Greg Laurie Returns To Pirates Cove For JESUS REVOLUTION Baptism Event
By Movieguide® Contributor
Pastor Greg Laurie is returning to Pirates Cove this summer for a church-wide baptism ceremony.
Pirates Cove, in Corona Del Mar, California, was where thousands of people were baptized during the 1970s Jesus Movement. It was where Laurie was baptized, as well.
Laurie’s Harvest Church will return to Pirates Cove on July 8 for the event.
“The immense response from individuals desiring to be baptized is genuinely remarkable! It’s a clear testament to the revival that is happening in individual hearts and minds and the profound impact of the JESUS REVOLUTION film,” Laurie posted on Instagram.
Harvest Church isn’t the only organization that has used the iconic location as a baptism site. Earlier this month, Oceans Church organized Baptize SoCal, where more than 4,000 people were baptized in Pirates Cove.
Laurie spoke about this moment of revival, drawing parallels between the Jesus Movement of the 70s and today’s culture.
“God wants to pour His Spirit out. God wants to save people,” he explained. “Scripture says that God believes that no one should perish but that all should come to repentance. This is God’s heart – to reach this culture and this generation. There are differences between the late 1960s and today, but there are also many similarities.”
Movieguide® previously reported on JESUS REVOLUTION’s powerful baptism scenes and what was happening off-screen:
While directing the baptism scene in JESUS REVOLUTION, filmmaker Jon Erwin witnessed a dozen movie extras and one actor make real-life decisions to follow Christ and get baptized during filming at Pirates Cove in Newport Beach, California.
“I just insisted that we go back to the real location (Pirates Cove), which is not really film friendly,” Erwin said. “There’s jagged rocks and I have to tell (the film crew) to get equipment over them. One could say, as we do in many films, that we probably could fake it somewhere else and get the same look.
“But I really felt like I wanted to go back to the very place that this started. And in my entire film career, I’ve never felt a day like that.”
During filming with actor Joel Courtney, who plays a young Greg Laurie, the “real Greg Laurie was actually baptizing a member of the cast,” Erwin said. Actor Shaun White, who plays a Vietnam vet who is baptized, had been struggling with tough times over the years, including a drug problem. Laurie struck up a conversation with White and prayed with him as well.
“The real Greg Laurie was baptizing Shaun off the set just to the side as we were dramatizing, Greg Laurie as a teenager being baptized,” recalls Erwin. “Lives were actually being transformed on the set in a way that I’ve never experienced in my career.”
- Content: +1Share:
- Content: +1