Harvest America With Greg Laurie: Largest US Evangelistic Event Ever?
Evangelist Greg Laurie opens up his two-day Harvest Crusades event at Angels Stadium in Anaheim, Calif., starting Saturday with the subject "How to find personal happiness." On Sunday, during his biggest Christian outreach event ever, Harvest America, the title of his message will be "Is it possible to change our lives?"
Laurie said late this week that he did not want anyone to overlook the message on Saturday with all the attention on Sunday's event. Sunday's Harvest America will be shown live by webcast and through the use of other technology to more than 1,800 host venues (about 1,000 are churches). The event on Sunday will also be broadcast on two Christian TV stations and more than 500 Christian radio stations.
"In addition to these sites it will be going out to hundreds of thousands through webcasts and live radio coverage (and television)," blogged Pastor Levi Lusko, who serves as the host at Harvest events. "This could potentially be the largest evangelistic event to ever occur in the history of the United States of America!"
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Lusko also wrote that he believes the country is in desperate need of a spiritual revival.
"I am so thankful that God gave this vision to Greg and the Harvest team to put this phenomenally massive outreach together. Especially as we move towards a presidential election, everyone is clamoring for hope and change; but the answer to our country's problems isn't who is living in the White House, but rather who is coming on a white horse – Air Horse One – I'm talking about Jesus Christ!"
He added, "We desperately need to consider our ways and turn to the Lord. And the only way that will happen is through the bold proclamation of what happened at skull hill – where Jesus died for the sins of the world – and that is exactly what Harvest America is all about."
On Saturday, Harvest Anaheim (without host locations nationally) will be available live by webcast starting at 6 p.m. PT on Harvest.org. Laurie will be joined by worship music artists David Crowder, Gungor, and Third Day on Saturday.
On Sunday, the guest artists include Jeremy Camp and Mercy Me. Starting time for Harvest America is 4 p.m. PT and it will also be webcast live.
Last year, the live streaming webcast from the three nights in Anaheim and one night at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles could also be viewed on Facebook for the first time, and a link to the webcast page could be shared on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
"We are finding that the crusade is as much a virtual as it is a personal presence. It's becoming a huge component in the outreach of this ministry," said Harvest's Paul Eaton, who is pastor of communications, after last year's event. "We're going to where people are and we are seeing a massive sea change in the way people connect with information. We are moving into that space."
Lusko believes social media will play a big part over the weekend.
"We should all leverage our personal influence towards this event as well, through Instagram posts, tweets, status updates and #harvestamerica hashtags," Lusko stated. "This thing should generate some mega traffic and turn heads all over the place. You never know what God can do with even the smallest things we offer to Him in faith."m
