T.D. Jakes Talks Megafest, His New Book, and Black Lives Matter

The third week of August marked the kickoff of MegaFest, a four-day inspirational family festival hosted by Bishop T.D. Jakes and held in Dallas. MegaFest brings together four of the Bishop’s most popular events — ManPower, Woman Thou Art Loosed, MegaYouth presents Fire Code, and MegaKidz presents Destiny World. In addition, this year’s MegaFest played hosts to the second International Faith & Family Film Festival and the stage play, Tyler Perry’s Madea on the Run.

This year’s MegaFest also boasted several corporate sponsors hosting individual sessions, including Coca-Cola sponsoring the Women Entrepreneurs in the 21^st Century and Strategies for Navigating Your Success sessions, while Prudential sponsored The Dream Giver, BOSS Panel, Financial and Man CODE sessions.

MegaFest got its start after years of hosting separate – and extremely popular – Woman Thou Art Loosed and Manpower seminars in various locales. Jakes decided to bundle the two together, adding more entertainment and youth events. He took the whole package to Atlanta in 2004, calling it MegaFest. It has been a huge success ever since.  On average MegaFest draws crowds of 75,000 or more. Last year’s MegaFest Family Festival generated over $70 million in revenues.

[Related Story: TD Jakes Growing The Seeds of Prosperity]

BlackEnterprise.com had a chance to speak with the Bishop about the evolution of MegaFest, as well as why the Black Lives Matter agenda needs to be a national priority for all Americans.  In addition to his popular event, the Bishop has been able to reach millions through some 41 books he has written, selling more than 20 million copies and producing more than $115 million in revenues. Here, he also opens up about his latest book Destiny.

BlackEnterprise.com: What have you learned from a business standpoint, and how have you been able to adapt MegaFest over the years?

Jakes: What I’ve learned over the years is that social media is a game changer. We have so many more ways to reach people today than we did when we started. The only thing we had back then was TV, radio, and print magazines. But today you have so many ways to directly contact your constituency and they can directly contact you through social media. Being able to now load products online as opposed to always having to have physical products available for sale has changed considerably. We’re now streaming live online; we’re now interfacing between TV, internet, and social media.

What was the significance of having MegaFest return to Dallas this year?

There’s lot of benefits for the city of Dallas. Last year the Dallas Morning News reported that we had 75,000 attendees over the life of conference (held in 2013) and a $41 million impact to the city. It

is the third largest event that Dallas hosts a year, and so it’s very significant. I believe the numbers in Atlanta, were around $299 million over three days, and it was a huge impact there as well. So, you know you can’t even quantify the impact from a financial perspective, but beyond that it’s a huge opportunity for the business community here in Dallas. I recently have been appointed to the executive board of the Dallas Regional Chamber of Commerce. I’ve been able to interact with a large constituency in the business community on a CEO level and to be able to convey a deeper understanding of how they can benefit from [MegaFest]. Small businesses are connecting and gaining access to volumes of people that they otherwise would not be able to reach.

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With Manpower being part of MegaFest’s beginning–and all that is going on with black males and the Black Lives Matter movement–how are you tackling this issue?

I have not stopped addressing it. I’ve been addressing it at a very high level. I did it at our Pastors Leadership Conference. I’m bringing in people like Michele Alexander that are talking about where we are in our criminal justice system, which is a real problem today. We have brought black religious leaders and white religious leaders to sit down and form a way forward, where the church as a whole can begin to speak out against injustices that we’re seeing in Baltimore, Ferguson, and other places around the country. I’m doing a press tour to have conversations with America about criminal justice, about the dire need we have to overhaul our criminal justice system. There’s a high level of incarcerations of blacks.  When blacks and whites commit the same the crime, blacks are 7 times more likely to be incarcerated than whites; they’re more than likely to stay incarcerated, unable to get out prison in a way that is absolutely alarming. And then when you consider the fact that there are more black men in jail than there were in slavery; we have to do something about that. And 70% of them are there for nonviolent crimes, drug crimes. If we could find a way to fully rehabilitate them instead of incarcerating. The stats are very clear that rehabilitation is actually more affordable than incarceration, and yet prison has turned into a big business.

We’re seeing a lot of protests and people in the streets, but where do we see the works that need to be done?

I think that one of the problems is that we have attacked our community and social problems from one perspective. I mean if

you’re not out there marching or carrying a sign they don’t think you’re doing anything, when there are a lot of ways to send out messages that need to be sent out. If you’re marching I think it helps, if you’re meeting with CEOs or you’re sending out messages to Congress and to your senators, and the Department of Justice, I think it helps. We have to make sure that this is in the mouths of the politicians as we approach the national election. It is imperative that this conversation come up and they have to deal with it, so we know where their stand is on it. And we need to let them know that this is on our agenda, not just a black agenda, but America’s agenda. Anytime America doesn’t live up to its highest ideals [of justice and freedom] we can’t just pass this off and say that blacks are having a problem. America is having a problem and America needs to deal with it, because America takes our tax dollars. And I think we need to hit it with a multi-pronged approach. I’ve continued to do so and I would encourage our community to unite, and not always be so critical of each other because just because we’ve used different tools, it doesn’t mean that we’re not working on the same building.

You last book was on Instinct: The Power To Unleash Your Inborn Drive. Your latest book Destiny: Step Into Your Purpose is about discovering your God-designed destiny.

I recognize that all of my life I’ve always been guided and called to a higher purpose, even when I wanted to quit or felt unworthy, or failed miserably. I had a message that was pulling me beyond my limitations and beyond my comfort zone. The

reason that I overcame my fears is because destiny called me passed them; it certainly wasn’t because I didn’t have them. And I think that for certain people who, at a younger age, have felt that similar pull, and for those who have not, I wrote the book to say that there is a destiny for you, there is a purpose for your life.

Now how does one identify what his or her destiny or purpose is? I know people always struggle with that, saying they’re not clear or sure if they’re destined to do something in particular.

I have learned that whatever you are going to be, you already are in seed form. The difference is seeds don’t look like trees, but they become trees. The child that’s an over-talker might be a communicator. The person who wants everything handled neatly and meticulously might be somebody that we need in administration. All of those things are little clues of their destiny, destiny leaves clues. There are clues in the DNA and early behavior. In the book I talk about how to detect those clues and how to walk in the steps of destiny. I said if instincts are metal, destiny is a magnet. So how do you allow the magnet to draw out the instincts that position you in the right place with the right people at the right times – that’s where destiny comes in. There are some things that are outside of who you are and what’s in you, it’s how you just are blessed to be in the right conversation, or sitting at the right water fountain, and all of a sudden you have a life-changing moment that you couldn’t totally take credit for by yourself, that’s what the book is all about.