In God they trust

Tom Brokaw • Profile

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. - For years, American Christians — from the Catholics in Boston, the Baptists in Dallas, and Methodists in Iowa — have worshipped in much the same way.

But now, is something totally new.

Welcome to New Life Church, in Colorado Springs. Every year, this evangelical church marks the Easter holiday with an elaborate staging of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The cast and crew of 750 are drawn largely from the church membership.  

An Easter play
For Leon Lowman, acting in the play is an extension of his Christian faith.

“Christ is personal,” he says. “He loves you and he loves me... and wants to be there for everyone.  We’re just trying to get the message out.”

Lowman is a 41-year-old former Air Force captain.  For Leon, his wife, Venezia, and their four children whose ages range from 4 to 16, life revolves around church activities. New Life offers a sanctuary where the family can find others who share their values.

“My children go to public school, so they’re not sequestered in some catacomb-type environment,” says Lowman. “And so they encounter a lot of different things.  By coming here to new life and being involved in the kids’ programs, that gives a balance and they have a positive peer pressure, if you will.”

The entire family is involved in the Easter play — Leon plays the part of a Roman centurion.

In the crowd is Karen Monroe, a 43-year-old mortgage loan officer, invited to the play by an acquaintance.  While Karen is a born-again Christian, her husband Tom is not, and they have never belonged to the same church.  That’s something Karen would like to change. 

“My husband is the head of the household and really I would like to see my kids to see him in that belief,” she says. She is hoping her husband will be moved by the play—and the stirring sermon of Pastor Ted Haggard—moved enough to start attending New Life Church.

The message of New Life Church also resonates with Brandon Bernadoni, a 22-year-old U.S. Air Force Academy cadet.  Although he was a varsity athlete, a self-described party animal, and popular with girls, Brandon says he only found true fulfillment in his new faith.

“It’s incredible to know and wake up and feel the light of day just come through the curtains in the morning, and just to feel the presence of God as I walk to class,’ says Bernadoni. “To feel that I have meaning and purpose, and to know for a fact why I’m here.”

A community of 70 million
Bernadoni is one of about 70 million Evangelical Christians in America.  Evangelical Christians believe the Bible is the word of God, that salvation comes through personal relationships with Jesus, and that Christians should spread the Gospel. While attendance at traditional churches has been declining for decades, the evangelical movement is growing, and it is changing the way America worships.

The New Life Church is one of the phenomenally popular and successful mega-churches in America, with a membership of 11,000. They can seat 8,000 here in what they call the “living room.”  They don’t have pews or stained glass, but this is the new wave in the evangelical movement. 

On a typical Sunday, tens of thousands of worshippers attend services at a sports arena at Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, at TD Jake’s Potter’s House in nearby Dallas, and at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California.  The number of mega-churches in the U.S. has tripled in the last decade. 

At New Life, when the parishioners are through worshipping, they can come out to the coffee bar, the child care center, to the book store, or to the prayer center nearby. This is a community in every sense of the word.

Evangelicals have created their own highly profitable pop universe, including Christian rock, video games, and books such as Rick Warren’s phenomenal world wide best-seller “The Purpose Driven Life.” And the New Life Church embraces that culture, opening its services with an hour of Christian rock-gospel.

Ted Haggard, New Life's pastor, is a 49-year-old graduate of Oral Roberts University. New Life Church is a non-denominational, with an emphasis on the Holy Spirit, exuberant prayer style, and a belief in angels and demons.

After the music, Haggard takes the stage for a Bible based lesson in how to be a good Christian. 

Tom Brokaw: A traditional Catholic who comes here or an Episcopalian may walk in and walk out and say, “that’s more a concert and pep rally.”

Ted Haggard, New Life pastor: That’s right. Actually, it really is a rally atmosphere.  But we teach the scriptures.  We have a worship, which are the fundamentals of Christian worship for the last 2,000 years. But I like the lights. I like the fun. I like it fast moving.

When I stand up and teach I try to make the Biblical principles real. So that it applies to how they relate to their husbands and wives and bosses and co-workers that week. I remember, as a little boy, my dad leaning down and saying into cute little Teddy Haggard's face; if you get into trouble at school, you're into twice as much trouble at home.

Brokaw: Most of the churches that I know of, and certainly the ones I attended, at some point, you out loud acknowledge that you were a sinner or that you came face-to-face to guilt that you may feel.

Haggard: Right.

Brokaw: I didn’t see any of that here.

Haggard: Well, we do talk about sin. But, see, the issue is Jesus took care of our sin.  And Jesus removes guilt from our life.  So the emphasis in our church isn’t how to get your sins removed because that’s pretty easy to do.  Jesus did that on the cross. He emphasis in our church is how to fulfill the destiny that God’s called you to.

Brokaw: You’re making it easier for them.

Haggard: Making it easier for them just like Jesus did, just like Moses did. 

Ted Haggard believes that America is entering a new period of religious intensity that will alter both souls and society.

Brokaw: What’s the biggest misconception in the media, in the country about the phenomenal rise really of the Evangelical movement in America?

Haggard: It’s not political. It is authentically a spiritual renewal. And people are responding to the goodness of the scripture and the goodness of god’s love, the assurance of eternal life. And so it’s a spiritual renewal that’s taking place and leading to the growth of churches that has political ramifications.

Brokaw: What are the political ramifications?

Haggard: Well, once people make a decision that God created them, then all of a sudden they value life.  And they have a higher moral standard.

And as the Easter season turns to summer, a decision by the president becomes a focus of the Evangelicals for spreading their values through the federal judiciary.  

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