This past weekend Harvest Christian Fellowship, led by Pastor and Evangelist Greg Laurie, facilitated over 4,500 baptisms at Pirates Cove in Newport Beach. The same body of water was used for baptisms during the Jesus Movement in the 1960s and 70’s.
People gathered from across the country with lines wrapped around the seawall in what Harvest is calling the largest baptism in American history.
“On the day of Pentecost, after Peter preached, we read in the Bible that 3,000 people were baptized,” said Laurie. “At Pirates Cove, we are looking at a baptism of biblical proportions,”
Laurie and his wife Cathe were baptized at Pirates Cove nearly 50 years ago. The cove was also used as a filming location for Laurie’s Jesus Revolution movie.
According to Laurie, the “Jesus Revolution” movie demonstrated “the power of baptism and more significantly, what salvation looks like visually. By watching someone get baptized the way it was done in the film it really conveyed what conversion can look like. It really resonated with a lot of people.”
The baptism follows the Southern California Harvest Crusade where 230,000 people packed out the Honda Center in Anaheim and watched online, and 7,000 made proclamations of faith in a two-day worship experience with performances from Christian artists Phil Wickham, Chris Tomlin and singer Taya among others.
“There is no question that pretty much everyone at this Baptism saw the Jesus Revolution Film”. Said Laurie. “So many said they were so inspired by it they wanted to be Baptized at Pirate’s Cove.”
Jesus Revolution is one of the highest-grossing faith-based films of all time. The movie is playing in theaters around the world and will be available for streaming on Netflix at the end of the month.
