(FORTUNE Small Business) – I do not believe that money in and of itself is evil," says Bishop T.D. Jakes, 48, intoning as if from the pulpit in a voice so deep it can be felt. We're in a windowless anteroom in the bowels of Potter's House, Jakes's 30,000-member megachurch on the far south side of Dallas. The chairs are ornate, the décor vaguely French. The bishop entered just moments ago, preceded by a stone-faced attendant who scanned the room, then backed into the hallway and pulled the door shut. "I believe it is possible to have moral integrity, a spiritual commitment," the bishop continues, "and still be economically empowered."

That is a relief, because the bishop clearly has a passion for what he calls "for-profit ventures." He's a bestselling author of 30 books, a screenwriter, a theatrical producer, and a Grammy-nominated gospel singer who wrote and starred in the 2004 film Woman, Thou Art Loosed!, now on DVD. "I have always worked a second job," he says. "Yes, T.D. Jakes is a minister. But I have refused to put a period there. I have chosen to put a comma."

Even absent the comma, Jakes would intrigue the most secular of entrepreneurs. A self-described "bootstrap individual," he came to Dallas from West Virginia in 1996 with a handful of followers and before long was preaching to such crowds that "I had to stop," he says, "and build a $48 million building to house the growth." The new Potter's House--big as a mall, with parking for 3,500 cars--boasts a 500-seat chapel, a 1,200-seat youth sanctuary, and an 8,000-seat sanctuary-cum-concert-hall-cum-TV-studio that fills to capacity twice on Sunday mornings. Of all the ministers in all the megachurches across the wide Bible Belt, it was Jakes, in 2001, who landed on the cover of Time, with the cover line IS THIS MAN THE NEXT BILLY GRAHAM?

Potter's House serves its market by offering "one-stop shopping for a whole lot of things other than just church," says Jakes. For instance: an affiliated nonprofit, the Metroplex Economic Development Corp., which helps small businesses get off the ground; networking for professionals ("gatherings of the gifted," Jakes calls them); job training for the newly saved who seek "moral options that sustain their families without going back into lifestyles that would be counterproductive to decisions they made at the altar"; and, this past summer, a seven-day luxury Alaskan cruise, led by Jakes, that qualified as tax-deductible on a schedule C: Doing Business in Deep Water. Potter's House has 300 employees; revenues are a closely guarded secret.

"I could have been happy to be a businessman and not a preacher," Jakes says. "Harmonizing those two things has been an exciting part of my life." So when he's ministering to parishioners in need, he is also, in a way, conducting focus groups--"I'm getting pulse beats," he says. And when he is preaching the word of God, he is honing valuable marketing skills: "To be a communicator ... has been a tremendous resource. I'm sure it has affected the bottom line." His own, of course, but lest we forget, His too. After all, Jakes is not just some rich guy who spends his money on toys; he tithes.