Nearly 8,000 people filled Utah Valley University’s basketball arena on Sunday for a Harvest Crusade event held at the same campus where conservative Christian activist Charlie Kirk was killed in September.
Organizers report that approximately 2,100 attendees made professions of faith during the gathering.
Pastor Greg Laurie led the “Hope for America” evangelistic event, which drew a large in-person crowd and was livestreamed to 67 participating churches across Utah and beyond.
Alongside Laurie’s Gospel message, attendees participated in worship led by well-known Christian musicians Phil Wickham and Chris Tomlin, adding to the significance of the evening.
Harvest officials stated that more than 7,800 people attended the in-person event, while an estimated 210,000 viewers joined via livestream.
The evening opened with a video tribute to Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA who was fatally shot on campus on Sept. 10.
“Despite this tragedy, God has done amazing things around our nation and people are asking questions. ... It was like a wakeup call,” Laurie said. “This is your moment tonight. This is your wakeup call tonight. Don’t let it slip by.”
During his sermon, Laurie reflected on his own background and drew parallels to the biblical Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15, highlighting the father’s welcome of his wayward child and the resentment of the older brother.
“But listen, in a way, his goodness kept him away. There are two ways to be lost,” Laurie explained.
“You can be very bad, and you can be very good. See, when you’re very bad, maybe you know you’re bad and you know you need to change. But when you’re very good and you keep all the rules and do all the right things, you think, ‘Well, I don’t need to change.’ But maybe you do because it’s all about a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.”
According to The Christian Post, Laurie shared that Harvest originally planned to hold a Utah crusade in 2027, but Kirk’s assassination accelerated their efforts.
“We immediately reached out to the Utah pastors to offer our support. We asked if there was anything we could do. They responded, ‘Come sooner. Our community is hurting,’” Laurie recalled.
“We responded by committing to a date only six weeks away. That’s a first for us at Harvest Crusades! Normally, we plan events at least a year in advance. But there is an urgency, and we believe the message of the Gospel is the answer.”
Charlie Kirk was killed on Sept. 10 when he was shot in the neck during Turning Point USA’s “America Comeback Tour” stop in Orem. He died later that day at a nearby hospital.
Authorities later arrested 22-year-old Tyler James Robinson, who allegedly targeted Kirk because of his conservative Christian views, particularly regarding transgender issues.
