Thomas Dexter (T.D.) Jakes is a best-selling author, a Grammy and Dove-nominated music artist, entrepeneur and conference and crusade speaker who draws each year a collective audience of hundreds of thousands—the world’s celebrity and the suffering—to arenas across the globe to seek a "God of Second Chances."

He is pastor of one of the fastest-growing churches in the nation—the multi-denominational, 26,000 member Potter’s House church in Dallas. His "Potter’s House" television program is seen on Trinity Broadcast Network (TBN) and Black Entertainment Television (BET) throughout the United States, and in Uganda, Nairobi, Kenya, South Africa, Australia and England.

Most recently, he is a critically acclaimed two-time playwright engaging the nation in a close look at breast cancer and its effect on marriages in his second stage play, "Behind Closed Doors." The play follows on the heels of the twenty books and more he's written, including the best sellers "The Lady, Her Lover and Her Lord," "His Lady," "Maximize the Moment," and his most recent release, "The Great Investment" (October 2000, G. P. Putnam & Sons)

He was born in South Charleston, West Virginia, and grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of the region. The first small church congregations he pastored were in Montgomery and Smithers, West Virginia.

He and his wife, Serita, live in South Dallas with their five children.