New Life Church And Haggard Reach New Agreement

COLORADO SPRINGS - The New Life Church has announced that former Pastor Ted Haggard has requested to end his official relationship with the New Life Church Restoration Team. The church has accepted his request.
According to those familiar with the arrangement, the agreement releases Haggard from restrictions imposed on him in November 2006 after he was removed from the New Life Church leadership. Haggard was the lead pastor and founder of New Life Church until it surfaced he had visited a gay male escort and had bought methamphetamine.
9Wants to Know first reported the story after interviewing the escort, Mike Jones, and talking with then Haggard.
Haggard and his wife and part of their family are now living in Phoenix.
The change in the status of the relationship between Haggard and leaders of the church who were in charge of his restoration process means the legal contract initially signed by both sides is no longer in place. One person familiar with the arrangement said it's less of a separation between Haggard and the church and more of a trust that both sides will abide by any further agreements.
The news release from the New Life Church was first sent to parishioners on Tuesday night and then sent to the media. New Life Church states it "recognizes the process of restoring Ted Haggard is incomplete and maintains its original stance that he should not return to vocational ministry. However, we wish him and his family only success in the future."
from Nine News

Phoenix Is Haggard's New Home

The Rev. Ted Haggard moved Wednesday from his longtime home in Colorado Springs to Phoenix, where the disgraced minister will join the same church that helped fallen televangelist Jim Bakker.
Haggard, 50, resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals last year, after a former male prostitute alleged a three-year cash-for-sex relationship. The man also said he saw Haggard use methamphetamine. Haggard confessed to undisclosed "sexual immorality" and said he bought meth but never used it.
As part of his severance package from New Life Church, a 14,000-member congregation he started in his basement, Haggard agreed to leave Colorado Springs, a city he helped make an evangelical center.
"When he moved out of town today, there was a kind of relief on the part of the church that life can get back to normal," said the Rev. H.B. London, one of three ministers overseeing what has been called Haggard's "restoration." "For the Haggards, it is the beginning of a huge new chapter. It's a brand new start for them, the beginning of a new beginning."
Before his fall, Haggard was an emerging voice in evangelical politics. He took part in White House conference calls and fought to broaden the movement's agenda to include environmental issues.
In Phoenix, Haggard plans to pursue a graduate degree in counseling at an area university, said London, who heads an outreach effort for pastors through Focus on the Family, the Colorado Springs-based conservative Christian group. London was not sure where Haggard would be studying. The Haggards and two of their children - another three are grown - are expected to live in a home made available by a supporter.
Ted and Gayle Haggard have ties to Phoenix. The couple spent three weeks at secular treatment center in the area after the scandal broke. And the Pentecostal church they will attend, Phoenix First Assembly of God, is led by the Rev. Tommy Barnett, another member of Haggard's restoration team.
Bakker, the televangelist, found refuge at Barnett's church after being released from federal prison for bilking supporters of $158 million. He volunteered at a Los Angeles church mission run by Barnett's son.
London said he believes Barnett told his congregation Sunday that Haggard would be joining them. Barnett and officials at his church did not return calls seeking comment.
Haggard faces a test in going from being on the pulpit to becoming just another face in the pews, London said.
"Once you were in charge of a megachurch and a mega-staff and making mega-decisions, now your main decision is where you're going to school, where to eat and what you're going to do on your day off," London said.
The Rev. Mike Ware, a member of a separate panel of pastors that investigated the claims against Haggard, said: "We've all been in agreement that Ted should have a fresh start, gain some fresh perspective, and it's very difficult for them to get the kind of healing they need staying in Colorado Springs."
Ware said Haggard is continuing to receive counseling, which officials said will include an exploration of his sexuality. Haggard has told his advisers he does not believe he's gay.
As part of a severance package that will pay Haggard through 2007, Haggard agreed not only to leave town but to refrain from discussing the scandal publicly. He did not return messages Wednesday. Haggard's most recent annual salary was about $138,000, benefits excluded.
His former congregation has felt the sting of the scandal. Since Haggard's fall, attendance has fallen 20 percent and giving has dropped 10 percent, said Rob Brendle, an associate pastor. As a result of the decline, the church laid off 44 employees, or 12 percent of its work force.
from The Associated Press

Old Cum Spotted Massage Table For Sale

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Do you really need to have the massage table that Ted Haggard was on?
I don't want it. Not to mention the color matches nothing in my house!
Well the money does go to an HIV charity and don't forget that Mike Jones needs to keep his name in the news since his book will be coming out in June.
Garibaldi...

Layoffs At Haggard's Church

Beset by scandal and a subsequent decline in giving, New Life Church in Colorado Springs has laid off 44 people - or about 12 percent of its workforce - a church official said today.
The nondenominational megachurch had experienced attendance and financial growth in each of its 22 previous years, said Rob Brendle, an associate pastor.
That came to end in early November, when its charismatic founding pastor, the Rev. Ted Haggard, was fired amid allegations he used methamphetamine and paid a male prostitute for sex.
Brendle estimated church income has been down 10 percent since then, forcing the layoffs. The layoffs range from pastoral staff to support staff and nursery workers. Brendle said the cuts took place last week and were announced today during Sunday services.
"We recognize a church is an institution of trust, and that trust has been bruised," Brendle said. "So we're committed to serving people faithfully and earning it back in any cases where it might have diminished."
The state's largest church with about 14,000 members, the non-denominational New Life is cutting 44 people from a workforce of about 350 full and part-time workers, Brendle said. Considering the breadth of the scandal, the financial impact could have been worse, he said.
"We are pleased so many people are staying faithful to New Life," Brendle said, "The reality is, we ask our people to be faithful stewards of their money and living within their means. We have to do the same. So we are reorganizing."
Previously a rising star on the evangelical scene, the 50-year-old Haggard was fired from New Life and resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals after Denver male prostitute Mike Jones alleged a three-year cash-for-sex relationship.
Haggard confessed to undisclosed "sexual immorality," and admitted to buying meth but said he never used it.
Last month, a New Life oversight board also identified "a few staff members struggling with unrelated sin issues." Brendle said the layoffs were not discipline-related, and none of those "few" staff members lost their jobs in the cutbacks.
"These are all fine people who have served faithfully and have done wonderful work," Brendle said. "We are simply not able to pay people to do those functions now."
from The Denver Post

More On Ted Haggard

Even the Great Flood only lasted 40 days and 40 nights.
Yet here we are, 116 days and a really long winter later, still obsessed with Ted Haggard's obsessions.
This is what we have so far: Haggard is "completely heterosexual" after three weeks of therapy at an Arizona facility.
As if. Oh wait. Those three weeks actually were just "the launching point by which years of counsel and fruits of true repentance may be demonstrated.
"There should be no confusion that deliverance from habitual, life-controlling problems is a "journey' and not an "event,'" the Overseers in charge at New Life Church told the congregation last Sunday. "Ted will need years of accountability to demonstrate his victory over both actions and "tendencies."
Translation: You can't be "cured" in just three weeks of homosexuality, which is, according to the Overseers, sinful, habit-forming and a big problem. But you can try really, really hard not to be gay, and pray.
Years from now, we will still be checking up on Haggard and his sex life.
Also, remember that part of the letter Haggard wrote to his congregation right after he got canned, where he said, "There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I've been warring against it all of my adult life"?
Well, it turns out that his time with male escort Mike Jones was just the tip of the iceberg. Sunday, the Overseers reported their months-long investigation into Haggard's sex life turned up everything from "sordid conversation to overt suggestions to improper activities to improper relationships."
Translation: Pastor Ted was a busy, busy boy.
In related news:
• The Overseers announced they "found a few staff members struggling with unrelated sin issues."
• A few months back, another New Life Church pastor, Christopher Beard, was axed after admitting to some kind of sex with someone several years ago, before he was married.
• Mike Jones plans to sell the "Haggard-was-here" massage table, where it all supposedly happened, on eBay and donate the proceeds to Project Angel Heart, which delivers food to people suffering from HIV/AIDS, cancer and other illnesses. Also, his tell-all book will be out this spring.
•—The geographic area of relocation for Ted and Gayle (and their children) has now widened. In addition to Missouri and Iowa, they are considering Minneapolis and the Phoenix area. Also, they will get $140,000 this year from the church.
How much more can we take? Well, if you ask the Overseers, we're all supposed to stay in this "Ark" for months — possibly even a full year and 10 days from the day the Haggard flood started.
Think this is a joke? Here is what they told the congregation last Sunday:
"When God judged the world in the time of Noah, Noah's family entered the Ark. It was not until five months had gone by the waters began to decrease. It was after seven and a half months the first sign of the tops of the mountains appeared. It was not until one year and 10 days had gone by that Noah and his family exited the Ark.
"In a similar way, we see the exposure of your pastor [Haggard] as the moment of judgment. Five months from that day will be Easter ... seven and a half months will be Father's Day ... one year and 10 days will be Nov. 14. Our encouragement to you ... is, "Stay in the Ark.'"
In addition to Easter and Father's Day — and St. Patrick's Day and Mother's Day and Purim and Memorial Day and the Fourth of July and Labor Day and the entire month of Ramadan and Yom Kippur and Halloween — by Nov. 14 we will have navigated through elections for City Council, mayor and local school boards.
Yet, through it all, the Overseers expect us to stay on this ship, getting fuzzy updates about Haggard's sexual orientation, ostensibly while the animals get smellier and smellier, until the waters finally recede far enough and we can finally disembark?
It's enough to make anyone want to relocate.
from The Independent / Cara DeGette

Mike Jones's Apartment Building Catches Fire

DENVER - A fire broke out this morning in a fourth-floor apartment near Cheesman Park, sending one man to the hospital with minor injuries, authorities said. Three others were being examined for smoke inhalation.
The fire was reported at 8:10 a.m. in a unit of the high-rise Coachman Apartments at 1044 Downing Street.
Firefighters extended truck-mounted ladders to various balconies to access the fire and to evacuate some tenants.
The fire was out 20 minutes later. The unit was heavily damaged and other units received smoke and water damage, authorities said.
One of the building's evacuated tenants was Mike Jones, the former male prostitute who brought down Colorado Springs minister Ted Haggard for alleged sexual encounters.
On Tuesday, Haggard, a nationally known evangelical leader, announced he is "completely heterosexual" after three weeks of intensive therapy. Jones is writing a book about his three-year professional relationship with Haggard.
The cause of the fire has not been determined.
from The Denver Post

Haggard Says He's Not Gay

The Rev. Ted Haggard emerged from three weeks of intensive counseling convinced he is "completely heterosexual" and told an oversight board that his sexual contact with men was limited to his accuser.
That is according to one of the disgraced pastor's overseers, who on Monday revealed new details about where Haggard has been and where he is headed.
The Rev. Tim Ralph of Larkspur also said the four-man oversight board strongly urged Haggard to go into secular work instead of Christian ministry if Haggard and his wife follow through on plans to earn master's degrees in psychology.
Haggard broke a three-month silence in e-mails over the weekend to select members of his former church. New Life Church interim senior pastor Ross Parsley forwarded Haggard's message to the wider church body Monday.
In the message, Haggard revealed that he and his wife, Gayle, intend to leave Colorado Springs and pursue master's degrees through online courses.
Haggard mentioned Missouri and Iowa as possible destinations. Another oversight board member, the Rev. Mike Ware of Westminster, said the group recommended the move out of town, and the Haggards agreed.
"This is a good place for Ted," Ware said. "It's hard to heal in Colorado Springs right now. It's like an open wound. He needs to get somewhere he can get the wound healed."
Sex-addiction program
Haggard, 50, resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and was fired from the church he built from nothing into a 14,000-member congregation after a former male prostitute in Denver alleged a three-year cash-for-sex relationship.
Haggard admitted to "sexual immorality" and a long battle against feelings contrary to his beliefs. He admitted buying methamphetamine but said he never used it. Haggard did not respond to interview requests.
Among other things, the overseers urged Haggard to enter a 12-step program for sexual addiction, Ware said.
Ralph said three weeks of counseling at an undisclosed Arizona treatment center helped Haggard immensely and left Haggard sure of one thing.
"He is completely heterosexual," Ralph said. "That is something he discovered. It was the acting- out situations where things took place. It wasn't a constant thing."
Why Haggard chose to act out in that manner is something Haggard and his advisers are trying to discern, Ralph said.
In investigating Haggard's assertion that his extramarital sexual contact was limited to former male escort Mike Jones, the board talked to people close to Haggard and found no evidence contradicting him, Ralph said.
"If we're going to be proved wrong, somebody else is going to come forward, and that usually happens really quickly," he said. "We're into this thing over 90 days, and it hasn't happened."
Steering Haggard away from a return to ministry was based, in part, on Haggard's high profile, Ralph said. He cited biblical passages about holding influential figures to a higher standard.
"Nobody is saying he can't go back into ministry," Ralph said. "Somewhere down the road, that could very well happen, and that would be wonderful."
Counseling continues
Haggard is being asked to join a church wherever the couple moves and continue the Christian counseling he receives twice a week, Ralph said.
The oversight board that includes Ralph is focusing on New Life Church's future but continues to counsel Haggard.
What has been termed Haggard's "restoration" is being overseen by another panel: H.B. London, who runs a Focus on the Family ministry to pastors, and megachurch pastors Tommy Barnett and Jack Hayford.
London said he was not surprised Haggard was considering the psychological field.
"Many of us that go into the healing, helping professions do so out of some sort of dysfunction or traumatic event in our lives, and we want to do what we can to help other people avoid what we've gone through," he said. "He is certainly gifted and intelligent and has an intuitive side to him. And he has life experience. Those are good credentials."
from The Denver Post

Mike Jones Visits New Life Church

COLORADO SPRINGS - As soon as the visitor from Denver walked through the church doors Sunday morning, heads turned. Word spread quickly: He was here.
Just about every person who offered him a handshake said the same thing: Welcome, thank you and God bless.
About 14,000 people pour into New Life Church in Colorado Springs each Sunday, so anonymity is not difficult to achieve.
One exception is when you are Mike Jones, the former male prostitute whose allegations of a three-year sexual liaison with church founder Ted Haggard triggered national scandal and led to Haggard's fall.
Jones attended services Sunday at New Life Church on a reconnaissance mission for his forthcoming book and said he was greeted warmly. Haggard, in an apology to the church, had urged members to forgive and thank Jones for exposing deceit.
"I had read a lot about the church, but there's nothing like seeing it for yourself," Jones said. "It wasn't to rub anyone's face in it by any means. I was wanting to get some perspective, to see where they are coming from, what the magnet is."
Jones had been invited to New Life several times by church members since Haggard resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and was fired from the church after admitting in November to "sexual immorality."
Jones was accompanied Sunday by members of a New York- based theater troupe, the Civilians, who are in Colorado Springs researching a project on evangelicals. Church leaders were told in advance of the visit.
"A couple of ladies cried when they were touching me," Jones said. "I was thanked for exposing the church, for helping Ted Haggard. A couple of them said they hoped I get God into my life. And they all said 'God bless you,' every one of them."
But Jones - who came forward out of anger toward Haggard's political stances against homosexuality - said he wasn't impressed on the whole. If the Gospel message is enough, he said, why the loud music and MTV-quality production?
"There seems to be something missing, some realism, in my opinion, because it's so vast, like some kind of self-contained city," said Jones, who said he was raised Methodist but is estranged from organized religion.
When associate pastor Rob Brendle encountered Jones in the foyer, he commented, "The last time I saw you was on the other side of a split screen" during TV interviews.
Brendle characterized Jones' presence as a reminder of both grief and God's faithfulness.
"I told Mike, 'I don't want to impose my religious beliefs on you, but I believe God used you to correct us, and I appreciate that,"' Brendle said. "The church's response to him was overwhelmingly warm. One of the wonderful and enduring truths of Christianity is to love people the world sets up to be your enemies."
Haggard and his wife, Gayle, have completed a counseling program at an Arizona treatment center and are back in Colorado Springs awaiting direction from a panel overseeing what has been termed Haggard's "restoration," Brendle said.
from The Denver Post

'Restoration' After The Fall

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO - The Rev. Ted Haggard this week formally begins his long journey toward recovery from a drugs-and-gay-sex scandal that forced him to step down as one of the most influential evangelical leaders in the nation.
Haggard, 50, has turned himself over to a team of counselors who are "assessing his spiritual, emotional and mental condition," said the Rev. H.B. London, who is helping to guide Haggard through the process. London and two other pastors will then set out a rigorous "restoration plan" requiring Haggard to spend hours each week in counseling, Bible study, prayer and soul-baring talks — by phone or in person — with his mentors.
The team's first task will be to push Haggard to acknowledge any addictions and come to an honest understanding of his sexuality. "Ted is not in touch with reality," said the Rev. Mark Cowart, a friend. The mentors can confront Haggard or rebuke him forcefully; they may also ask him to submit to a polygraph test.
"Ted says he's not a homosexual," said the Rev. Mike Ware, a good friend. "The restoration team wants experts to evaluate that."
Haggard's high-profile ministry collapsed last month after a male prostitute went on talk radio to allege that the pastor regularly paid him for sex over the last three years. Mike Jones — who advertised in gay publications as a masseur — also said he had seen Haggard take methamphetamine.
Haggard denied the accusations. But when Jones produced two voice-mail messages from Haggard, the pastor said he had hired the prostitute for a massage and had purchased meth, only to throw it away. In a letter to his congregation, Haggard admitted that he had succumbed to "desires that were contrary to everything I believe and teach."
"I am a deceiver and a liar," Haggard wrote. "There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I've been warring against it all of my adult life."
Haggard resigned as president of the National Assn. of Evangelicals, a powerful post that brought him in frequent contact with the White House. He was also dismissed as senior pastor of New Life, the church he founded in his basement and grew to a congregation of 14,000.
Since his public confession, Haggard has secluded himself with his wife, Gayle, and their five children. Those close to him say he's humbled, ashamed and grieving — yet prayerful that the scandal might strengthen his family and his faith. "It seems to be a time of hope," said Carolyn Haggard, his niece.
New Life's trustees are working on a severance package to sustain Haggard (who earned about $140,000 a year) and his wife (who earned about $50,000 a year for her work with women's ministries). Associate Pastor Rob Brendle said the Haggards had also received a "generous outpouring" of gifts from congregation members, including donations.
Those close to the restoration will not say whether Haggard will undergo therapy to try to eliminate same-sex attractions. But the conservative Christian leader James C. Dobson, a close friend, has said the healing process — which could last years — will probably aim to eliminate any homosexuality.
White evangelicals as a group tend to view homosexuality as a lifestyle choice, not an inborn trait, with 56% holding that sexual orientation can be changed, according to a poll taken this summer by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. (By comparison, the same poll showed 31% of Catholics and 22% of white mainline Protestants believe change is possible.)
In many evangelical congregations, men and women with same-sex attractions are expected to use prayer and Bible study to help them resist the temptation to sin. Haggard comes from a charismatic tradition that puts particular emphasis on the devil's corrupting influence. He has described supernatural visions of demons waiting to infect newborns with sinful desires.
This theology of constant spiritual warfare has led some of his followers to blame Haggard's fall not on any personal weakness but on Satan's cunning. As congregation member Jan Long, 60, put it: "The enemy wants to destroy us."
Such constructions worry the Rev. Tony Campolo, a liberal evangelical leader who helped guide President Clinton's spiritual restoration after the Monica S. Lewinsky affair. "The idea that this is a matter of some evil spirit taking hold of him is setting Ted Haggard up for disaster," Campolo said. "He may have a tendency to pretend that he's been delivered from his homosexual feelings … and all is well."
Campolo said he hoped the restoration team would impress upon Haggard that "there is no easy fix. These are problems he will struggle with for a lifetime."
Haggard has been more liberal than many evangelicals on gay-rights issues; for example, he backs domestic partner benefits. But he has preached unequivocally that homosexuality is immoral and that those who persist in same-sex relations will not be welcome in God's kingdom.
His restoration team largely shares this theology. It includes two veteran pastors of evangelical mega-churches: the Rev. Jack W. Hayford, 72, of Van Nuys and the Rev. Tommy Barnett, 69, of Phoenix. Both pastors — like Haggard — draw on the charismatic tradition, including speaking in tongues.
The third member of the team, London, 69, serves as vice president of Dobson's conservative ministry Focus on the Family, which promotes therapy to help gays and lesbians change their sexual orientation.
As director of pastoral outreach for the Colorado Springs-based ministry, London has counseled hundreds of clergy with admitted moral failings; up to half don't make it through the rehabilitation. "They grow weary of the regimen and drop out," he said.
Those who stick with the process often feel almost unbearably isolated. "Many have run for years on the adrenaline that comes from power and recognition — and suddenly it's gone," London said. "The phone's not ringing. People don't need you."
The restoration team will not aim to return Haggard to ministry. Addressing the New Life congregation last month, Haggard's mentor the Rev. Larry Stockstill laid out a much more modest goal: for Pastor Ted to recover enough to serve God "with joy, with dignity, with hope in his heart."
The congregation responded with a standing ovation.
from The Los Angeles Times

Ted Haggard in Clip From 'Jesus Camp' Movie

Rev. Ted Haggard In 'Jesus Camp' Movie

The Rev. Ted Haggard has been fired amid allegations of gay sex and drug use, but the evangelical leader can still be seen at the height of his powers - preaching to thousands and condemning homosexuality - in the documentary "Jesus Camp."
In one scene of the film, which follows a group of children as they develop evangelical Christian beliefs, directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady visit Haggard's 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo. He tells the vast audience, "We don't have to debate about what we should think about homosexual activity. It's written in the Bible."
Then Haggard looks into the camera and says kiddingly: "I think I know what you did last night," drawing laughs from the crowd. "If you send me a thousand dollars, I won't tell your wife."
Later, another joke for the filmmakers: "If you use any of this, I'll sue you."
The married, 50-year-old father of five admitted in a letter read Sunday to his followers that he was "guilty of sexual immorality." He has yet to address specific claims by a male escort that Haggard paid him for sex over the past three years.
Haggard has acknowledged that he paid Mike Jones of Denver for a massage and for methamphetamine, but said he didn't have sex with Jones and didn't take the drug. He resigned last week as president of the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents 30 million people, and was removed Saturday as leader of his own church.
"Jesus Camp" is playing in several cities and expands to more on Friday and throughout the year. Ewing and Grady said that when they shot footage for the film at the New Life Church in October 2005, they were struck by how enraptured Haggard's followers looked.
"Pastor Ted, they were so proud of him. They thought he was hip, young, he didn't have that stodgy James Dobson feel," Ewing said Monday, referring to the Focus on the Family founder. "They all really adored him, that's the first thing I thought - those people, those faces, they hung and took notes on every word he said - I can't imagine what those people must be feeling."
Haggard has disputed the way he's portrayed in "Jesus Camp," saying on his Web site (in a posting that since has been removed) that the filmmakers shot for hours at his church and only used the parts in which he was playing with negative stereotypes.
"You can expect to learn as much about the Catholic Church from 'Nacho Libre' as you can learn about evangelicalism from 'Jesus Camp,'" he wrote. Ewing and Grady say Haggard is the only one who has complained about the way he was depicted in the film.
"Jesus Camp" also shows Haggard speaking to an aspiring young preacher named Levi, asking him whether people listen to him because he's a kid or because he has something to say. His advice: "Use your cute-kid thing until you're 30, and by then you'll have good content."
Grady said that when she first heard about the accusations against Haggard, "I was shocked but I was not surprised in any way because he did come across as somewhat of a hypocrite even in our movie - in a smaller way, of course. He was so cynical in that exchange with that child in our movie, it was odd and it popped out."
Haggard also leads the audience in praying for President Bush to select a Supreme Court nominee who supports their beliefs (it would end up becoming Samuel Alito) and later brags about the rapid expansion of evangelicalism.
"It's got enough growth to essentially sway every election," Haggard says with a smile. "If the evangelicals vote, they determine the election."
from The Associated Press

Haggard Bares His Soul In Note To Congregation

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO - In the hush of a Sunday morning, believers grieved, struggled and forgave as their pastor, the Rev. Ted Haggard, confessed his sins.
"I am a deceiver and a liar," Haggard told 9,000 of his followers in a letter read from the pulpit of New Life Church by one of his spiritual mentors. "There's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life."
Men wiped at their eyes. Women clung to one another. A grandfather hugged his baby grandson close, rubbing the boy's small back. Haggard had founded this church in his basement. He had grown it to a congregation of 14,000. He had guided them to God and helped them triumph over sin, and he had done it always with a smile, ever exuberant, ever strong.
They wept to hear what he'd been hiding.
"For extended periods of time, I would enjoy victory and rejoice in freedom," Haggard wrote. "Then, from time to time, the dirt that I thought was gone would resurface, and I would find myself thinking thoughts and experiencing desires that were contrary to everything I believe and teach."
A male prostitute in Denver came forward last week claiming that Haggard had visited his apartment almost monthly over the last three years for sex and drugs. Haggard at first denied it. Then he said he bought meth from the man, but threw it away. On Sunday, he said this: "The accusations that have been leveled against me are not all true, but enough of them are true that I have been appropriately and lovingly removed from ministry."
Having resigned the presidency of the National Assn. of Evangelicals and been dismissed as senior pastor of New Life, Haggard said he and his wife, Gayle, "need to be gone for a while." He pledged to put himself under the guidance of several pastors who will help him work toward restoration.
"Please forgive me," he wrote. "I am so embarrassed and ashamed…. I am a sinner. I have fallen."
Then the Rev. Larry Stockstill, a Louisiana pastor, read aloud a short letter from Gayle Haggard. She said her heart was broken, but she promised to stand by her husband.
"For those of you who have been concerned that my marriage was so perfect I could not possibly relate to the women who are facing great difficulties, know that this will never again be the case," she wrote, evoking a ripple of laughter. "My test has begun; watch me. I will try to prove myself faithful."
The congregation rose as one. For a long minute, they stood, applauding, sniffling. Interim senior pastor Ross Parsley bounded to the podium. "Listen," he said, "we all feel worse than we did a week ago. But we were worse off a week ago. Today, we all are more obedient, more repentant, more transparent than we've been in a long time."
Here and there in the vast sanctuary, members of Haggard's congregation called out: "Amen."
Afterward, in the lobby, many worshipers echoed Parsley's words. Some were angry at Ted Haggard; many were bewildered. But all said that their faith was not shaken; it was renewed. They would hold fast to all Haggard had taught them over the years, including his preaching that homosexual behavior is an affront to God.
"He believes that what he taught us is true," said Carol Groesbeck, 61.
"I don't think there's anything that needs to be reevaluated," said her husband, Jim, 61, an elder at New Life Church. "We know what we believe, but it's difficult to live that out. That's not just Ted's struggle. It's our struggle."
Michelle Gatson, 37, said she felt reinvigorated by the service after a week that left her so spent, all she wanted to do was "be lying on the floor at home, crying." A member of the choir, she said she found healing in the songs of praise — praise not for any man, but for God. "I love my pastor," she said. "But I'm glad I didn't put my faith in him. He's human."
Added Ian Kallenbach, 26: "I hope he can deal with his demons."
Stockstill — who has been the Haggards' personal pastor for years — said he saw only relief in Ted Haggard's face when he informed him on Saturday that he was being removed from his position at New Life.
Haggard had been struggling for three years to balance his duties as pastor with his high-profile role as head of the evangelical association — a job that raised his political profile and got him invited to the Oval Office and in on conference calls with the White House.
Haggard had tried to carve out time to reflect and to write his books by secluding himself now and then in a Denver hotel. That is apparently when he first contacted the prostitute, Mike Jones, who advertised as a masseur in gay magazines.
Haggard alluded to this period in his letter, saying that his pride had prevented him from seeking counseling; he hadn't wanted to disappoint those who loved him. "When I stopped communicating about my problems," he wrote, "the darkness increased and finally dominated me."
As thousands of New Life members poured into the church for the second morning service, an usher bustled through the lobby carrying fresh boxes of tissues into the sanctuary. Children, released from Sunday school, raced toward the church coffee shop for goopy cinnamon rolls and giant chocolate muffins. A few TV crews milled about, filming interviews.
In the church bookstore, a father leaned against a display of Haggard's books and read aloud to his children from "Letters from Home." Published in 2002, the book is framed as a letter to the two oldest of the Haggards' five children, who were preparing for college at that time.
In a section called "Live as if there are no secrets," Haggard listed powerful men brought down by lust or lies, including presidents Nixon and Clinton and the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart. "Major leaders have lost their positions of influence because of what they did alone in a room," he wrote.
"Please don't ever fall into the trap of believing that you can do something in secret, even when you are far away from home," Haggard urged his children. "This is a lie, and it will always come back to haunt you."
from The Los Angeles Times