Gayle and I, along with Alex (16) and Elliott (14) have decided to move into the Phoenix Dream Center on October 1st. The Phoenix Dream Center is a half-way house for the homeless, those coming out of prison, recovering alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes, and other broken people. I identify. The building is sponsored by Phoenix First Assembly, our new church home, but the workers are volunteers. The Dream Center also houses a church called "The Church on the Street." I met the pastor and he asked me if I would be willing to counsel some of the men and to teach the group from time to time. The woman directing the ministry to women invited Gayle to teach and minister to the women. Gayle and I spoke to the boys about it, and after a series of discussions with several leaders and our pastor, Tommy Barnett, we decided to serve the dream center in whatever capacity asked, whether it's cleaning the building, hosting a visiting group, attending a meeting, or facilitating a study. In order to increase our availability to serve, we have decided to move and live in the Dream Center...That was the opening for an e-mail sent by former negachurch pastor Ted Haggard to former (and would-be) supporters looking for ongoing financial assistance in this "transition" phase of his ministry. He reveals this in the letter's second paragraph:
As a result, the Phoenix Dream Center team is creating an apartment for our family by combining a small, one-bedroom apartment with an adjacent room so our boys will have their own rooms. Even though Alex and Elliott's drive to school is quite a distance every day, we think it is worth it to be given the privilege of service. Now, however, we need to raise our own support...
Later, Haggard makes his specific request for money:
Would you be willing to help us find people who can give a one time gift or make a commitment to help support us monthly for two years? If so, that would be a blessing.
If people want to support us directly, they can mail checks to Ted and Gayle Haggard, 9699 N. Hayden, Suite 108, PMB 180, Scottsdale, AZ 95259. This is a private mail box address that we have been using since we moved to the Phoenix area. If any supporters need a tax deduction for their gift, they can mail it to Families With a Mission at P.O. Box 63125, Colorado Springs, CO 80962. The supporters would need to write their check to "Families With A Mission" and put a separate note on it that it is for the Haggard family, then Families With a Mission will mail us 90% of the funds for support and use 10% for administrative costs...
Well, you might (as I do) see a few problems with this appeal. And it turns out that significant others did too...but more about that in a moment.
The first and most obvious error here is Haggard's bold assumption that hard-working people should give him their money. Yes, the Bible teaches that servants of God who are effectively doing His work should be taken care of but the same Bible requires quite strict adherence of those ministers to moral principles. Haggard did not meet those standards. Indeed, after a former Denver gay escort publicly alleged last November that Haggard had been paying him for sex over a three-year period and sometimes took methamphetamine during the encounters, Haggard was fired from his senior pastor position at Colorado Springs' New Life Church. The influential preacher continues to deny that there was a sexual relationship, but he has admitted to unspecified "sexual immorality" with Mike Jones, to paying the man for a massage in a Denver hotel under what was disturbingly suspicious circumstances, and to purchasing (for an experiment was never actually carried out) the illegal methamphetamine.
There were other errors made by Ted Haggard in this matter including his inappropriate use of a church mailing list, the unseemly pitch to win tax-deductible monies, and his failure to seek the advice of pastors to whom he had ostensibly submitted to for oversight of his spiritual restoration.
But there are worse parts still of Haggard's "dream" of going to the Phoenix Dream Center. For not only should a man with his weaknesses and now infamous reputation realize that counseling others is definitely not the most responsible of career moves (Again, the Bible's teachings related to a minister's character, his public respectability, and the flight from temptations are being disregarded.), but it turns out that the program itself is run by a twice-convicted sex offender, Paul Gerard Huberty!
As the Rocky Mountain News reports, While serving with the U.S. Air Force in Germany in 1996, then-Lt. Col. Paul G. Huberty was convicted of sodomy, indecent acts, and adultery involving a 17-year girl who accompanied Huberty to Europe as his "legal ward," according to military court records.
In the same trial, the 18-year Army veteran also was convicted of "dishonorably fondling his genitals" during an incident involving two Dutch women at a public swimming pool in the Netherlands. Huberty, who was a married father of three at the time, was dismissed from the military and sentenced to six months confinement, court records show...
Huberty was convicted of attempted sexual assault in Hawaii in January 2004 and sentenced to 12 months in jail with six months suspended. He also received five years of probation and is registered in Hawaii as sex offender who has committed crimes against a minor. Because of the Hawaii conviction, he is also registered in El Paso County...
Well, as I hinted earlier, there are others more directly involved with Ted Haggard who find his solicitation for money out of line and who are also adamantly against his Dream Center plans. A terse announcement came this weekend from the four-member panel of Haggard's pastoral overseers which read, "Mr. Haggard will not be moving in or working with the Dream Center. He will not be doing any ministry. He will be seeking secular employment to support himself."
I commend the pastors for their action even as I commend Mr. Haggard for submitting to their counsel. Unlike the Dream Center role and the e-mail requesting others to finance it, Haggard's decision to humbly submit to godly advice is...finally... an exercise in wise judgment.
