An Interview With Bishop T.D. Jakes

Bishop T.D. Jakes, who leads a 30,000-member nondenominational church in Dallas, went home to West Virginia this week for the first time in nearly 15 years. Because many families are struggling financially, Jakes scrapped his annual mega-conference this summer in favor of a simple revival in Charleston, W.Va., where his ministry began 30 years ago. On the eve of the three-day event, Jakes, who was born in South Charleston, talked with Washington Post reporter Hamil R. Harris about the revival, the economy and race relations.

Q.Bishop Jakes, what does it mean to come back

home like this?

A.I am really looking forward to it. I have always been a West Virginian in my heart, and it is a great opportunity for me to share with other Americans some of the simple values that I learned in West Virginia. . . . In the wake of recessions, wars, conflicts and the elections, many people are having to recalibrate their lives. Our focus is on birthing dreams, and I am hoping that people will see the meager beginning where I came from and be inspired to believe in themselves, believe in their God and believe in their dreams.

Bishop, what does it say about your ministry today that you want to come back to this? Is this a move of restoration, or rekindling that old fire that you had when you first went to Texas?

When Moses went to the mountain, he went back to Egypt and led the children of Israel to the mountain. I think it is about bringing people back to simple things again, back to a place where there is a resurgence of hope. And then it is a very practical thing, Hamil. The hotels are affordable. The food is affordable. It is a fairly safe place. I am being sensitive to the economic times that we are living in. Though registration is required, we tried to make it within the grasp of the people who have been affected in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, in the wake of the loss of the chemical plant and the shutdown of the coal mine.

Last January, you played a prominent role in the inauguration of President Obama. Are you doing any work with the administration's faith-based initiative.

I would encourage the president to maintain his relationship with the faith community and to continue to build on his own spirituality. He has a tough role, with a lot of people pulling on him. His ability to . . . cast his cares upon God is important and to maintain a relationship with people who share those values is also important. . . .

I really applaud his initiative to bring the importance of fatherhood back into the face of America. We live in a society today where many think that fathers are optional. Some people decide to make a baby, but they don't want a husband. Today, he is calling us to recognize that there is a role for the father to play, and stats show that when that role is not played, young people are far more likely to be incarcerated and there are other consequences.

You yourself are a father. How do you deal with your own situations as a man and keeping the ministry going? How do you replenish yourself when you have those down moments?

I have the same struggles that anyone else has on a day-to-day basis. One of the things about my ministry is that I have never branded myself as being above the people or superior to people. I chose to present myself as one who comes from among the people, and I can be touched by their pain because I have my own. I raised five children. They all have different personalities. All of them have different issues, different levels of success. That was a learning experience for me. Now all of them are grown and out except one. As adults they all make their own decisions, and you just trust the Lord that they will do the best that they can. I do relate to people. I don't think that you can let the storms of life overwhelm you. When you do that, you are no better than the craziness that caused you to be under attack. You look at the part that is not under attack and thank God that things are as well as they are and keep moving forward.

Is there anything that is in your heart that keeps you up at night? What is really on your heart these days?

On my heart is that we as Americans would move beyond the petty swivels of our history and work much harder to secure our destiny for the benefit of our children and grandchildren. I am concerned that we continue to struggle over racial issues that we should have worked through years ago. I am concerned that we still don't understand one another, blacks and whites, in this country, at a time we are being inundated with people from other nationalities that we need to work with and understand.

We need to move forward as a people in brotherhood and harmony. We will not always agree about everything, Christians, agnostics, gays, straights. We can disagree, but we don't have to be disagreeable. I think that the tenor of the conversation in this country is often antagonistic in a way that it really doesn't have to be, and I think that we need to be brothers and sisters in this country and make a place that we can pass on to our descendants.