JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP):

It's time for Americans to look beyond their borders, superstar Texas preacher T.D. Jakes said yesterday as he prepared to hold his trademark Megafest outside the US for the first time.

The best-selling pastor of Dallas megachurch The Potter's House is throwing his signature event - part religious festival, part self-help fair, part gospel concert - at a convention centre near Soweto this weekend.

Jakes debuted the event in Atlanta in 2004 and has drawn hundreds of thousands of people over the years.

He cited the global economic meltdown sparked by America's credit crisis and the September 11 terror attacks as examples of why Americans need to pay more attention to the world and their role in it.

Global-minded

"We can no longer live in corners and just care about ourselves," he told The Associated Press. "Americans are becoming increasingly global-minded. If there were anything positive that came out of 9-11, it's the realisation that we are our brothers' keepers."

Jakes has preached outside the US before, and South Africans at the press conference Thursday quoted from his books. But he's never taken on anything so ambitious as staging a Megafest abroad.

For the past year, more than 300 people have worked in the US and South Africa to prepare for the event, in which he said his church had invested US$7 million. Tickets were selling for just 25 rand (US$2.71), and Jakes said he hoped only to break even.