T.D. Jakes’ megachurch pays tribute to his 50 years of ministry

(RNS) — Celebrities, fellow pastors and his Dallas megachurch’s next-generation leaders celebrated Bishop T.D. Jakes’ 50th anniversary of ministry during a service Sunday (Sept. 13), as he thanked his congregation and family for their support during a tenure in which he “dared to be talked about.”

“We can imagine, but we don’t know how much it cost you to let your light shine,” Pastor Touré Roberts told Jakes, his father-in-law, in front of the congregation. “But you did it. You dared to be different. You dared to be talked about. You dared to be ostracized. You risked it all in order to let it, and we want to say thank you.”

Over more than three hours, Jakes’ ministry trajectory was described — often via archival and recent video, and with musical interludes — as speakers recalled his youthful interest in preaching, his first church in Montgomery, West Virginia, and, eventually, the 1,500 people who joined The Potter’s House of Dallas, his megachurch, on its first Sunday in 1996.

“I am standing in the exceeding abundant grace of God that has done more than I could ever imagine,” Jakes, a onetime storefront preacher, told more than 5,300 congregants gathered in the…