngblood’s allegations were part of “a carefully orchestrated attempt to destroy me” and contributed to the Dallas pastor’s November health incident.
“Mr. Jakes filed a lawsuit against disgraced former minister and convicted child predator Duane Youngblood and other conspirators in response to Mr. Youngblood’s calculated disinformation campaign aimed at destroying Mr. Jakes’s reputation, extracting millions from Mr. Jakes, and launching a new career for himself,” Dustin Pusch, a lawyer for Jakes, wrote in a February statement to The News on the ongoing lawsuit.
Philanthropy and praise
Jakes is known for his philanthropy. In 2020, he founded the T.D. Jakes Foundation, a nonprofit focused on “connecting underserved communities to life-changing opportunities,” according to its website.
The foundation’s partners include The Coca-Cola Company, the Dallas Mavericks and Goldman Sachs. In 2023, the foundation said it awarded $9 million in grants to 16 organizations with a focus on economic advancement initiatives.
The megachurch pastor has a real estate company, T.D. Jakes Real Estate Ventures, involved in affordable housing and senior living development projects. He also created a social impact holding company, T.D. Jakes Enterprises, which in 2024 acquired a tech company helping to power e-commerce for underrepresented and underresourced entrepreneurs.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, The Potter’s House’s Dallas location became a mass vaccination site. The News reported in 2021 that the church had administered close to 54,000 shots.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson described The Potter’s House as a community institution in a video celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2021. “I suspect that no matter what happens next in our city, The Potter’s House and Bishop Jakes will be around to help because that’s what you do,” Johnson said in the video.
At the time, Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins also praised the megachurch pastor. “T.D. Jakes has been a blessing to our community and country and a stalwart friend to me personally,” he said.
Adrian Ashford covers faith and religion in North Texas for The Dallas Morning News through a partnership with Report for America.
Adrian Ashford covers faith and religion in North Texas for The Dallas Morning News through a partnership with Report for America.
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
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