Harvest Timeline
21 Years of Harvest Crusades with Greg Laurie 1990–2010
Birthed at the Pacific Amphitheatre in 1990, the Harvest with Greg Laurie events, known simply as the "Harvest Crusades," have been a mainstay in Southern California for the past 21 years. The large-scale evangelistic outreach routinely draws more than 100,000 people to its cornerstone event at Angel Stadium of Anaheim each summer to hear a message of God's love from Riverside, California, pastor and evangelist Greg Laurie. In fact, the Anaheim Crusade is the longest-running annual evangelistic outreach in the U.S.
To date, more than 4 million people have attended Harvest Crusade events around the world, gathering for the gospel message presented by Laurie. As a result, nearly 330,000 people worldwide have made decisions to enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ.
| 1990 | Greg Laurie hosts the first Harvest Crusade at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa, California. More than 90,000 people attend over five nights, breaking attendance records for the venue. Harvest kicks off a bumper sticker campaign that creates a huge buzz in cities around the world over the next two decades, causing thousands of people to ask, "Who is Greg Laurie?" |
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| 1991 | Harvest moves to bigger venue: Angel Stadium of Anaheim, with 65,000 seats. |
| 1992 | President George H.W. Bush sends a videotaped greeting to attendees at the Anaheim Harvest Crusade on August 2. Former major-league baseball pitcher Dave Dravecky shares his personal story at both the San Diego and Anaheim Crusades. |
| 1995 | Harvest with Greg Laurie draws its largest crowd to date, with 164,000 people attending the Anaheim Crusade over three nights at Angel Stadium. The Harvest Crusades and Greg Laurie are featured on ABC World News Sunday on July 16, with the remark, "If there's a religious revival underway in America, Harvest Crusades may well be the leading edge. Pastor Greg Laurie's style appeals to young people because his crusades are informal and straightforward. They come for the music and stay for the message." |
| 1996 | Harvest sets its largest single-night record on July 4, with 63,000 people attending the Harvest Crusade at Angel Stadium of Anaheim (just prior to the stadium demolishing approximately 20,000 center field seats). Elizabeth Dole appears at the Anaheim Crusade on July 5, offering a greeting. |
| 1997 | Harvest with Greg Laurie offers its first live webcast via the Internet during the Anaheim Crusade. Harvest launches its youth street evangelism program called the SWAT Team (Students with a Testimony) during the Philadelphia Crusade. |
| 1999 | Greg Laurie is featured in The New York Times on January 1 as one of five up-and-coming evangelists, along with Franklin Graham, Anne Graham Lotz, Bishop T. D. Jakes, and Luis Palau. |
| 2000 | Harvest hosts its first international event in Wollongong, Australia. |
| 2003 | Harvest launches its first Summerfest youth event, a Saturday afternoon festival filled with freestyle motocross and skateboarding exhibitions by Jimmie McGuire, Nate Adams ("King of the Backflip"), and Kyle Loza. |
| 2004 | Harvest brings its popular Summerfest youth event to Hawaii during the 2004 Honolulu Harvest Crusade, featuring BMX and skateboard athletes like Mike Mancusso and Christian Hosoi. |
| 2005 | Greg Laurie appears as a guest on Larry King Live. |
| 2006 | Harvest holds its first Spanish-language crusade in San Jose, California. |
| 2007 | Harvest holds its first event at the Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City, and holds its first crusade in the main arena in 2008. |
| 2008 | For the first time, web viewers of the Harvest Crusade exceed in-person viewers: live attendance is 109,000; online attendance is 128,263. The Harvest: Greg Laurie podcast, featuring excerpts from the Anaheim Harvest Crusade, is ranked number 13 in Podcast.com's "Top 25 Podcasts of the Month" for August, joining prestigious programs like CNN News Update and 60 Minutes Podcast. Grammy Award-winning country singer Randy Travis performs during the Anaheim Harvest Crusade. |
| 2009 | The Harvest Crusades mark 20 years of evangelical outreach in Southern California. In addition to interactive webcasts, Harvest offers video podcasts, blog accounts, and "behind the scenes" updates from Greg Laurie on Twitter and Facebook. |
| 2010 | Greg Laurie and The Harvest Crusades have given away more than 450,000 copies of the New Believers Bible over the course of the 21 year outreach, and in 2010 will give away copies of Start!, a Bible for new and growing believers in the New King James Version translation. |
Media Contact
Laura Swickard McGowanLaura@lauramcgowan.com
Phone: (847) 328-8009
Cell: (847) 347-5206