ANAHEIM, CA (ANS) -- More than a year of planning and praying came to fruition this past weekend when Harvest Crusades with Greg Laurie successfully undertook their largest evangelistic project to date: to simultaneously take the message of the Gospel presented at Angel Stadium of Anaheim to multiple sites across the U.S.

Pastor Greg Laurie preaches at 2012 Harvest which came to Angel Stadium Saturday for the first of two days of outreach (Photo: Rod Veal, The Orange County Register)

According to a news release from Laura Swickard McGowan (www.lauramcgowan.com), the annual Harvest outreach at Angel Stadium—called the “2012 Anaheim Harvest”—was attended by some 78,000 people over two nights, Aug. 25 – 26, and this year was capped off by a Sunday evening broadcast called Harvest America, which was viewed live by people in 2,416 venues from California to the Carolinas.

Tens of thousands of Harvest America participants gathered at churches, auditoriums, parks, and theaters to watch the message of hope presented by Southern California pastor and evangelist Greg Laurie, made available via satellite and a live streaming webcast. More than 600 radio stations also carried the Harvest outreach live and nine television networks made the program available.

In addition to a nightly message from Laurie, the 2012 Anaheim Harvest featured the best in Christian music from artists including Third Day, Gungor, David Crowder, Jeremy Camp, and MercyMe. And, although the means of participating in the Harvest Crusades expanded, the underlying message throughout the weekend remained the same.

“If you’re searching for answers, you’ve come to the right place. I have answers from the user’s manual of life—the Bible,” said Laurie. “People will disappoint. Pursuing pleasure will not bring happiness. What you’re looking for deep down inside is a relationship with God; you were born to know Him.”

Part of the large crowd

Responding to Laurie’s invitation, over the course of two nights 8,147 people walked onto the field at Angel Stadium and made decisions to put their faith in Christ, while another 2,798 made that same decision by participating online. Thousands more came to faith at host venues across the country.

Both nights of the 2012 Anaheim Harvest were broadcast on the internet, where people from 50 states and 149 countries around the world watched the outreach. The 2012 Anaheim Harvest is archived and available for viewing at www.harvest.org.

Greg Laurie, who founded the evangelistic Harvest Crusade events in 1990, also serves as senior pastor of one of the largest churches in the U.S., Harvest Christian Fellowship, which has campuses in Riverside and Irvine, Calif. During the past 23 years, the Harvest Crusades have drawn some 4.4 million people to events in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Laurie also serves on the board of directors for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

The final 2012 Harvest Crusade event is scheduled for Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on September 8 - 9. For more information, go to http://la.harvest.org/. 

MEDIA NOTE: For more information about the Harvest with Greg Laurie events, contact Laura McGowan at (847) 328-8009 or lauramcgowan@comcast.net, or access the Harvest Newsroom at http://www.harvest.org/newsroom.

Dan Wooding, 71, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 49 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) and he hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on the KWVE Radio Network in Southern California and which is also carried throughout the United States and around the world. Besides this, Wooding is a host for His Channel Live, which is carried via the Internet to some 192 countries. Dan recently received two top media awards -- the “Passion for the Persecuted” award from Open Doors US, and as one of the top “Newsmakers of 2011” from Plain Truth magazine. He is the author of some 45 books, the latest of which is “Caped Crusader: Rick Wakeman in the 1970s.” To order a copy, go to: http://www.amazon.com/CAPED-CRUSADER-Rick-Wakeman-1970s/dp/1908728302/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335474883&sr=1-1 .