T.D. Jakes
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Thomas Dexter Jakes Sr. (born June 9, 1957), known as T. D. Jakes, is a pastor, author and filmmaker. He is the pastor of The Potter's House, a non-denominational American megachurch. Jakes's church services and evangelistic sermons are broadcast on The Potter's Touch, which airs on Lightsource.com, the Trinity Broadcasting Network, Black Entertainment Television, the Daystar Television Network and The Word Network.

Other aspects of Jakes's ministry include the annual festival MegaFest which draws more than 300,000 people, the annual women's conference Woman Thou Art Loosed, and gospel music recordings. He hosted the T.D. Jakes Show, a nationally syndicated talk show produced by Tegna Media and distributed by NBC, until the show's cancellation in March 2017.

Jakes was born in South Charleston, West Virginia, and grew up in Vandalia, attending local Baptist churches. He spent his teenage years caring for his invalid father and working in local industries. Feeling a call to the ministry, he enrolled in West Virginia State University and began preaching part-time in local churches, but he soon dropped out of the university. He took a job at the local Union Carbide factory and continued preaching part-time. During this time he met his future wife, Serita Jamison. The couple married in May 1982. In that same year Jakes became the pastor of the Greater Emanuel Temple of Faith, a small independent Pentecostal church in Montgomery, West Virginia, with just ten members. Over the next few years, the church grew, drawing an integrated congregation that helped increase Jakes's renown as a speaker and pastor. He moved the church twice: from Montgomery to Smithers and then to South Charleston, where the congregation grew from about 100 members to over 300. During this time, he began a radio ministry, The Master's Plan, which ran from 1982–1985. He also became acquainted with Bishop Sherman Watkins, founder of the Higher Ground Always Abounding Assembly (an association of over 200 Pentecostal churches). Watkins ordained Jakes as a minister of the Higher Ground Assembly and encouraged him to start a church in the Charleston, West Virginia, area. Jakes also used this time to continue his education by studying through correspondence courses from Friends International Christian University, an unaccredited, online university. Jakes completed a B. A. and M.A. in 1990, and a Doctor of Ministry in Religious Studies from Friends International Christian University in 1995.