Thousands of Californians were baptized in a series of Christian events that brought out more than 50,000 attendees, Pastor Greg Laurie of Harvest Christian Fellowship said.
The Riverside-based fellowship baptized around 2,000 people at Pirates Cove in Orange County after around 5,000 were saved during its annual Harvest Crusade at the Angel Stadium in Anaheim, the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) reported.
While the stadium was filled to capacity with 50,000 people at the July 20 event, even more people were gathered out in the parking lot and streaming it online, Laurie said.
The fire marshal prevented more than 3,500 people from spilling down into the field to give their lives to Christ, but the pastor said another 1,500 online viewers also participated in the mass baptism.
This led to even more people coming out to Pirates Cove, a popular Newport Beach baptism site where a whopping 4,500 people were baptized in 2023, Laurie said.
The pastor said he and his team were able to bring 2,000 more people to Christ at the cove.
“In twelve months, we baptized 6,500 people!” the pastor exclaimed during his most recent Sunday sermon, according to CBN.
“I see that God is working. As you know, the last great spiritual awakening, the Jesus Movement, happened in California, and we’re praying, ‘Lord, do it again,'” he said.
“This is where we used to baptize people during the Jesus movement days,” Laurie explained. “[My wife] Cathe and I were baptized there, too. This is where we also shot the scenes for the Jesus Revolution film.”
Jesus Revolution, which was released in February, tells the true story of Chuck Smith, a traditional pastor who grudgingly welcomed hippies into his congregation at the height of the countercultural “Jesus movement” during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Smith’s path eventually intersected with the young future pastor, Greg Laurie himself.