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By Movieguide® Staff
This Saturday, July 11, pastor Greg Laurie’s Harvest Crusade will stream live on In Touch+ for the first time, broadcasting straight from Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California, from 7 to 9 p.m. PST.
“One of the greatest privileges of our work at Apex Media is serving ministries behind the scenes so they can focus on what matters most — sharing the Gospel,” said Carrie Hartunian, chief executive officer of Apex Media Partners, the agency behind In Touch+. “Watching In Touch+ grow from a vision into a platform now hosting its first live event has been incredibly rewarding. We’re grateful to have partnered with the In Touch team in expanding the platform’s reach and are excited to see more people experience events like the 2026 Harvest Crusade at Angel Stadium this weekend through In Touch+.”
In Touch+ carries the teachings of the late Dr. Charles Stanley across cable and digital platforms, and Apex Media Partners has worked with In Touch Ministries since 2001. Viewers can also catch the crusade on Prime Video, DirecTV, Comcast markets and Local Now. It’s a genuine milestone — the first live event either organization has attempted together at this scale.
Laurie has been doing this a long time. He founded the Harvest Crusades in 1990, launching what was then called “Summer Harvest” at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa, California. Since then, more than six million people have attended a Harvest Crusade in person, with millions more watching online, and Harvest reports more than 600,000 professions of faith along the way.
The crusades outgrew Southern California fast. Laurie has taken them to stadiums across the country and into Canada, New Zealand and Australia, and in 2012 he launched Harvest America, letting churches nationwide watch a crusade live via satellite and internet stream. When COVID-19 hit in 2020, Harvest pivoted to an online-only format — proof that the message travels however it needs to.
Related: What Disneyland Taught This Pastor About the Gospel
Laurie’s own conversion is, in some ways, the reason any of this exists. He has spoken about growing up in what he called a “crazy, chaotic” household with an alcoholic mother, and by 17, drugs had crept into his life too. Everything changed when he overheard a group of “Jesus freaks” — followers of traveling evangelist Lonnie Frisbee — talking on his high school campus in Southern California during the height of the Jesus Movement.
“That’s the first time I heard the gospel,” Laurie said. “I understood it and that’s the day I gave my life to Christ.”
He started attending Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa under Pastor Chuck Smith and, in 1973, founded what became Harvest Christian Fellowship. That whole arc — the chaos, the campus encounter, the improbable turn toward ministry — became the basis for JESUS REVOLUTION, the 2023 movie starring Joel Courtney as young Laurie, Jonathan Roumie as Frisbee and Kelsey Grammer as Smith.
Movieguide® readers may remember JESUS REVOLUTION took home Best Movie for Mature Audiences at the 31st Annual Movieguide® Faith & Values Awards Gala, beating out SOUND OF FREEDOM and GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 for the honor. The gala aired on Great American Family in March 2024, and Movieguide® has followed Laurie’s ministry for years, from his crusades to his movies to the revival he keeps hoping is just around the corner.
A pandemic-era pivot to livestreaming has since become a full digital strategy. For Christian families who can’t make it to Angel Stadium, In Touch+ now offers a front-row seat to a ministry that’s been drawing crowds — and, more importantly, changing lives — for 35 years.
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