Ted Haggart e-mail was misleading, Phoenix pastor says

An associate pastor with a Phoenix megachurch said Tuesday that fallen Colorado Springs, Colo., minister Ted Haggard misled supporters in a letter asking for financial assistance.

Haggard, who admitted to “sexual immorality,” told supporters from his former New Life Church, that he would be living and assisting at the Phoenix First Assembly of God’s Dream Center, a ministry for Christians trying to turn their lives around.

The northeast Phoenix church, 13613 N. Cave Creek Road, is counseling Haggard, said the Rev. Leo Godzich, but the details of the church’s “restoration process” with Haggard are confidential.

But Haggard “is not moving into the Dream Center,” Godzich said. “That e-mail he sent out is wrong, and it’s not going to happen.”

Haggard moved to the Valley in the spring after leaving his Colorado Springs church last year and resigning as president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Those actions followed an accusation by a former male escort that Haggard paid him for sex.

In asking for financial assistance, Haggard said that he and his wife, Gayle, and his two teenage sons have decided to move into the Dream Center on Oct. 1. Efforts to reach the Haggards were unsuccessful.

Haggard had as many as 14,000 members at his New Life Church, and he earned a salary of $115,000 in 2006, plus an $85,000 bonus.

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