The Gazette (Colorado Springs) reports that Ted Haggard is starting a new church.
Ted Haggard, who started New Life Church in his Colorado Springs basement and built it into a megachurch with thousands of worshippers, said Wednesday that he is starting a church at his home.
“We wanted to do something in our house to connect with friends,” said Haggard, whose ties to New Life ended in scandal three years ago with the revelation that he’d been involved with a male prostitute in Denver.
Haggard will hold his first gathering, open to the public, at 7 p.m. Nov. 12 at his house at 1865 Old Ranch Road. He referred to it as a “prayer meeting” but said it would also be correct to call it a church.
We must admit that it is all too easy to lob verbal grenades or “Scripture bombs” at people who have lived in sin and have experienced public moral failure. Furthermore, the atoning work of Christ on the cross is not insufficient to deal with the specific sins Mr. Haggard has admitted to.
But returning to pastoral ministry is a different matter altogether.
1 Timothy 3:1-7 (ESV) says: “The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 5 for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? 6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. 7 Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.”