Haggard starts new church

In what was called an accounting move, Ted Haggard and his wife Gayle have incorporated St. James Church, sited at their home on Old Ranch Road in Colorado Springs, the Denver Post reported on May 12.

Haggard, the deposed founder of the New Life megachurch, was a national evangelical pastor until his relationship with a male prostitute and his use of crystal meth were publicized in 2006. As part of a severance agreement with the New Life church, Haggard and his wife left the state and lived in Arizona until 2008.

Haggard has been hosting overflowing prayer meetings at the St. James Church since last November. Haggard told Colorado's Gazette newspaper that the incorporation of the church was done for accounting purposes.

"People love a good comeback story," Haggard told the Associated Press in November.

In November of last year, Haggard, 53, told the AP that the prayer meetings were not the beginnings of a new church. "We were getting lonely," he said. "For the people who come tonight, that means they believe in the resurrection in me. ...Because I died. I was buried."

The New Life church began with meetings held at Haggard's home in 1985. In 2006, the church had about 14,000 members and a $50 million prayer campus. Haggard served as the head of the National Association of Evangelicals and had the ear of White House staffers during his tenure in that position.