California Megachurch Celebrates Mega ‘Good News’ Harvest in 2020
Harvest Ministries experienced unprecedented success in 2020 with more than 150,000 people making professions of faith. Greg Laurie, founder and lead pastor of Harvest Ministries, expects the new year to continue to bring people to Christ by innovative means.
Despite the challenges that arose in 2020 surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, Harvest was able to share the gospel in new ways through online platforms, virtual crusades and safely serving the surrounding community.
In March, Harvest suspended all in-person services and events including the launch of Harvest 2020, a series of crusades aimed at reaching millions of people in person and online. Before the first scheduled crusade in Boise, Idaho, thousands made professions of faith, revealing the potential success for sharing the gospel via an online platform.
With the launch of Harvest at Home, the ministry’s online platform for streaming services, its following grew exponentially. A single Palm Sunday service had an estimated 1.3 million viewers. Along with streaming its services to an ever-growing audience, Harvest began hosting drive-thru COVID-19 testing at its Riverside campus in partnership with Riverside University Health System.
In the months that followed, viewer numbers continued to rise and culminated in the cinematic crusade, “A Rush of Hope”, reaching 1.8 million people, breaking the record of attendees from Harvest’s 30 years of holding annual crusades.
In total, Harvest saw over 150,000 professions of faith in 2020, and it looks forward to furthering growth and opportunities to serve the community and the global church in 2021.
“We might joke or complain about how bad 2020 was, but for over 150,000 people who came to Christ through Harvest at Home and our other outreach channels, 2020 was the best year ever,” said Pastor Greg Laurie. “This year Harvest witnessed an unprecedented expansion of the family of God. My expectant hope for 2021 is for even more people to meet Jesus. I’m blessed to play a part in making that possible.” {eoa}
