Here in Baton Rouge, the millions have transformed a cow pasture into the 12-building World Ministry Center and the Jimmy Swaggart Bible College. Swaggart - gospel singer, Pentecostal minister and, by some measures, the most watched television evangelist in the nation - runs a ministry that devours money: $600,000 a day now, $156 million a year, by his account. 72838 in the language of Swaggart's computers. It was mailed in response to a Swaggart plea for money: appeal No. "Yes, Brother Swaggart, you can count on me to help you meet this critical need," read the donor reply card, mailed back in April with a $100 check. In 1986, Swaggart officials said, they carried more. In 1985, they contained about $120 million, about 93 percent of the ministry's revenues. This is the mailroom of Jimmy Swaggart's World Ministry Center, where envelopes poured in last year at an average rate of 16,261 a day, 81,305 a week, 4,227,860 a year. Then workers extract the contents, placing them in neat little piles: checks here, cash there, letters and reply cards nearby. Their razor edges slit open envelopes, and tiny suction cups pull them wide apart. The machines work relentlessly in this sterile room.
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