What are the "Harvest Crusades"?
Here in Southern California we are accustomed to seeing those Harvest bumper stickers. A friend told me how his friend had altered a Harvest bumper sticker to say "Heresy Circus", and I could not resist trying it myself. I don't think there's too much heresy in the simple salvation message that is presented at a Harvest Crusade, but my friend (and his friend, too) are Calvinistic so they usually think that when any Arminian preaches the gospel it must be heresy. After all, the Arminian is presenting the possibility that you can receive the gospel that denies the 5 points of Calvinism. How do you even know if the person that you are preaching to is one of the elect?
Some people have told me not to be critical of the Harvest Crusades as people are getting saved there. She has a point. I just wondered what church that they are recommended when they ask for one. I was recently told that the workers at the Harvest crusades give out church referrals in proportion to the participation of the local churches. Sort of a spiritual blackmail, huh?
When David Hocking was the pastor of Calvary Church in Santa Ana, used to not allow his church members to be workers at the Harvest since that would be participating with the Charismatic enemy (my phrase).
The percentage of decisions for Christ is less than 10% of the attendees, according to the Harvest Home Page. It is unknown how many of these are first time decisions. It's also unknown how many will "stick with it."
Chuck Smith has spent a lot of money and effort in promoting Laurie as the next Billy Graham through support of the Harvest Crusades. A total of over 1-1/2 million people have heard Laurie speak at the Harvest Crusades. Laurie teaches the Calvary teachings right down the line. Laurie does tone down some of the more controversial topics and tends to concentrate on the salvation message much of the time. Laurie has a Statement of Faith on the web page that is the short form version of the "What Calvary Teaches", the official and complete CC SoB. Interestingly, Laurie does not even include the pre-tribulation rapture in his Statement of Faith. If Laurie ultimately replaces Smith as the head of the denomination (not at all certain), will there be a softening of the hard line that Smith has taken?
Greg Laurie has a FAQ where he answers questions about the Harvest revivals.
On the FAQ, Laurie claims:
The only goal and purpose of Harvest Crusades is to present the claims and person of Jesus Christ in an understandable way and to give people an opportunity to have a personal relationship with Him. We are not trying to build any particular church or denomination, although many churches are growing as a result of these crusades.
At the risk of sounding skeptical, it seems like there are many other motives involved here. Calary Chapel uses these as a major method of increasing the attendance at Calvary Chapels. Greg Laurie gets the promotion as the "next Billy Graham" that Chuck Smith is always pushing for.
Harvest Crusades have been a tough sell in some parts of the country as this article discusses.
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