Crusade Connection Blog

Greetings!

The excitement about the upcoming Greg Laurie: Chicago Harvest–September 24-26 at the Allstate Arena—continues to grow. Last month, 143 Chicagoland pastors and leaders attended our first series of pastor information meetings. Knowing that many churches were not able to attend a meeting last month, we have scheduled make-up meetings for later this month.

During the week of March 22-26, we will be holding 10 pastor information meetings at churches throughout the area. We encourage you to attend one of these meetings, which we’ve scheduled at different times and places to make it easy for you to attend.

Each meeting will feature the same material, so it is only necessary to go to one. If it is absolutely impossible for you or the senior pastor to attend, feel free to send a representative.

For this outreach to be truly fruitful, the local churches of Chicagoland need to take ownership of it. The involvement of your congregation, praying for, inviting, and bringing the lost, will be crucial.

Pastor information meetings and locations are listed below. If you have any questions, feel free to contact my staff—Ron Case (ron@harvest.org), Richard Garcia (richardg@harvest.org) or Scot Camden (scotc@harvest.org)—for more details or to schedule a personal visit.

We would love to see you and your church participate and help reach the lost.

Praying for a fruitful Harvest!

Greg Laurie

You may have already heard about some of our Harvest Crusades events for 2010, but we’ve just finalized our schedule and we’re ready to give you all the details…

The 2010 Harvest Crusades season officially kicks off with the 21st Southern California Harvest at Angel Stadium of Anaheim, August 6-8.

After that, we’ll be in Chicago at Allstate Arena, September 24-26. Pastor Greg held radio rallies in Chicago in 1997 and 2000, but this will be our first full-scale Harvest Crusades event in the Windy City.

And we just confirmed today that we will be in Seattle, November 5-7, for an event at the Key Arena. Seattle was actually one of the first cities outside of California to have a Harvest Crusades event, all the way back in 1992.

In addition, we are already in the planning stages for a Harvest Crusades event in Auckland, New Zealand, in June 2011.

We are really excited about this schedule, and we covet your prayers for all of these events as they come up.

We’ll update you with our list of musical guests for each event as they become finalized, but we’d love to hear from you too. What artists would you like to see at a Harvest Crusades event this year?

If we’ve learned anything in 20 years of holding evangelistic events, we’ve learned this: It’s all about relationships!

Most people would assume that large–scale evangelism begins with booking big arenas, popular music, and a well–known speaker. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg! What’s below the surface is what makes for effective evangelism—people praying for people, people talking to people, and people trusting in the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That’s true for all age groups, which is why Harvest developed what is now known as the SWAT team. It stands for Students With A Testimony.

It began when handpicked students from our High School Ministry started coming with us on our Harvest Crusades trips, invading the streets of the communities where we held events. Their mission: Talk to people about Jesus and invite them to the event.

What we discovered was that hundreds of people were open to their invitations, but many of them were even more interested to talk about what it meant to be a Christian, right there on the street. Before long, it wasn’t unusual to see more than 100 people respond to the gospel and pray to receive Christ as their Lord and Savior after a conversation with one of these young people.!

As great as that was, we began to think, “Why should our church and high school and college ministries get the blessing alone?” So, we came up with G3. It stands for Gideon’s Army of 300.

The goal is to develop an army of 300 or more young people in high school and college ministries where a Harvest Crusades event is being held to hit the streets with the gospel. We send in our experienced SWAT Team leaders, months before the event, with the purpose of instructing youth pastors and students on how to effectively do street outreach and how to develop their own SWAT teams. Then, by the time the Harvest Crusades event begins, we’ve got students in the streets, in the malls, on campuses, and in the local parks praying, passing out flyers, and leading people to faith. That’s the church in action!

Leading this army is the director of our SWAT outreach and High School Ministry, Steve Wilburn. A gifted evangelist himself, Steve has a passion and the tools to help any high school or college student learn to stand strong in the faith and bold in our message.

It’s my hope and prayer that your church will get on board with G3! I guarantee it will infuse your student population with a power, passion, and joy!

In Jesus,

Greg Laurie

Tera smiles as she talks with a Decision Follow-Up Counselor at the Southern California Harvest.

Twenty-nine-year-old Tera had her life radically transformed at the Southern California Harvest.

She came with her boyfriend, a strong believer who was praying that her life would be touched. It’s obvious that God truly worked a miracle in her heart as she shared her emotional story and held back her tears.

Tera came from a broken family; her mom had been married and divorced several times and she was physically abused growing up. She often questioned the meaning of her existence.

Because her mom was not a believer, she had no role model. She struggled through her impressionable years and sometimes felt the burden was too hard to bear.

When Pastor Greg started sharing about his childhood, she felt she could relate. She was moved to tears and sensed God moving her spirit. Tera knew in her heart that it was no accident she was here tonight.

Tera said she was moved by Pastor Greg’s story of people’s reluctance to accept a free ticket to Disneyland for fear that there were strings attached. It made her realize that accepting Jesus in your life is as simple as receiving a free Disneyland ticket.

She recognized that all you have to do is believe and ask God for forgiveness and Heaven awaits us. Pastor Greg’s words, “Heaven is not a place for good people. Heaven is a place for forgiven people,” brought tears, hope and relief instantly to Tera’s life.

In her job as a nurse, she helps people with their physical ailments, but now she has found a way to heal people’s lives spiritually and help them mend their broken hearts. She wants to tell them not to live quiet lives of desperation, but to live with the knowledge that there is a God who reaches out to us and pulls us out of a sinking boat with the knowledge that He will never leave or forsake us.

Mother and daughter share a prayer together.

Melissa walked onto the field to commit her life to Christ with her mother Ester.

Melissa had been to the Southern California Harvest in previous years and wanted to go down onto the field to make a commitment, but didn’t. She also made a decision for Christ at camp when she was young, but she didn’t follow through with it.

Melissa, her two sisters, and her mother had been going through a hard time recently. Ester had also been praying for her children and was overjoyed at her daughter’s decision. It meant a lot to both of them to experience this night together.

Melissa said she is very serious about following through this time and plans on attending Harvest Christian Fellowship and getting plugged into The Well College and Career ministry.

Irma and Maritza came to the Southern California Harvest together and rededicated their lives to following God.

Maritza and Irma had been planning to go out on the town Saturday night, but Maritza changed their plans after they saw a bumper sticker for the Southern California Harvest. In the end, they both went forward and recommitted their lives to Christ.

Maritza had prayed to receive Christ before, but became discouraged when her Catholic family disapproved of her new faith. When trials came, she turned away from God and put her focus on making money.

“I pushed myself away,” Maritza said. “I really wanted to come back and I needed inspiration in my life, and that’s what I got tonight.”

Irma said she was raised in a Christian home, but had been never serious about her faith. She said she has always wanted something more in her life, looking for it in all the wrong places.

“I thought I would find worldly love and that would make me happy,” Irma said through tears. “That caused me a lot of pain. I’ve learned from my mistakes . . . His love is all I need.”

Maritza and Irma said they intend to bring more people to the Southern California Harvest next year so they can experience everything they felt when gave their burdens to Christ on the field.

Adam prayed to receive Christ on Saturday night at Angel Stadium.

Adam was only three years old when his mom passed away. He was always told that his mom was a strong believer in Christ. Even though he was young when he lost his mom, he said he has never been able to completely get over his loss.

As he grew up, he became bitter and completely turned away from God, wanting nothing to do with church. He said he felt his life was going nowhere fast. A year ago, he felt God was reaching out to Him and since he felt so lonely, he began going back to church.

Rachel, Adam’s girlfriend and a believer, took him to the Southern California Harvest on Saturday. He soaked it all in, from the music to Pastor Greg’s entire message, and it spoke volumes to his heart. He knew he needed to dedicate his life to Christ.

When Pastor Greg said, “Come just as you are,” he felt the tug in his heart and made a public declaration of his faith and trust in Christ.