Ted and Gayle Haggard, banished by the church they started when his relationship with a male prostitute and alleged drug purchases were revealed, today said they will start a new church, St. James, that will be open to all.

“St. James is a church for sinners — for people who have hit rock bottom and people who want to help people who have hit rock bottom,” Ted Haggard said. “It is not a gathering for the righteous, except those who are righteous by faith.”

St. James Church will be more casual than New Life Church, the Colorado Springs Evangelical megachurch the Haggards founded in their home some 30 years ago.

“Everybody is welcome: Democrats, Republican, Independents, gays, straights, tall, short, addicts and recovering addicts,” Haggard said.

Gayle Haggard will also be preaching at this church, they said. The pair also anticipates providing counseling for “people in the worst crisis of their lives.

“I think I am qualified to hold their hand,” he said.

The church will launch Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Haggards’ home, when potential congregants are invited to talk, play and share food together, he said.

On June 13, they will meet again at the Haggards’ home for what he called a planning party. By then, they expect to know if their potential group includes “20, 200 or 2,000,” he said.

The Haggards held two prayer meetings at their home in November, which attracted more than 100 people each time — overflow crowds for the couple’s living room and even their second venue, the barn.

Haggard was founder and senior pastor at New Life for 25 years until revelations about his extramarital sex life in 2006 led to what he has called his exile in Arizona.

Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com