Preacher Feature : Religion: Pastor Bill Woodard sermonizes from a cable-TV studio. The former sitcom actor hopes to hit the big time in televangelism.

Clad in the open-necked Hawaiian shirt that is his trademark, Pastor Bill Woodard looked down at the well-worn King James Bible on the table in front of him. He looked up at the heavens. And then he looked warmly straight into the television camera.

Inside the Ventura County Cablevision studio, it was time to start preaching.

“The flood came in and it just washed out everything,” Woodard said. “This is nothing but an attack from the devil.”

He paused and looked back down at the Bible.

“My daughter, you are wondering now, will your insurance cover it?” he continued. “Contact the FEMA program. I will put a Christian there. Thus saith the Lord.”

In the 1970s and early 1980s, Woodard was making eye contact with cameras on the sets of “The Dating Game,” “The Jeffersons” and “All in the Family.” He was also, he said, living “a lifestyle of drinking and drugs and womanizing.”

Now he is putting his television skills to use as an evangelist on local access cable in Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley, helping residents cope with everything from marital troubles to the recent rains.

Camera operator Sister Woodard, Bill’s wife, bristled when asked later whether the Lord really is concerned with the details of Federal Emergency Management Agency business.

“There is not anything that God does not know,” she said.

Woodard explained that he knew a Christian will answer FEMA’s phone because of “a spiritual gift.”

“The Holy Spirit actually speaks through me,” Woodard said. “It’s nothing mysterious.”

Woodard’s followers agree.

“He’s a gifted person,” said Dr. Douglas Beatty, a Westlake trauma physician and Defense Department consultant. “He has a real charisma that is legitimate and is not tainted by the avarice and the wanton indulgence that you see in many television ministries.”

Holly Rose Lawrence, a Simi Valley gospel singer who has appeared as a guest on Woodard’s television program, described the pastor as “a very powerful prayer warrior.”

Lawrence said her husband suffered swelling on his left hand, the lump was about the size of a plum. It persisted for four months, until Woodard put his hands on it.

“It just started to go down and deflate. I saw it with my own eyes,” Lawrence said. “It really baffled the doctor.”

Mark Horowitz of Thousand Oaks, who grew up in a Jewish family, thanks Woodard for opening his eyes to the gospel.

“He’s a great person. He’s a great personality on television,” Horowitz added.

And Wanda Walker, who works for a phone company and lives in Thousand Oaks, said Woodard helped her renew her relationship with her estranged husband.

“He’s just a great man,” Walker said. “I can’t say I’ve seen miracles, but I’ve seen a lot of changes in a lot of people who have been around him. They come in with depressed faces and they come out happy.”

Woodard, 49, has won over these followers despite two attributes he concedes are obstacles. First, he’s black. And second, he’s a televangelist.

“As a black man, it is a challenge,” Woodard said. “There is a negative within the (television) medium. All the black characters that are shown are buffoons.”

But Woodard has managed to draw an audience from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. And his race served as an initial attraction for some viewers, such as Walker.

“It’s a white area and you don’t see a lot of black programming up here,” said Walker, who is black.

The well-publicized scandals involving Jimmy Swaggart and Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker have also raised public skepticism about television ministries. “There have been so many people who have misled other people,” Walker said. “People think they’re trying to take their money.”

Compared to the big-time televangelists, with their 24-hour satellite stations, theme parks and armies of staffers opening donation envelopes, the Woodards are small fry.

But they have big-time ambition. Although Woodard’s two programs are now shown for three hours in Thousand Oaks and shorter periods in Simi Valley and parts of Los Angeles, the pastor already has prepared a 24-hour programming schedule for the Good News Network he wants to broadcast globally by satellite. He’s “in conversation,” he said, for the satellite time, which can cost $100,000 a day.

“We believe that the Lord is going to provide the funds,” he said.

Until then, the Woodards still bill themselves as Hope Christian Ministries International. Barring a satellite deal, however, the only thing that’s international about their operation is a plan to “be in Africa by the end of this year” by mailing videotapes of the shows to American embassies in African countries, they said.

Meanwhile, he hones his skills by watching other ministers on TV. And, he acknowledges, by watching himself.

“It’s neat. It helps me to improve,” he said. “I see, maybe I should have smiled more, maybe I shouldn’t have wrinkled my brow.”

Born in Little Rock, Ark., Bill Woodard came to Los Angeles when he was 6 months old. He was reared by his mother, who was a domestic worker, then a nurse, he said. “I was always kind of a showoff as a kid, and I was always singing.”

After serving in Vietnam from 1966 to 1968 with a Port Hueneme-based unit, Woodard returned to the United States and was wondering what to do. Then a friend went on “The Dating Game” and gave his name to the producers, he said. It was his big break.

“When I walked into the studio, and I saw the sets, and I saw all the lights, and I saw all the television business, I got hooked and said this is what I want to do,” he said.

He was invited back four times and also appeared in other shows. But his acting career fell apart. Woodard was working for Starving Students movers when a co-worker invited him to church. He met the woman who was to become his wife in church in 1983, and they married in 1984. The couple moved from Venice to Thousand Oaks in 1990 after a co-worker recommended it as a place to buy an affordable home.

The televangelism began airing shortly thereafter.

The cable company’s public-access channel provides equipment and air time for free. Woodard’s ministry is supported by individual donations and funds from the Los Angeles-based Christian Revival Center.

The Woodards also operate a small in-person ministry that meets for prayer and Bible study Friday nights in a Thousand Oaks church.

And they have a knack for timeliness. They launched a camp for urban youth following the 1992 riots and have planned a marriage-building conference for the week prior to Valentine’s Day. In response to the recession, they changed the meaning of the name of their ministry. “Hope” used to stand for “Helping Others Prepare for Eternity.” Now the “e” also stands for “economically,” Woodard said.

On Sunday, Woodard did not hesitate to capitalize on the flood. His show usually includes readings from the Bible. This week, the subject was Noah.

The “prayer for needs” section of the show included a prayer “for all the people that had losses during this flood and during these torrential rains.”

And the “word of knowledge” section concerned the Christian answering the phone at FEMA.

The show ends, though, as it always does.

“God bless you,” Woodard said, smiling warmly straight into the camera, then looking down and flipping through the pages of the Bible.