Sarah Jakes Roberts, the 37-year-old co-senior pastor of The Potter's House in Dallas, fractured her neck in a trampoline accident in mid-April and said she came within a single vertebral disc of paralysis, or worse. She is now recovering under strict medical guidance, wearing a neck brace, and facing weeks away from the pulpit she took over less than a year ago.

The injury happened while Roberts was playing with her daughter Ella on a trampoline. She posted identical accounts on Facebook and Instagram on April 19, describing what she called a terrifying night.

Religion News Service reported that Roberts heard "several pops" in her neck upon landing and was hospitalized. The Potter's House issued a news release the following day, April 20, confirming the accident and stating that some of her upcoming engagements might be shifted.

'God didn't see fit to let that be my story'

Roberts' own words, shared publicly on April 19, paint a picture of a woman who understood immediately how close the moment came to catastrophe. She wrote on social media:

"Last night was scary. I was almost paralyzed, but God didn't see fit to let that be my story."

She described the accident plainly. She had been playing a game with Ella on the trampoline, landed on her neck, and heard the pops instantly. She said she later traveled to a second hospital, the names of neither facility have been disclosed, before learning the extent of the damage.

Roberts framed the outcome in terms of faith and narrow margins:

"One disc up or one disc lower, and this would've been a different testimony. Instead, I'll be wearing this brace for 4-6 weeks to keep my neck stable and avoid further damage. Rest and recovery will give my body a chance to heal."

The church's April 20 news release said Roberts was "in strong spirits" and "currently under strict medical guidance and is expected to make a full recovery in time." It added that she was "surrounded by family, leadership, and an incredible care team" and "looks forward to returning in due time."

A family shaken, again

For the Jakes family, the accident arrives on the heels of an already difficult stretch. Roberts' father, Bishop T.D. Jakes, the founder of The Potter's House, suffered a massive heart attack in front of his congregation in November 2024. The day after he fell ill, lawyers filed a defamation lawsuit on his behalf against Pennsylvania minister Duane Youngblood, arguing Youngblood had falsely accused Jakes of attempted sexual assault. That case was voluntarily dismissed "by consent of all parties" when T.D. Jakes informed a Pennsylvania federal district court of the resolution in October 2025.

It was against that backdrop that Sarah Jakes Roberts and her husband, Touré Roberts, were installed as co-senior pastors of The Potter's House on July 6, stepping into one of the most prominent pulpits in American Christianity while her father recovered. Other megachurch pastors have recently faced their own health crises that forced them to step away, but few have done so under circumstances this dramatic.

Touré Roberts spoke publicly about his wife's condition during a previously scheduled on-stage discussion at the church on Sunday, April 26, tied to his soon-to-be-released book. He did not hide his distress:

"I love Sarah with all my heart. It is absolutely impossible for me to be OK when she is not. So I'm not OK, I'll be honest with you. I'm not OK. But I am well, well in the sense that I'm grateful to God for delivering her and saving her."

T.D. Jakes himself addressed the congregation and described what he called the start of "difficult several days" for the family. His account of the injury was blunt and sobering.

"In case you don't know, Pastor Sarah was playing with the kids on the trampoline, bounced up on the trampoline, came down from the trampoline, hit her neck, pretty much broke her neck, crushed, the doctor used the term 'crushed', her neck."

He recounted the agonizing wait that followed: "There we sat for hours and hours waiting to get some determination as concerning her well-being and her mobility or whether she might ultimately pass away."

A rising voice in American ministry

Roberts' prominence extends well beyond Dallas. She was named to the Time100 Next list in 2023, and her Woman Evolve conference has drawn tens of thousands of women. Producer and philanthropist Tyler Perry wrote the Time tribute, noting the particular weight of building a ministry in the shadow of a famous father.

Perry wrote that "when your father is T.D. Jakes and you follow his footsteps into the world of ministry, there's a lot of pressure to find your own voice." He added that "her lived experience using the grace of prayer to find a way through personal pain and tragedy resonates deeply with so many." That observation reads differently now.

Before the injury, Roberts and her husband had also served as pastors at ONE LA, a California-based ministry that is part of The Potter's House network. Their move to Dallas to lead the flagship church marked a generational transition for one of the country's best-known congregations. Sudden tragedies involving pastors remind congregations everywhere how quickly leadership can be disrupted.

A sermon that now reads as foreshadowing

The Sunday before her injury, Roberts preached an hourlong sermon on the Apostle Paul's letter to the church in Corinth. During that sermon, she offered words that now carry a different resonance:

"Lastly, I want to pray for those of you who are in this room and you can't show up in your body the way you used to. You have equated strength with your physical presence and discounted what God can do in your current condition."

Days later, she was in a hospital bed, unable to move her neck, waiting to learn whether she would walk again.

On TikTok, posting under the handle @realsarahjakesroberts, she later wrote: "Living in the tension of gratitude and pain. Allowing myself to move slowly and be held. Grateful that though fragile, I haven't been alone." The post carried a red heart emoji and little else. Accidents involving church leaders have a way of drawing entire communities into grief and prayer.

What remains unknown

Several details about the accident remain undisclosed. The exact date of the injury has not been specified beyond "mid-April" and the reference to "last night" in her April 19 post. Neither the location of the trampoline nor the hospitals that treated her have been named publicly. Whether surgery was required has not been addressed. And the church has not identified which upcoming engagements will be affected.

What is clear is that a 37-year-old mother, barely a year into leading one of the most visible congregations in American Protestantism, came within a fraction of an inch of losing the ability to move, or losing her life, during an ordinary afternoon with her child. Headlines about pastors too often center on scandal or misconduct. This one centers on something far simpler and more unsettling: the randomness of a fall.

The Potter's House says Roberts is expected to recover fully. Her family asks for prayers. And a congregation that watched its founder nearly die in front of them just over a year ago now waits, again, for its pastor to heal.

Some families carry more than their share. The Jakes family keeps getting back up.