Harvest Crusade Gives Youth the Gospel Truth With an MTV-Like Twist

When Pastor Greg Laurie preaches, he often works in a reference to Madonna--the pop icon, not the mother of Jesus. Services begin with the beatific strains of an electric guitar. And a recent sermon focused on an Oprah Winfrey show.

The emphasis on hip is one reason more than 150,000 people--many of them teen-age and younger--are expected Friday through Sunday at the Harvest Crusade in Anaheim Stadium.

The massive annual evangelical gathering combines rock music, pop culture and lessons from the Bible in an effort to energize the faithful and convert others.

“I want to show people that the message of the Gospel is very relevant to the problems and pressures we’re facing today,” said Laurie, pastor to the 12,000-member Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside. “We have to return back to biblical values which will infuse us morally.”

More than 300 churches in Orange County are sponsoring the $320,000 crusade this year, up from about 170 last year. And organizers expect 25,000 more people to attend the three-day event this year than last.

Randall Balmer, a professor of religious history at Columbia University, said the growing popularity of the crusades is a direct result of the MTV-savvy liturgy and streetwise delivery.

“You have this very old form--the evangelistic sermon--that has been appropriated for modern culture,” Balmer said. “This is an attempt to recapture the spirit, energy and fervor of the counterculture.”

Children are a special concern for Laurie and other crusade leaders. For instance, this year for the first time children of ages 5 through 12 will have a special program Saturday morning focused on youth and the church.

“We hope to see 20,000 young people come out,” said John Collins, crusade director. “I’m excited about the whole event.”

Balmer said religious groups such as the Harvest Crusade are increasingly trying to involve children.

“I think the real crisis facing evangelicals is how to pass on the faith from one generation to the next,” Balmer said. “There is a real fixation on that.”

Although the crusades are nondenominational, they grew out of a collaboration between Laurie and Chuck Smith, pastor of Calvary Church in Costa Mesa.