Colorado Springs, Colorado - The Rev. Ted Haggard stood at a pulpit made from stacked buckets one recent Sunday and announced his resurrection.
Mr. Haggard was forced to resign nearly four years ago as president of the politically powerful National Association of Evangelicals and to step down from the megachurch he founded, after admitting that he had bought methamphetamine from, and had a sexual encounter with, a gay prostitute.
Once one of the most prominent church leaders in the U.S., Mr. Haggard confessed in a tortured letter, calling himself "a deceiver and a liar" who had long wrestled with desires he described as "repulsive and dark." He signed a contract promising to follow a path laid out by fellow clergy: to find a new career in a new state and to stay away from pastoral work.
Then, his wife at his side, Mr. Haggard left town.
He is back now. In a move that thrilled some of his former flock-and alarmed some of his fellow evangelical Christians-Mr. Haggard and his wife Gayle recently launched a new church in their backyard barn, a few miles from the enormous campus of his old congregation.
In two months of preaching with sacks of fence-post concrete at his feet, Mr. Haggard, who is 54 years old, has built a congregation of nearly 200 people. His church, St. James, has outgrown the barn and this Sunday moves to a rented community center.
Ebullient as ever, bouncing with energy, Mr. Haggard said he is back doing what he was born to do.
"Tiger Woods needs to golf. Michael Vick needs to be playing football," Mr. Haggard said as his new congregation joined him and Gayle in their backyard for a post-worship picnic. Little kids, shrieking with joy, splashed in the pool. Men grilled burgers. Women set out chicken salad.
"Ted Haggard," Mr. Haggard said, "needs to be leading a church."
He acknowledged grave lapses of judgment in the episode he refers to as "my crisis." But Mr. Haggard also said that in his sorrow and shame, he accepted too much guilt after the scandal broke.
"I over-repented," he said.
In February 2008, Mr. Haggard asked to be released from supervision by other clergy. His former church, New Life, consented, though officials there put out a pointed statement calling Mr. Haggard's recovery incomplete.
The four pastors who supervised Mr. Haggard wouldn't comment on his new church. New Life pointed to an earlier statement, released in November 2008, that said, "we cannot endorse his return to vocational ministry."
Mr. Haggard said that is ridiculous. He portrays his encounter with the prostitute as a massage that went awry and said he doesn't have same-sex attractions. He dismisses as a "witch hunt" the findings of his former church that he engaged in a pattern of misconduct, including sordid talk and inappropriate relationships. (He said his only fault was cracking a few crude jokes.) But his assurances have raised some eyebrows.
"I'm still skeptical that the whole sorry story has come out in full," said Tim Morgan, an editor at the evangelical magazine Christianity Today.
Others fear the pressures of leading a congregation will grind down any defenses Mr. Haggard may have built up against temptation.
"We become enamored with our own successes," said Larry Magnuson, who counsels pastors in crisis at SonScape Retreats, outside Colorado Springs. "We fall back into the same traps. We are masters of self-deception."
Mr. Haggard, who said he draws a weekly salary of $300 from St. James, said he founded the church as an act of humble repentance, because it forces him continually to confront his sin.
"If I was arrogant, I would have gotten a job in a farm bureau co-op somewhere in Iowa, changed my name and never been heard from again," he said.
Friends say Mr. Haggard has matured.
"He has a humility of spirit and a recognition of how gripping sin can be in a person's life," said Paul DeVries, president of New York Divinity School, an evangelical seminary in Manhattan.
Many in his new congregation echo those words, saying they can relax and be their imperfect selves with Pastor Ted; there is no pressure to put on the facade of a model Christian.
"People are not afraid to come forward with their pain," said Linda Coates, 65, a retired teacher.
Mr. Haggard plays up his new regular-guy image. At the picnic, he asked a friend whether anyone noticed he had said "hell" in the sermon-and not in a Biblical context.
"I cuss now," he said proudly.
Mr. Haggard said he believes people trust him more as a pastor since his spectacularly public fall. Strangers, he said, keep pulling him aside, asking advice about their personal struggles.
"It's amazing. People tell me everything," Mr. Haggard said. "That never happened when we were respectable."
