New kind of evangelist

Paula White is not your mom’s evangelist. Female preachers were typically like Kathryn Kuhlman, the Pittsburgh healer who would float onto the stage in an white, flouncy gown. Or they were in the

mode of Anne Graham Lotz, the Rev. Billy Graham’s second eldest daughter, who is known for her serious lectures on the Bible.

Not so with Mrs. White, 38, who showed up at a recent preaching engagement at the Jericho City of Praise congregation in Landover, Md., wearing a filmy black dress with a stylish jagged hem, a bright magenta jacket, black stockings and spiked heels.

Her high-decibel performance had the cadence of the black church service with the organ playing in the background for emphasis and the call-and-response of questions and answers to the congregation. The hundreds who turned out on a weeknight appeared enthralled.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to sit in the back of the bus anymore,” Mrs. White said to cheers. “I think we’re supposed to drive the bus, even own the bus.”

Citing Scripture from memory, Mrs. White declared with enthusiasm: “When you’re facing a crisis, you don’t need an opinion; you need a word from God.”

At times, she sprinted across the stage, pounding the air with one fist or waving a gigantic Bible.

“I preach myself to victory,” she said. “You’ve got to learn to tell the devil, ’I don’t think so.’”

Mrs. White has had several run-ins with the devil. When she was 5, her father committed suicide. She was physically and sexually abused from ages 6 to 13. She moved frequently in her teens, spending one year at a high school in Gaithersburg. She was unmarried when she had her first child, and her first marriage failed.

Today, she is on her second marriage, a successful partnership with Randy White, a native of Frederick, Md. They co-pastor the 15,000-member Without Walls International Church in Tampa, Fla.

Although she is white, her foremost mentor is a black man: Bishop T.D. Jakes, a Pentecostal megachurch pastor from Dallas whom she calls her “spiritual father.” Nine networks, including Black Entertainment Television, air Mrs. White’s daily TV show.

She also visits with troubled celebrities, such as pop star Michael Jackson, who summoned her to his Neverland ranch in December for prayer.

“I didn’t counsel him,” she says. “I ministered to him. I spoke words of encouragement and hope to him. I ministered to the person, not the personality.”

Others who have sought out her ministry include professional athletes with roots in Tampa: Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Michael Pittman, Montreal Expos right fielder Carl Everett, New York Yankees right fielder Gary Sheffield and former baseball All-Star Darryl Strawberry. Strawberry, a member of her church, recently served prison time for cocaine possession.

“People tell me,” she says, “’You’re real, you’re nonjudgmental.’ It’s all because I’ve overcome a lot in my life, and I give them answers from the word of God.”

Mrs. White just released “Deal With It,” which sold 35,000 copies in one month. The book exhorts readers to overcome their past.

She makes plenty of jokes about her own past.

“A number of people told Randy not to marry me,” she says. “They said, ’She’s not ministry material.’ I didn’t play the piano. I didn’t look or dress like a preacher’s wife. I didn’t come from a Christian upbringing. I used to say to people, ’Randy was from five generations of preachers, while I was from five generations of heathens.’”

Her troubled background proved such a problem during their courtship that Mr. White threatened to end the relationship.

“That was a defining moment in my life,” she says. “I had to ask myself: Is this where I will be for the rest of my life? If we don’t confront ourselves, we justify ourselves.”

She turned to stories about women in the Bible. Ten of these women are profiled in her book as examples on how to overcome life’s problems.

“If you are willing to identify, confront and conquer the issues of your life — to truly deal with them — God will heal you, restore you and lead you into the destiny He has planned for you,” she says.

She appears to be well on her way to realizing her destiny. An appearance on “The O’Reilly Factor” is slated to air Friday. She has an interview with Ebony magazine next month.

She has her detractors, such as www.myfortress.org, a Web site that labels her “a false teacher” for emphasizing “prosperity theology” — a belief that obedient Christians will be financially prosperous.

“The problem with some people is that they don’t believe they can ever have enough money to pay their bills,” she wrote in her book. “They don’t believe they can have financial prosperity. Why? Because they don’t believe they deserve to have money.”

Readers should “choose to follow leaders who experience prosperity,” she added, of the soul and body as well as the pocketbook.

An August 2002 profile in the Tampa Tribune described the Whites’ $2.1 million home overlooking Hillsborough Bay, Fla., two luxury cars, a private jet on loan from a friend and a combined salary of about $300,000 from their church, plus an $80,000 annual housing allowance.

Without Walls, the Tribune reported, brings in $10 million annually in revenues. However, the Whites, who own a for-profit real-estate company, also receive additional revenue from speeches, books and tapes.

But Mrs. White points out that she and her husband scraped by for years before striking it rich in Florida. The two worked as children’s ministers at the National Church of God in Fort Washington, where receptionist Leureine Novas said the couple did an “excellent job” in the late 1980s.

“Every time I see Paula White on [Trinity Broadcasting Network], I think, my God, look where she’s gotten to,” Miss Novas said. “She has a real love of souls. She was always like that: full of the fire of God.”