God Answers Prayers Through Harvest Santa Monica
For over a year, believers in Santa Monica, had been asking God to raise up a "harvest with a lower-case h." Their prayers were answered by Harvest Crusades, which will host the first Harvest Santa Monica tonight.
"We were blessed to have Harvest decide to come to Santa Monica," said Lyle Randles, Director of Prayer Ministries, Life Connections International, the ministry that coordinated the on-going community prayer effort. "It is clearly an answer to prayer."
Harvest was invited to the city by local radio station, KKLA-FM radio (99.5 FM), co-sponsor of the outreach.
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"We came out here not knowing that they had been praying for some evangelist to come and do something," said Harvest representative, Mike Jonker, but knowing that they had been, was "very exciting."
The Harvest Crusades are known for presenting a relevant message about faith delivered by evangelist Pastor Greg Laurie using culturally-familiar means such as music and technology. Their last two Crusades in Georgia tallied a combined 32,000 people.
The Santa Monica harvest will count in the thousands and Harvest hopes the event will be a precursor for a Los Angeles conference next year.
Harvest is excited to see what the Lord will do in bringing the unbelievers to Christ, said Jonker.
"Introducing people into a relationship with Jesus Christ is what it's all about," he said.
Harvest may only introduce Jesus, but the churches will minister.
Jonker said Harvest always ministers alongside the churches, so that when they leave, those who have come to faith will have churches to welcome them.
"Every Harvest Crusade is a partnership with churches," he said.
Randles is convinced that ever since Harvest began planning for the event four months ago, the local churches have united - something they had been praying about for a "long time."
"They've brought about in less than four months something that probably would've taken a year and a half to do on our own," said Randles, referring to the newfound unity amongst churches as they rallied for the event together.
Harvest Santa Monica begins at 7:30 p.m. each evening and is free of charge. For more information, log onto www.harvest.org.
