T.D. Jakes
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Welcome to the T.D. Jakes Author Page
Bishop T.D. Jakes was born and raised in Charleston, West Virginia. He grew up in a hillside neighborhood where every adult in the community contributed to the children’s upbringing. His early habit of preaching to an imaginary congregation and always carrying his Bible to school earned him the nickname "Bible Boy." Young Jakes was "called" to the ministry at 17 and first began preaching part-time while a student at West Virginia State where he was enrolled as a psychology major. Although he eventually became part-time music director at the Baptist church where he grew up, it wasn’t until 1982 — the year the Charleston-area chemical plant where he worked closed and his father died of kidney disease — that he began full-time ministry at the church he had started two years earlier while still working at the plant. Pastor Jakes’ first church, located in a storefront facility in Montgomery, West Virginia, began with only 10 members. In a short time, Jakes’ fresh and inspiring message transcended racial lines, spread by word-of-mouth, and drew a large and growing integrated congregation in a historically divided community. The church eventually became known as the Greater Emanuel Temple of Faith and was affiliated with Ohio-based Higher Ground Always Abounding Assemblies, a Pentecostal church organization that governs approximately 200 churches.
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