The Charlotte News from Charlotte, North Carolina • 12

The Charlotte News 2B Tues May 13 1975 LIFESTYLES 'PTL Club'-Another Kind Of Talk Show preacher and the showman in him satisfied By BOB W1SEHART News Staff Writer guests sit to right in the chair and couch all talk shows have the only product of the PTL Television Network Jim Bakker president and star if the appropriate word At first the one-story building at 6500 Independence Blvd look much different from any other well-to-do clutch of offices As you sit in the lobby you can hear typewriters chatter and a hum of conversation from the hallways that angle off both sides The only thing that makes this office different at least to casual observation is the large red Bible on the coffee table You are greeted by a pleasant young woman with just the right touch of friendliness and efficiency taping she said on back and you can YOU FOLLOW her A right and then a left down a dark wood-paneled hallway She opened the door and you step into a white-walled television studio with lights so bright you have to blink it away It used to be called The Now they call it PTL Club" It is It can be seen in Charlotte from 11 am to 1 pm Monday through Friday and 10 pm to midnight Sunday on Channel 36 It is also seen in 27 other states in the eastern half of the country The PTL Television Network is a big booming business that is getting bigger The catalyst is Bakker He is 35 and a graduate of North Central Bible College in Minneapolis class of Bakker has been doing television evangelism most of his adult life He is also an ordained minister That part is mysterious and is kept so by Bakker His official biography only says Bakker is ordained in a known In production PTL Club" looks just like any other talk show It is a color telecast and the color scheme is light blue and white Bakker sits behind the same kind of dais Johnny Merv Mike and Dick log all their air hours behind The TV camera focuses on Jim Bakker (Photos by Don Hunter) going to have a he said Jim Bakker leaned forward and put his elbows on the dais Hands clenched in front of his chest Bakker looked directly into the television camera Intent but friendly you Bakker asked a Can -I-Help-You smile playing on his lips you yelled one of The Pioneers a gospel-singing group of five young men in rented tuxedoes whispered a small elderly woman who was clutching a cloth handbag and sitting on a metal folding chair in one corner of the studio shouted a tall straight young man not yet out of his teens a stem implacable expression etched on his face The sound echoed off the walls of the studio The noise died and then picked up again the replied Jim Bakker leaning back in his chair now both the Jim ker with strangers it is nothing but praise seen him talk for almost 24 hours straight cn said David Carver an ex-disc jockey from Gainesville Fla who now handles promotions for the network Fie was he said and sees things differently now NEVER runs Carver said His admiration for Bakker runs close to the surface This is not some down-home cornpone and chitlins folksy slap dash operation Carver said the network employs 30 people and they all appear to know exactly what doing The studio big as it is is only one of many rooms in the building Further back the visitor is led through a maze of hallways and rooms several of which are tilled with the kind of expensive audio-visual equipment you would find at any television station There is even a combination kitchen-dining room Two women were there preparing a lunch of corn-on-the-cob and pork chops The entire network staff eats lunch there when the show is completed Guests come and go like any talk show The conversation ranges from outright and somewhat feverish prayer to rambling discussions about where society is headed and other matters both ordinary and celestial On this day the guests included Janet Chavez an evangelist from California The Pioneers from Raiford Steve Bird often a PTL co-host and an Armenian evangelist who had spent some time in Jerusalem BUT THE HEART of PTL is the telephones To far right along one wall of the studio a battery of 14 telephones are perched on five wooden desks Each telephone is manned by a A woman who works for the network said have to be a Christian and we have to be sure you can handle If you meet those qualifications and volunteer a counselor The show is broadcast live in Charlotte but that show is taped and shown later in other parts of the country Since the telephone number constantly Hashes across the screen the telephones stay busy But since many viewers call from outside Charlotte Bakker is not exaggerating when he says call us from just about all over the people may be responding to a program taped several weeks ago It matter Every call is handled in one of three ways Each counselor has three different forms in front of her (None of the counselors are men) Every time a call comes in a different form is filled out The "prayer is blue That is used when a caller needs be healed or wants be delivered a problem There is a little box by each problem There are 42 listed and a space for The counselors put check marks in the appropriate boxes Things callers can be healed of range from arthritis to hemorrhoids and The counselor fills out the form and then prays with the caller that the problem be taken care of the For some reason when the counselors are praying over the telephone they shut their eyes and Trinity Broadcasting Co here as a means to get his show on the air But Bakker a man who wastes neither time nor motion decided he was wasting both by working out of two headquarters In Jan 1974 he moved his staff to Charlotte Since then he has taken over the network and has changed its name to the PTL Television Network The show is now called PTL BAKKER IS equal parts envagehst showman and hard-headed businessman without looking like any of the three His dark brown hair is long in front and tumbles down to his eyebrows That and his round unlined face plus his height he stands perhaps 5 feet 5 inches give him a choir-boy look very much in contrast to the man who manipulates souls and dollars with equal ease The show is growing and growing fast It is already broadcast over 20 stations and reaches 27 states week signing contracts with stations in Philadelphia Houston and Bakker aid Bakker said he got the idea several years ago in Portsmouth after finishing a late-night sermon and coming home to watch television and relax got to thinking some- can't few afeettefvoito Bakker talks with Bill Brafford All over the building there are little signs that say things like Loves or Know I Love The network even has a chapel It is a large room with no furniture except for some wooden benches and a rough-hewn wooden cross on the wall Every few minutes during the show Bakker who is almost always smiling smiles even wider and starts reading from the forms filled out by the counselors gonna give their heart to the he said waving a batch of forms in the air For some reason theie were seveial calls from Maine on in Maine Here's another one Boy what's on up Fie spent 10 minutes leading off the forms All the people who were saved all the people who need prayer and all those healed Every few minutes Bakker looked into the camera and yelled the The cry was always taken up by his guests and often by everyone else in the studio At 11:35 am Bakker laughed and clapped Ins bands over his head wife just told me that CRAIN A CltSEY CTO CtNN SIR BY NAT raise one hand over their heads THE FORMS are gathered and passed on to Bakker who picks from among them and prays for that person again only this time it is on the air He also prays by shutting his eyes and holding the form above his head If callers are healed or delivered of anything asked to call back That brings on another form This one is pink It is called a On it are the words Healing In The final form is the That is used when the caller wants to be saved over the telephone It has different categories too One for callers who that God loves and another for callers who that sin separates you from for example After a salvation report is filled out the caller and counselor pray together AU the prayer and counseling over the telephone creates a lot of noise in the studio but nobody seems to mind since it interfere with the taping The walls are bare and the ceiling is high so the echo is loud The show's conversation just meanders along and Bakker lets it take its own course At least the way it seems The truth is that since Bakker is almost always taping he has to let guests carry a good deal of the verbal load Hero is not too strong a word to use to describe the way the people at the network feel about Bakker Ev-erytime they talk about Bak- thing like that for Christians would be a really good he said people who want to hear about the affairs of some movie star a tremendous way to lead people to he said The network is a nonprofit organization he said all get salaries around here Nobody gets a percentage or anything like It is financed through the twice-a-year telethons Bakker conducts periodically each of the viewing areas In Charlotte for example telethons are held each January and June THE PTL network pays each of the stations tor broadcasting the show Current contracts range from $60000 to $300000 a year per station deal with a lot of money Bakker said way growing we have The show is on the air somewhere in the country from 9 am to 11 pm daily so as Bakker said are generous enough so that we had much of a problem raising funds to keep Usually the show is broadcast either through an independent station like WRET or an ABC affiliate although Bakker has Continued On Page 3B fa fove wm THE STUDIO erupted in applause Bakker just sat there looking pleased and a little confused not sure he said still laughing A couple of minutes more of hooting and hollering and Bakker said need help I know w'hat doing have another song from The The Pioneers evidently taken by surprise scrambled toward the other end of the studio to line up for their song Anyone can come to the studio and watch the show There are a dozen metal folding chairs in one corner near the door The view is usually blocked by one of the three cameras but there is a monitor hanging from the ceiling they can watch Most sat quietly a rapt serene expression on their faces For the most part their eyes never left Bakker When Bakker wants to regain control of the show he just starts talking The Armenian was talking about some of the tours he had led around Jerusalem and men- Continued On Page 3B I DIST PRC0 CO PRODUCT Of PIONEER Make Christian TV A Booming Business 'I got to thinking something like that (talk shows) for Christians would be a really good idea For people who don't want to hear about the affairs of some movie star' Jim Bakker Bakkers' By BOB W1SEHART News stair Writer Jim Bakker is the kind of fellow who talks to God A lot of people say they talk to God Prayer is the usual method But Jim Bakker really talks ONE TIME God told Bakker to sell his house and quit his job Bakker complained and tried to talk God out of it God would not budge So Bakker sold his house and quit his job That happened in Portsmouth Va Bakker said at the time he understand why God wanted house sold but Bakker did it anyway tried to deal with the Bakker said said me a job and sell my just know why I was as successful as I ever wanted to be I was making $1000 a month in various payments so you know I was making quite a bit of That was a little more than two years ago Today Bakker 35 is head of an evangelical fiefdom that covers half the United States and deals in millions of dollars each year It was all he said work not Bakker graduated from North Central Bible College Then he had that conversation with God As Bakker remembers it the conversation was a little one-sided said I have called you away not to divide but to multiply the Bakker quit and spent six months traveling the country During this period Bakker said he acted as a for religious-oriented television stations who needed a financial shot in the arm in Minneapolis in 1960 From there he spent a normal five years as a pulpit-pounding evangelist In 1965 Bakker went to work for the Christian Broadcasting Company (CBN) in Portsmouth He began hosting 700 a version of talk-show evangelism that quickly caught on with the stations affiliated with CBN along with a few independent stations including WRET Channel 36 in Charlotte BAKKER AND his wife Tammy were also the prime movers behind the and show which Bakker said for kids and (it was) a Eight years passed and Bakker figured he was about as successful as he was going to get and more successful than he had ever hoped The telethon was his weapon and Bakker said he was and still is very good at it He moved to Los Angeles I pioneered two Christian TV stations Bakker also started the The program seen in Charlotte among other places He also helped set up the 4 VODKA 80 PROOF JOIST FROM lOoX 1 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