The recent film “Jesus Revolution” introduced many Christians to Greg Laurie, senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Southern California. His SoCal Harvest Crusades, such as the most recent one in Anaheim, Calif., continue to reach thousands of people with the gospel resulting in many baptisms.
The latest baptism on Saturday came after a large arena event.
Last weekend, Honda Arena was packed with 16,000 people, and more than 47,000 viewed the crusade online, “Faithwire” reported. Laurie has held this soul-winning event for the last 34 years with 121 crusade events around the world. “We have been able to preach the gospel live to over six million people, and we have seen over 600,000 make professions of faith,” Laurie tweeted about the outreaches.
This year’s event reached a global audience with the message about God’s love and the gift of salvation.
“Nails did not hold Jesus Christ to the cross 2000 years ago — love did,” he told the audience. “Love for you. Love for me. As I said earlier, God loves you. He died for you. If you had been the only person on planet earth, Jesus would have gone to the cross and suffered and died for you. And know, he did suffer. He loves you so much, it hurts.”
What an amazing day we had at the Jesus Revolution Baptism at Pirate’s Cove. We baptized over 4000 people! I met people from all around the nation and even the world that came to town for this special event. May God bless everyone of them as they made this public stand for their… pic.twitter.com/Ndq6fOvgzH
— Greg Laurie (@greglaurie) July 8, 2023
Laurie ended the crusade with a message titled “Good News In A Bad World.” “We are living in a crazy, upside-down world full of bad news.,” he said. “I think we could all use some good news in a bad world, don’t you? That’s what the word ‘gospel’ means, ‘good news.’”
This was the 34th year of the SoCal Harvest Crusade, making it one of the longest-running evangelistic events in the nation. The crusades previously were held at Angels Stadium in Anaheim, but this year’s event was pushed to a smaller location after the Angels informed Laurie that they wanted him to move the event to protect the playing field during the regular season.
Harvest Christian Fellowship also will hold a “Jesus Revolution” churchwide baptism at Pirates Cove in Corona Del Mar, Calif. The event had to be moved to a different day after an overwhelming response from people wanting to be baptized.
“We are returning to Pirates Cove, the same beach that witnessed the powerful baptisms of thousands of believers during the Jesus revolution,” according to the church’s website. “This iconic location holds a special place in our hearts and our history, making it the perfect setting for our next churchwide baptism event.”
–Dwight Widaman | Metro Voice