Preaching: Is there an ongoing struggle to deal with the issues of celebrity versus being a pastor, being a servant of a congregation?

Jakes: From a perspective of arrogance it is not a struggle to me because I'm not really attracted to notoriety. I actually love normalcy. I don't enjoy being famous. I enjoy normalcy. I never set out to be well known; I set out to be effective. Being well known is something that I live with. In my prayers I ask God to teach me how to live with it, not give me more of it. I can do without it. Yet, I am willing to give up the things I love — the privacy I crave, the individuality that I still yearn for, if I can help somebody. The day that I cease to be a servant to Him in that way, then please let me do like Peter. Let me go a fishin'. I would much better be in a boat with a couple of friends with a fishin' rod in my hand than to be in front of thousands of people who really don't know me.

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Preaching: As you look back over your ministry are there some things you know now that you wish you'd known when you were starting out?

Jakes: Yes, I think if I had it to do over again I would have done it slower. I would have moved slower. I would have taken more breaks along the way. I'm a type 'A' workaholic sort of person. I drive straight ahead like there is not going to be a tomorrow. Twenty-seven years into it I find out there was a tomorrow and I found out that if you don't get it all done today it is OK. I would have forgiven myself for not finishing. That would have been something critical. I would not have charged myself such a high bill of responsibility when somebody that I was trying to win failed and blamed myself as if I were the savior of another person. That would have been different. More time with my kids, that would have been different.

There are a lot of little things that I learned along the way. I would have learned not to grieve over dreams that didn't come true, buildings that we were trying to buy and couldn't get, doors that were closed in our face, opportunities that didn't come to pass. I wouldn't have taken it all so seriously. The older I get the more I realize it really doesn't matter — that what God has for you is for you. God has a plan and when He opens the door no man can shut it and when He shuts the door no man can open it. Not to get in front of the door and wonder what I did wrong or right that caused it to shut or open. These are the things that experience teaches you. You learn to calm down.

The other thing that I think is very, very important is that I find that success is not complete without a successor. Many, many times people enjoy what you do but they don't learn how to do what you do, and the best thing you can do in all of your life is to pour what you do into somebody who can repeat it — who can actually do it, not just enjoy it. To work yourself out of a job — that is critical so that you will ultimately reach your destiny and not be like David. Almost lost his life killing giants in his later years, repeating what he did in his younger years. I think it is important that you kill your giants in your youth and not try to reduplicate that issue over and over again for the long run.