<\/p>\n
Pastor Greg Laurie is on a mission to bring hope and healing to Utah Valley University, the campus in Orem, Utah, where conservative and Christian commentator Charlie Kirk was assassinated Sept. 10.<\/p>\n
Laurie, pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in California and founder of the Harvest Crusades \u2014 popular, large-scale evangelistic events \u2014 is planning a Nov. 16 event on the UVU campus.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been talking with pastors in Utah about doing one of our Harvest Crusades,\u201d he said. \u201cWe do them in stadiums, arenas, around the country, around the world, and I\u2019ve been doing them for over 30 years \u2014 and so the folks, some of the pastors, came to us from Utah and said, \u2018Would you come and do one here?’\u201d<\/p>\n
Initially, Laurie didn\u2019t plan to do an event in Utah until 2027, but Kirk\u2019s assassination at UVU changed everything. The Harvest team reached out and asked how they could help after the tragedy unfolded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey said, \u2018Yes, come now. We need you now,’\u201d Laurie said. \u201cAnd so we did something we\u2019ve never done before: We accelerated the timeline. So normally it would take us six months to a year, sometimes even longer to get a Crusade ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the UVU event was planned in just six weeks. It\u2019s something Laurie said he felt called to do as he seeks to share with others the Gospel message that motivated Kirk\u2019s work.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe felt like, \u2018Let\u2019s go to this place where an unspeakable act of darkness took place and shine the radiant light of the Gospel,’\u201d Laurie said. \u201cCharlie really cared about the Gospel, and when he would go into these campuses like UVU and others, he would always talk about Christ. People would ask him about his beliefs; that\u2019s what motivated them. That\u2019s what gave him his worldview.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued, \u201cCharlie\u2019s in heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laurie, like other faith leaders, believes God has moved mightily even after Kirk\u2019s tragic death, turning evil on its head and using it for good.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to call people to Christ and tell them that there\u2019s a God in heaven who loves them, and that they can have a relationship with Him, and be forgiven of all of their sins,\u201d he said, inviting people to attend in person or to stream online at\u00a0Harvest.org\u00a0or on the Harvest+ app.<\/p>\n
As for any danger or chaos Laurie could be walking into, he said his motivation for holding the event is to follow what Jesus has called us to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cJesus said, \u2018Go into all the world and preach the Gospel,\u2019 and so God wants us to leave our comfort zone and go to people and reach out to them,’\u201d Laurie said.<\/p>\n
The pastor also spoke about the spiritual revival and cultural decay that seem to be simultaneously unfolding, likening the 1960s to today.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was upheaval, there was rioting, there were protests,\u201d Laurie said. \u201cAnd, yes, there were assassinations. We lost President Kennedy early in the \u201960s. Then we lost Martin Luther King. Then we lost Robert F. Kennedy, the brother of President Kennedy, who was running for president. There was a sense of chaos and uncertainty, and there was talk of revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Laurie said, \u201cGod decided to send a Jesus revolution.\u201d He sees the moments happening now as \u201cparallel\u201d to that time, with young people increasingly turning back to the Lord.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are promising signs around us, and, yes, there\u2019s persecution,\u201d he said. \u201cBut, you know, when God is at work, the devil will always oppose it. But I\u2019ve got good news. I\u2019ve read the last page of the Bible. We win in the end. So we should not back off. We should not slow down. We should accelerate and do as much as we can while we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watch Laurie discuss Kirk and these issues above.<\/p>\n
Please sign up for\u00a0Faithwire\u2019s daily newsletter\u00a0and download the\u00a0CBN News app\u00a0to stay up-to-date with the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.<\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pastor Greg Laurie is on a mission to bring hope and healing to Utah Valley University, the campus in Orem, Utah, where conservative and Christian commentator Charlie Kirk was assassinated Sept. 10. Laurie, pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in California and founder of the Harvest Crusades \u2014 popular, large-scale evangelistic events \u2014 is planning a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[2212,2210,372,234,446,1317,373,447,2209,1271,882,2211],"class_list":{"0":"post-10526","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jesus","8":"tag-bold","9":"tag-bringing","10":"tag-charlie","11":"tag-gospel","12":"tag-greg","13":"tag-killing","14":"tag-kirk","15":"tag-laurie","16":"tag-massive","17":"tag-outreach","18":"tag-response","19":"tag-uvu"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}