California megachurch pastor Greg Laurie announced that his annual Harvest Crusade will be held at a different venue this year instead of the Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California.
Laurie, the lead pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, said that this year’s crusade will be at the Honda Center.
According to a blog post on the Harvest Crusade website, the decision for the venue change was made after Angel Stadium’s management told Harvest that they no longer allowed people on the field during baseball season.
“These things come our way, but when one door closes, another door opens. When COVID was happening, we were not able to meet one year at the stadium,” Laurie wrote. “So we created a film called A Rush of Hope that was like an evangelistic cinematic film that touched a lot of people. So now we’re pivoting again.”
As reported by The Christian Post, the upcoming Harvest Crusade is scheduled to take place on July 1-2. It will be held in an enclosed environment instead of an outdoor location as it previously was. Attendees will be treated to a more immersive and intimate experience as Laurie noted that the crusade will be conducted “in the round,” meaning that the stage and the audience will be in closer proximity to one another.
Musical performances will be delivered by Christian artists Chris Tomlin and Phil Wickham, as well as special guests. At the same time, however, Laurie asserted that the worship experience at the gospel will be the main focus of the crusade as opposed to the guests.
Laurie and Pastor Chuck Smith founded the Harvest Crusade in 1990, which began as a one-time evangelistic outreach at the Orange County-based Pacific Amphitheater before relocating to Angel Stadium. According to Harvest Ministries, the event is considered the longest-running annual outreach in U.S. history.
Earlier this year, Laurie’s story as a young minister was highlighted in Jesus Revolution, which centers on the spiritual awakening under the same name.
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Jon Kopaloff/Stringer
Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.
