Harvest Life Groups launch this week at all 4 campuses -- check out how to get connected. Visit Get Involved -- Harvest Life to sign up.

Where Are We Now?

Since 2020 and the Covid-19 lockdowns, Harvest has experienced dramatic changes. We saw our weekly attendance drop by over 50% from 2019 to 2020. By your faithfulness and obedience, however, we saw annual offerings only drop 7% over that same time frame. In 2020, we stepped forward together in faith, committing to an enormous building project during the heart of COVID uncertainty. We got to see God honor that faith with the completion of the Kittanning Campus’ renovation, the first service being held in the new auditorium in 2022. Since 2020, Harvest has invested in and completely overhauled our administrative, media, and technical capabilities to support growth in our multi-site model. We have gone from a small office staff and one full-time “tech guy” to a sophisticated administrative group and a staff of over half a dozen part- and full-time tech and media personnel. Finally and most importantly, we have continued, by God’s grace and power, to reach our communities for Christ.

Our attendance has steadily climbed from the loss of over half of our congregation to new all-time weekly attendance highs being set in December of 2024, praise God! Our men’s and women’s retreats are ministering to more people than ever before, including many guests and unbelievers. Hundreds of school age children are receiving the gospel weekly through our growing Daycare, Bible2School, and Children’s ministries. Broken people are being ministered to in their times of need. People are hearing the Gospel, the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16), and believing it. People are being baptized. The saints are loving one another, loving their neighbors as themselves, and discipling one another to obey His commands. The stories we could all share about how we’ve experienced the grace of God through our Harvest family since 2020 are almost countless. God is Good!

AVERAGE WEEKLY IN-PERSON ATTENDANCE (ALL AGES)

Challenge

Harvest is almost a completely different church since 2020. Half of our congregation is new people! We have new administrative and technical capabilities and newly renovated buildings in Kittanning and Natrona Heights. However, we are running the risk of getting too comfortable with where we are. We never want to lose that foundational exuberance for reaching new communities here, near, and everywhere with the Gospel by planting healthy churches.
Since 2020, we have not seen a new Harvest campus be planted in our neighboring communities, who desperately need a healthy church. Since 2020, no independent church planting has taken place out of Harvest. Since 2020, our 10:16 Team in India has had to permanently come home to the U.S., and our supported missionary activity around the world has decreased. None of the 50% new people attending Harvest since COVID lockdowns have witnessed an example of these types of big, aggressive steps of faith to reach the world for Christ that are part of Harvest’s cultural DNA, e.g. planting campuses, planting churches, and aggressively striving to reach the nations. Yet…we have plenty of brothers and sisters in Christ to do life with…plenty of ministries and groups and services to keep us happy…and enough money to just keep doing what we’re doing now…Now is a most dangerous time, a time of potential complacency.

Now is the time to REIGNITE our passion for our purpose. We exist to increase the health and size of God’s church everywhere.

Solution

Harvest needs a generous increase of faithful stewardship.  We need an increase to plant more campuses and churches, here, near, and everywhere, while continuing to grow our ministries at our 4 existing locations.  Since 2020, Harvest has seen tremendous growth in our church family, rising from 448 in average weekly attendance in July of 2020, to 1,254 in weekly average attendance for the month of December 2024. Our finances have grown too, but not in unison with our attendance.  We are currently able to support the ministry needs of our congregation as is, but have no additional ability to push outward for Christ as we have historically done.

CHURCH ATTENDANCE VS. TITHES & OFFERINGS BY CALENDAR YEAR

AVERAGE PER CAPITA ANNUAL OFFERING

Choice

This initiative aims to reignite our collective passion for Harvest’s vision statement. “We exist to increase the health and size of God’s church everywhere.” Following the command of our Lord in Acts 1:8, “...you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem (Here) and in all Judea and Samaria (Near), and even to the remotest part of the earth (Everywhere),” Harvest wants to plant additional Harvest campuses in our immediate surrounding communities who need a healthy church; we want to plant a new, independent church using our own leaders and members in a nearby county in need of a healthy church; we want to plant healthy churches amongst the unreached in India, South America, Africa, South-East Asia and anywhere else God would lead, starting with a Harvest India in West Bengal. And we want to do all of that while growing our current ministries at our existing locations. We want to be his faithful witnesses here, near, and everywhere, never getting complacent! Join us in this mission!

I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.­

-Luke 16:9

This mission will not only require additional worldly treasure, but people who are passionate and called to be part of new campus plants, new church plants, and even willing to go into the mission field. We will need new people to step into vacancies in volunteer ministries, in leading studies, and in outreaches to our communities as we send others out into new towns, counties, and countries. This is why we exist!...to increase the health and size of God’s church everywhere!

We need you - your time, talents, passion, and worldly treasure -  to win more friends in Heavenly places!