Posted on 02/07/2007 6:01:46 AM PST by XR7
Ted Haggard, founder and former senior pastor of New Life Church, plans to leave Colorado Springs and move to Iowa or Missouri to return to college, according to a message he e-mailed Sunday to some church members.
Haggard’s family has been “offered two places” in the Midwestern states, Haggard wrote. He and his wife, Gayle, will go back to school together, but Haggard didn’t specify what college or university they would attend.
“We are both planning on getting our masters in Psychology so we can work together serving others the rest of our lives,” Haggard wrote.
The nationally known minister was dismissed from the pulpit in the wake of a sex and drug scandal that rocked the evangelical movement.
On Nov. 1, Denver escort Mike Jones said he and Haggard had a three-year tryst and that he watched Haggard take methamphetamine.
Haggard initially denied the allegations, but he resigned as president of the National Association of Evangel- icals on Nov. 2. Church officials then confirmed some of the allegations were true.
Haggard told members of the media that he purchased meth from Jones but never used it.
Rob Brendle, associate pastor at the 14,000-member New Life Church, said Sunday night that Haggard and the Board of Overseers — a fourmember board of outside pastors that dismissed Haggard from the pulpit — had discussed Haggard’s future for several weeks.
Brendle was unsure whether the e-mail was sent at Haggard’s initiative or was suggested by the overseers.
“I’m grateful for an arrangement that will enable Ted to focus on his spiritual and emotional restoration, and one that enables New Life Church to focus on this season of transition,” Brendle said. “It seems like a win-win.”
In his e-mail, Haggard said he had undergone three weeks of intense psychological counseling in Phoenix.
“We all wanted to know why I developed such incongruity in my life,” he wrote. “Thankfully, with the tools we gained there, along with the powerful way God has been illuminating His Word and the Holy Spirit has been convicting and healing me, we now have growing understanding which is giving me some hope for a future.”
Haggard said he hasn’t communicated with church members lately because he’s been “paralyzed by shame.”
“But as God and people like you forgive me, the sun is starting to rise in my life,” Haggard wrote. “I look forward to communicating with greater ease.”
Ted Haggard email to New Life Church
Here is the text of the e-mail Ted Haggard sent to some members of New Life Church:
Jesus is starting to put me back together. I have spent so much time in repentance, brokenness, hurt and sorrow for the things I’ve done and the negative impact my actions have had on others. That sadness continues as my family and I, along with so many others, go through the painful consequences of my actions. Jesus and his followers, though, have saved my life. As part of New Life’s efforts to help me, they sent Gayle and me to Phoenix for a three-week psychological intensive that gave us three years worth of analysis and treatment. We all wanted to know why I developed such incongruity in my life. Thankfully, with the tools we gained there, along with the powerful way God has been illuminating His Word and the Holy Spirit has been convicting and healing me, we now have growing understanding which is giving me some hope for a future.
Gayle and I have decided to move from Colorado Springs to go back to school. We love Colorado Springs so much, and will always regard the believers at New Life Church as family, but we have to go in order to let the church determine its own course and for us to retrain. We haven't decided where we are moving but so far have been offered two places, one in Iowa and one in Missouri. We are both planning on getting our masters in Psychology so we can work together serving others the rest of our lives. Since we are taking our classes on-line, we can live anywhere that’s affordable. Then we’ll travel to location for short in-class requirements.
Thank you so much for your love and prayers during this horrific time of transition in our lives. For the last three months, I’ve not been communicative because I’ve been paralyzed by shame. But as God and people like you forgive me, the sun is starting to rise in my life. I look forward to communicating with greater ease.
God bless,
Ted Haggard
“We are Easter People.”
Wow!
How is that possible?
Did they pay three years worth of fees?
What a deal.
Maybe he should consider San Francisco or Provincetown?
Wife? Still? Knowing his history?
Well, at least he's not checking into drug/alcohol rehab, like all the Dems do when they are caught. But of course, they know that their apology and a quick retreat to rehab satisfies their enablers in the msm just fine.
The most screwed up people I've met always gravitated to psych.
LOL...Yesterday he was proclaimed fully heterosexual...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1780096/posts
True. They go into for 'self-help'.
How long before he does a McGreevy?
Three weeks and he's cured, huh? It took Jesus Christ 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness to defeat Satan and his temptations. I guess our Lord didn't have Haggard's will-power.
Frankly I don't think any more Psychology classes are a good idea. Ever had any in college today? JMO
It's called "committing sin" Teddy, not "developing incongruity."
And you know why you committed those sins.
You wanted to and you did.
This touchy-feely theraspeak has nothing to do with the Scriptures or living them.
Well, at least he's not checking into drug/alcohol rehab, like all the Dems do
________
uhh, sounds like that's pretty much exactly what he did, if you ask me.
Not only because PETA is a terrorist-sympathizing group. Not only because a pastor worrying aboutb turkeys rather than the unborn is a disgrace. But mostly because PETA misused Jesus' name and the Scriptures for their most high-profile campaign to date.
He is doing precisely the same thing.
"Dr Ted I had a funny dream last night ,what do you think it means?"
Not “today”, but years ago when I was in college all the psych professors were nuts themselves. I only took 3 psych courses, and as I recall, made C in them all. Most of my other classes were A & Bs. LOL.
=8~O
anything outta this guy should be considered HOGWASH, for at least the next 10 yrs..
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