Texas megachurch pastor TD Jakes to step down after suffering heart attack during sermon

Jakes is handing over leadership of The Potter’s House to daughter and son-in-law

Bishop TD Jakes, founder of Texas megachurch The Potter’s House, announced that he was stepping down as pastor, months after suffering a heart attack while delivering a sermon.

In an emotional sermon, Jakes said his daughter and son-in-law, pastors Sarah Jakes Roberts and Toure Roberts, would take over his role in July.

“You have been faithful to God, and you have been faithful to me. And I’m so grateful,” Jakes told his congregation, according to NBCDFW. “I cannot afford, especially after November, to risk something happening to me, and that you be sheep without a shepherd.”

Jakes, 67, suffered a heart attack on stage last November.

“This is legacy. Not because they are kin, but because they are the kind,” he said about the Robertses. “They have immersed themselves into the DNA of this church for years.”

His daughter said that she was grateful and honoured.

“I’m so happy you are going to get some rest,” she said.

“As I enter my 50th year in the public spotlight,” the pastor said in a statement,” I recognise the urgent need to address more challenges of our time, particularly the looming threat of a disappearing middle class, social unrest, and closing opportunity gaps.

Toure Roberts said he and his wife were “committed to building a ministry that carries the heart of Bishop Jakes into a future that is both faithful and forward-thinking”.

Sarah Roberts added: “This is not just a call to serve. It’s a mandate to lead with compassion, clarity, and courage.”

Jakes founded The Potter’s House as a non-denominational, multicultural church in south Dallas in 1996. According to its website, the church has more than 30,000 members and over 50 diverse ministries.

According to Jakes’s bio, he has advised three US presidents, although he does not specify which.

On his heart attack, Jakes said that he hadn’t realised what was happening because he had none of the commonly spoken about symptoms.

“I didn’t really realise what was happening to me onstage until I got to the hospital in an ambulance and fussing that it happened onstage, by the way, because I didn't want it to happen, and the doctor leaned over my ear and said, ‘You’d a massive heart attack,’” Jakes told Today in March.

In a video of that sermon, Jakes can be seen trembling while speaking and is rushed off stage by church members.

The church later posted a statement on Instagram explaining that Jakes was “stable and under the care of medical professionals”.