AP NewsBreak: Haggard Leaves Colorado

ERIC GORSKI AP April 18, 2007 07:37 PM EST

DENVER — The Rev. Ted Haggard moved Wednesday from his longtime home in Colorado Springs to Phoenix, where the disgraced minister will join the same church that helped fallen televangelist Jim Bakker.

Haggard, 50, resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals last year, after a former male prostitute alleged a three-year cash-for-sex relationship. The man also said he saw Haggard use methamphetamine. Haggard confessed to undisclosed "sexual immorality" and said he bought meth but never used it.

As part of his severance package from New Life Church, a 14,000-member congregation he started in his basement, Haggard agreed to leave Colorado Springs, a city he helped make an evangelical center.

"When he moved out of town today, there was a kind of relief on the part of the church that life can get back to normal," said the Rev. H.B. London, one of three ministers overseeing what has been called Haggard's "restoration." "For the Haggards, it is the beginning of a huge new chapter. It's a brand new start for them, the beginning of a new beginning."

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