Most people assumed the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart’s career as a televangelist was finished in 1991 when police in Indio, California pulled him over for driving on the wrong side of the road and found him with a prostitute and a carful of pornography.
The incident would have spelled trouble for any minister. But coming just three years after Swaggart’s tearful, televised confession over another high-profile prostitution scandal, the California traffic stop appeared to be the final blow for the Ferriday-born preacher.
Defrocked by the Assemblies of God church hierarchy, he stepped down as head of the Family Worship Center Church, handing over the reins, for a time, to his son, Donnie Swaggart. Church attendance at Sunday services dwindled, and his worldwide televangelism empire crumbled.
But as Business Report details in its new cover package, Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, which celebrated its 60th anniversary last October, has experienced something of a comeback, due in large part to the addition of SonLife Broadcasting Network—a production powerhouse established six years ago that has capitalized on the growth of digital media platforms by broadcasting Swaggart’s Pentecostal-style programming 24/7 via radio, TV, satellite, cable and the Internet to all corners of the globe.
It’s a family-run business now spanning three generations, with 81-year-old Jimmy and his wife of 63 years, Frances, still very much at the helm. Donnie, 60, and his son, Gabriel Swaggart, 31, are also key players in the operation. They all have their own shows on SBN—The Message of the Cross with Jimmy, Frances and Friends, Backstage with Donnie, and Generations of the Cross with Gabriel.
Also filling the daily programming lineup are sermons, rebroadcasts of Sunday services, prayer rallies, vintage video clips from Swaggart’s heyday in the 1980s, and hours of the rich, gospel-style music for which Jimmy Swaggart is so well known.
The Swaggarts keep their cards close to the vest and did not respond to numerous requests for an interview. That’s not surprising, though. They have kept a low profile in recent years. They don’t fraternize with other church leaders in the Capital Region, and Jimmy and Donnie don’t attend regular, monthly prayer breakfasts with a group of more than a dozen local Evangelical ministers. They don’t advertise in the mainstream media, they don’t participate in community events, and the money they raise through the ministry doesn’t appear to go to any needy causes in the Baton Rouge area, or anywhere for that matter.
Perhaps that’s why so many people assume that Jimmy Swaggart Ministries is no longer anything but a page or, perhaps, a chapter in the history book of 20th century televangelists. But that assumption would be incorrect.
The ministry, its growing broadcast network and its aged but still undeniably charismatic leader are very much in the game, doing a brisk business based on the model they’ve always used—making a buck by purportedly saving souls.
Read the full cover story, and also read a related story from the cover package that explores how a recent verdict in a long-running legal dispute between developers and the Family Worship Center Church raises intriguing possibilities for some highly desirable acreage.
Send your comments to editors@businessreport.com.
