T.D. Jakes Retires from Church Role Months After Heart Attack

Bishop T.D. Jakes has announced that he is stepping down from his church leadership role just months after suffering a heart attack mid-sermon last November.

Jakes made the announcement during his The Potter’s House’s Sunday service in Dallas and revealed to his congregation that his daughter, Sarah Jakes Roberts, and son-in-law, Touré Roberts, will be taking over the roles of senior pastor in July.

“You have been faithful to God, and you have been faithful to me and I’m so grateful,” an emotional Jakes to the church audience.

Last month, Jakes opened up about his life-threatening incident.

“I didn’t really realize 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 had a massive heart attack,”” he told Craig Melvin on TODAY.

“The reason I didn’t realize it was because I had none of the symptoms that they say,” he continued. “No numbness, no sharp pain, no anything. I just kind of drifted off to sleep. I didn’t know what it was, but I almost died.”

Jakes said that if he’d arrived at the hospital five minutes later, he would not have been around to tell his story.