Preachers of L.A., the controversial reality show that goes behind the scenes of several prominent L.A. pastors and their families, churches and congregations debuted its second season this week. Pastor Jay Haizlip, of L.A. based megachurch The Sanctuary, is one of those preachers, out of a group that includes Bishop Noel Jones and Detrick Haddon.
Haizlip talked to the Tom Joyner Morning Show about this upcoming season and his tense relationship with Haddon.
On response to the second season debut: The premiere was great. We trended #2 on social media so it came out with a bang and lot of people tuned in. On his Los Angeles mega-church, The Sanctuary which has 3500 members: We have 8 services a week. Our church has exploded. We’ve grown by 500% in a three-year period. Because of that, we keep adding services. But we just now bought a new building. In October, we should be moving into our new building. We have two locations. You’ll see our downtown L.A. location next Wednesday.
On people he ministers to appearing on the show: You’ll see a guy named Justin who comes from our campus. He’s from Santa Barbara, he’s in his 20’s. He’s been through a lot of things in his life and as a result of that, he’s addicted to heroin and alcohol and he’s homeless. He’s living on the streets. It’s a heartbreaking situation but thankfully he’s coming to our church. We’re loving on him and you see me trying to help him and that’s an ongoing thing. Still to this day, I’m walking that out. The reason I have such compassion for him is that I did struggle with addiction and it nearly destroyed my life. It took God coming into my life and turning me around to overcome it. That was in 1990 and all these years I’ve been free and clean and I can’t just walk by guys like that.
On his conflict with Detrick Haddon: Detrick and I have a disagreement. I didn’t come at Detrick judging him. I genuinely love and care for Detrick – he’s my friend. When I married him – I stepped in for Bishop Noel Jones – I didn’t know [his wife] was pregnant for a second time. I didn’t know the details behind that. I love his kids and I love his wife. I’m so thankful they have such a wonderful family. I just want to make sure that there’s not this underlying current that is in his life that would destroy his marriage. I like to set people up for a long, healthy marriage, if I can. If there’s something that’s underneath the surface, getting married doesn’t make it go away. I would have still married them; I just wanted to know all the facts.
On people who have unrealistic views of what preachers should be like: People expect their pastors to be just like Jesus. The reality is we have bad days just like everybody else. We have families, we have marital issues, we have congregational issues, just like everybody else. But we should be working at a certain level of success to be doing what we do.
Preachers of L.A. airs on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on Oxygen.
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