Pastor Ted Haggard is moving his burgeoning new St. James Church out of his Old Ranch Road barn in Colorado Springs to the city's Pikes Peak Center for the Performing Arts beginning July 25.
St. James, marking its sixth week of existence as a church last Sunday, drew 230 congregants to Haggard's barn. Haggard said he expects the church, at first, will require one of the smaller rooms at Pikes Peak for weekly 10 a.m. services.
However, the center's main auditorium can hold more than 2,000, and Haggard isn't ruling out a congregation of that size in the near future.
"All the numbers have been way beyond our expectations," Haggard said Monday. "Jesus multiplied loaves and fishes; we multiplied people."
Haggard founded New Life Church in Colorado Springs about 25 years ago, and it grew into the state's largest at about 14,000 congregants. He became a national evangelical leader in the process. Then, revelations in November 2006 of Haggard's relationship with a male prostitute and his illicit drug purchases led to excommunication from his own church and his leaving the state.
Haggard's return to the ministry, announced June 3, has revived him and his wife, Gayle, he said.
"We're more happy than we've ever been," Haggard said. "We are supremely satisfied in every dimension of our lives right now."
Source: Denver Post | Electa Draper
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