About Harvest
Knowing God and Making Him Known
The foundation that Harvest began building on 50 years ago is the same foundation it stands on today, and that’s the commitment to knowing God and making Him known.
Through the Years
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Attendance11,824,618
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Decisions1,020,558
Humble Beginnings
If there are two words about Harvest to encapsulate the start, it would be “humble beginnings”. Few may know that before it was one of the largest churches in America, it started as a home Bible study of 30 people. It was 1973 in Riverside, California that a 19-year-old Greg Laurie felt the call of God to lead this group.
Through God’s guiding hand, Harvest Christian Fellowship was transformed from a small group into a church of 15,000 people at multiple campus locations in Southern California and Hawaii.
Longing to reach more people with Jesus Christ, this team began holding Harvest Crusades in 1990. For 30 years, these large-scale evangelistic events have reached millions of people, and hundreds of thousands of them have professed faith in Jesus Christ. Of these events, the largest live one-day evangelistic event in US history occurred at Harvest America 2016—350,000 people in attendance.
The proclamation of the gospel message continues to spread across the nation on the syndicated radio program called, A New Beginning, weekly television broadcasts on GregLaurie.tv, and many other great online resources to encourage people grown in their faith share the Good News with others.
From a humble Bible study to Harvest Crusades, the outpouring of God’s favor has allowed Harvest to reach millions of people all over the world with the gospel. Greg Laurie and the Harvest team continue to bring the gospel home each week at Harvest Christian Fellowship and across the nation to help people know God and make Him known.
“Looking back, I can see God’s hand at work from the very beginning. It has always been a part of God’s plan for us to know Him and make Him known.” —Greg Laurie
Meet Pastor Greg
Greg Laurie is the senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship with campuses in California and Hawaii. He began his pastoral ministry at the age of 19 by leading a Bible study of 30 people.
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Our Mission
At Harvest, our mission is to “know God and to make Him known.” To that end, we place emphasis on the study of God’s Word and the proclamation of the gospel message—that Jesus Christ died to save us from our sins and He offers us the free gift of eternal life.
Our culture would have you believe that God doesn’t exist, or that God is a mysterious and far-away being, that God is a nebulous aura or a energy force, or that we are our own gods. But we know from His Word that God is real and that He desires a meaningful relationship with each of us. He wants to communicate with you and wants you to communicate with Him.
The Harvest Community
Many people today understand the church as a building. This is not a biblical understanding of the church. The word church comes from the Greek word ekklesia which is defined as “an assembly” or “called-out ones.” The church is not a building or a denomination. According to the Bible, the church is the body of Christ—all those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ for salvation.
The Bible defines church as a body. Each of us are members of that body with different functions and abilities. When one part of the body suffers, it is felt throughout. When one part of the body is not functioning, the rest of the body is impaired. Each part of the body is necessary and each part is significant.
Statement of Faith
We believe the Bible to be the inspired and only infallible, authoritative Word of God. Therefore, our ministry emphasizes the exposition of God’s Word from Genesis to Revelation, line upon line, precept upon precept.
We believe there is one God, eternally existent in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We believe in the deity of Jesus Christ, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful humanity, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is essential and that repentance from sin and acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is the only way to come into a relationship with God.
