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RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Greg Laurie stood behind a pulpit as thousands of people waited to hear what projected from his lips. Their view was similar to the one he enjoyed decades earlier as a child enthralled with Angels baseball.
His on-field view from the warning track was distinctly different than what he remembered from the seats, but before he could relax and absorb this new direction in his ministry, the pastor was dealing with a more pressing reality: the pages of his sermon were not in order.
“People said they couldn’t tell, but I was in a mild panic up there trying to forge that sermon out there on the fly,” Laurie said of his first Harvest Crusade, held 20 years ago this month at Angel Stadium.
That first crusade drew 35,000 people, short of his goal of filling the stadium, but it launched an international evangelistic ministry that has drawn more than 3.8 million people worldwide, recording more than 317,000 professions of faith. Harvest has returned to Anaheim every year, attracting 2.8 million people at that venue alone. In addition to the annual Anaheim outreach, the crusade has been held in a variety of other locations, including New York, Philadelphia, Raleigh, N.C., Athens, Ga., Fayetteville, Ark., Waikiki, Hawaii, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
He’s done the crusades even while serving as senior pastor of Riverside’s Harvest Christian Fellowship, which he founded in 1974. The church is one of the largest in the United States.
“We didn’t know what we were doing the first time we went to a stadium,” Laurie said in a phone interview. “I mean, we were just flying by the seat of our pants, trying to make this event as effective as it could be, but honestly, I’m pretty amazed we were able to get as much done as we got done back then.”
This year’s crusade will be held Aug. 14 to 16 and feature Chris Tomlin, Third Day, Relient K, Skillet and The Katinas. Next year, the crusade also travels to Chicago.
Culturally relevant
After 20 years, most of the kinks have been worked out and Laurie’s team has developed a model that’s part music festival, part extreme sport, part sermon. The mortar has been Laurie’s penchant for staying abreast of the culture, talking in a way that’s relevant to young people. He said the concept is clearly modeled in the Bible when Paul used local poets as a tool to reaching the people of Athens.
“He built a bridge to the culture and then brought the gospel to them,” the preacher said. “I think that it’s important that people know that we are living in the same world they are living in.”
Sometimes, he added, pastors tend to answer questions they are not being asked and remain quiet on ones that are being asked.
“I think it’s important for us to be in touch with the people we are speaking to and speak in a way that is understandable and bring the relevant, powerful, life-transforming message of the Word of God to them,” he said. “It’s just something I have interest in. I want to know what people are thinking, what they are facing, what they are grappling with.”
Tragic loss
This past year, Laurie and his wife, Cathe, have been grappling with their own questions in the aftermath of their son, Christopher’s death. The oldest of two boys was killed July 24, 2008 in a single-car crash while on his way to the church where the 33-year-old worked as the art director. He was survived by his expectant-wife, Brittany, and daughter, Stella. Their second daughter, Lucy was born in November.
“One thing I’ve become very aware of in recent days is just how many suffering people there are out there, people that are hurting,” he said. “It’s been said that if you preach to people who are suffering, you will never lack for an audience. There certainly is a large audience of people who are in pain today.
“It is the most traumatic event of my life. It’s changed everything about me. You can’t help but see everything a little bit differently when somebody this close to you dies unexpectedly, especially your child. A parent never wants to outlive their child. I’ve become aware of how many others out there who have lost children, lost loved ones.”
Empathy for suffering
Just as Laurie’s view from the infield changed his aesthetic perspective on the ballpark, suffering through the suffering has added another deep, though undesired, dimension to Laurie’s message.
“I suppose it’s opened my heart more than it’s ever been open before to people who are hurting because I am hurting,” the Harvest pastor said. “I’m a hurting person preaching to hurting people.
“But at the same time I have complete confidence in the message I am proclaiming. But I want people to know that they are not alone. There is a God who loves them, a God who can help them through the worst times of their lives. And most importantly, a God who can forgive them of their sins so they can see them one day in eternity, in heaven. I have a greater urgency to call people to Christ, to see them go to heaven because we don’t know how long our lives will go.”
As a result, Laurie said he approaches the pulpit with the mindset that he speaks “as a dying man to dying men.”
“I want to make my time count,” the evangelist said. “I want to reach as many people as possible. Every time I do it there is an urgency to it and it doesn’t matter if it’s a crowd of one thousand or 60,000. I get into that pulpit and I feel that I have the responsibility to declare God’s truth faithfully and understandably and compassionately and give people an opportunity to come into a relationship with Christ, extend that invitation and then the results are in the hands of God.”
Pushing ahead
Although the message has remained consistent with God’s Word, Laurie said the model has been tweaked with changes in music and style. There has also been personal growth.
“You are not quite the same person you were 20 years ago,” he said. “Obviously, there’s been life experience that has accumulated. In my case, it’s been a year of sensing the very real loss of my son and that affects me as well. But it’s also a marking of time and we are rejoicing in what the Lord has done over the last two decades of bringing the gospel to people through these crusades.”
The pastor said he plans to continue with the crusades as long as he is able, but is also praying that others will embrace the proclamation-style evangelism events made famous by Billy Graham and Billy Sunday, before him. He dismisses the argument that such formats are irrelevant and ineffective, adding that the now popular personal evangelism is still a vital part of the crusade formula.
“The fact is, we rely on one-one evangelism, people bringing people and setting the stage for proclamation,” he said. “In our own way, we are hoping to keep this tradition alive that I believe dates back to the Book of Acts, the Day of Pentecost. … We’re hoping to keep what I believe is a powerful method of communication alive and I would like to see others pick up the baton and bring this kind of proclamation evangelism to their generation.”
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