Posted: 08/28/2014 at 2:00pm | IP Logged

How a modest ‘Summer Harvest’ with Greg Laurie back in 1990 has developed into a massive worldwide outreach

The 2014 SoCal Harvest has now grown to enormous proportions -- the Longest-Running Evangelistic Outreach in U.S. History – which recently was attended by 116,000 people with thousands more watching the live streaming

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

ANAHEIM, CA (ANS) -- The 2014 SoCal Harvest with Greg Laurie, has now grown to an enormous outreach -- the longest-running evangelistic event in U.S. History – which from Aug. 15 – 17 was attended by 116,000 people at Angel Stadium, Anaheim, with possibly millions more watching around the world on God TV and also TBN was recording the events to broadcast later, and also the live streaming.

Greg Laurie preaching

By the end of the weekend, some 12,791 people indicated their faith in Christ at the SoCal Harvest Crusade, including 11,366 people who walked to the outfield of Angel Stadium, and another 1,425 who made that decision online after viewing the Internet broadcast of the crusade.

Additional musical artists who performed at the 2014 SoCal Harvest included NEEDTOBREATHE and Phil Wickham on Friday; Skillet, Sidewalk Prophets and Phil Wickham on Saturday; and for King & Country on Sunday. During the Friday evening program, Laurie interviewed former mobster, Michael Franzese, who has been described by media as the “Prince of the Mafia.” (I earlier also interviewed him.)

But it all had a modest beginning. Laurie, a former long-haired hippie -- where did all go? -- had for some years, been conducting a packed Monday evening evangelistic service at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, California, were thousands during that period had come to Christ.

Watching what had been going on, Pastor Chuck Smith, the senior pastor, and also known as the “Father of the Jesus People Movement,” suggested to Laurie back in 1990, that he hold a six-night outreach, then called “Summer Harvest,” at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa, California, a well-known rock venue.

Chuck Smith with Greg Laurie

With great trepidation, Laurie agreed, and amazingly, it was packed out each night, and then “Pastor Chuck” dropped a huge bombshell on Greg Laurie, as was explained to me by John Collins, the Executive Director of Harvest Crusades, during an interview on the second night of the 2015 SoCal Harvest Crusade.

“Chuck got up at the end of that first of six nights at the Pacific Amphitheater -- and unbeknownst to any of us, suddenly announced, ‘And next year, we’re going to Anaheim [now known Angel] Stadium,’” recalled Collins. “When I heard this, my heart dropped, and then Greg went to him afterwards and said, ‘Chuck, you know, that’s a big stadium,’ to which Chuck replied, ‘Greg, we’ve got a big God, and that’s how it began, and we’ve been here ever since.”

No one could have predicted how this and other Harvest events would grow and this year’s Anaheim event was broadcast around the world by God TV and streamed to thousands of people around the world.

Collins admitted that during those early days, there was little of what is now known as modern technology, to spread the Good News of the Gospel.

“Yeah, we didn’t have much in those days,” he said. “We didn’t have much by way of cell phones and laptops that were just coming on the scene. There was no Internet to speak of. We were pretty much in the dark ages.

John Collins

“We tried to be an early adopter of the Internet not long after it came out and it was probably in the mid-nineties that we started streaming live. I remember, right out of the gate, how effective it could be because somebody took the feed from the stadium here in Anaheim on a satellite phone and was in Africa showing it to tribesman out in the middle of nowhere, and they sent photographs back of that and I thought, ‘Wow, we’re taking a signal now that could only be heard within the stadium now, or a broadcast outside on the radio, but now it’s going via the Internet.

"Then we’ve reached out in terms of the ability to go out with TV and radio, but the Internet is the big difference. That’s changed everything. And today we’ve got a high definition product that can go out around the world.”

Collins went on to say, “Last night, I got email from some of our fellow pastors in New Zealand that we work with and they said they were watching and the ‘signal’s great.’ So it seems like that the world’s become a small community.

“People here in the United States think we’re the leaders in technology, but what they don’t realized that when you get over to Europe and even in the Third World countries, cell phones are prevalent and their technology is on par with ours. So they’re able to get the signal and they’re watching on their hand-held smart phones.

“We are able to track who is watching and in past crusades we’ve had over 90 different countries receiving the signal. We always have someone watching in every state in the union, and last night we had some 30,000 people watching us from all over the world on the Internet.”

I then asked Collins how Greg, who also pastors Harvest churches in both Riverside and Irvine, California, coped with going from his little Monday night events in Costa Mesa, to these huge outreaches.

“When it comes to presenting the message, it doesn’t matter if he’s in an auditorium of 1,000, 10,000 or 20,000, as the message remains the same,” replied Collins. “He’s faithful to give that message and be true to it and not to compromise it, but to let the lion out of its cage and just let it do its work.

“The Gospel will change lives and that’s what has been proven, so he has a healthy respect for the message. You know, the foolishness of the message he preaches, that God has chosen to save those that believe in him, because he’s faithful to that, and God uses it in tremendous ways.

“So I think he approaches it the same but he’s also very involved in all of the other aspects of how things come together; how we promote the event, and how we present the venue. We want to be relevant to the generation that we’re trying to get the Gospel to.”

Greg Laurie with Christopher who did in a tragic auto accident

It was on Thursday, July 24, 2008, when Greg Laurie and his wife Cathe, learned the unimaginable news that their first-born son, Christopher David Laurie, had been killed in a tragic car accident on the 91 freeway on his way to work as art director at his father's church.

So I wondered how they were both dealing with the tragedy and if the pain had yet gone away.

“That loss never goes away, but over time I think they’ve seen the benefits of God’s blessing in spite of those tragic circumstances or even because of the tragic circumstances,” said Collins.

He explained that out of the death of his son has come a movie called “Hope for Hurting Hearts,” which tells of his and Cathe’s story, as well as that of singer, Jeremy Camp, who lost his wife at an early age, and also Nick Vujicic, an Australian evangelist who was born without arms and legs, and has won a whole string of awards and film festivals.

He went on to say, “I’m trying to remember the quote that Tozer gave that God can’t use a man mightily until he hurts him deeply. I think there’s some real truth in that. There was tremendous hurt for Greg and Cathe and yet out of it, God is using them at an even greater level and he’s got a newer audience an audience that he may not have had before -- those who have lost loved ones.”

I concluded by asking John Collins what were the plans for the rest of the year, and he replied, “Well we’re going to be in October in Dallas for a Harvest America event. We will be streaming it live into churches across the country, so right now, we’re encouraging churches to sign up and to host an event at their church.

“So in effect they can do a crusade just like we’re doing here in their own church. And then people can use that same stream to also have it in their homes or we’ve had communities coming together groups of churches and they’ve put it in local municipal auditorium or gymnasium so that happens. So it becomes an opportunity for everybody to have an evangelist in their church if they choose.”

The 2014 SoCal Harvest is archived and available for viewing at www.harvest.org.

Source: Assist News Service