Purpose
The purpose of Harvest Bible University is to help all churches and Christians fulfill the Great Commission of Jesus Christ throughout the world. Jesus said, All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Matt. 28:18–20).
Harvest Bible University helps Christians get the education they need by making Bible university affordable for people who are not able to pay thousands of dollars per year to attend a major Bible university. It makes Bible education available by its location right in the city. It makes Bible education achievable for people of all ethnic and socioeconomic groups. Harvest makes Bible education practical for those who want an education that focuses on training in the Bible, ministry, and the Christian life. And Harvest helps churches by developing loyal, competent members who will work with the pastor as he or she leads. Just what you’ve been looking for.
Vision
Today’s world: An endless sea of problems. Violence in schools, neighborhoods, and nations; bankrupt individuals, companies, and governments; fragmentation of lives, communities, nations, and continents; drugs, sexual promiscuity, AIDS, corrupt politicians, pollution. You know all about it.
God has never yet been taken by surprise. Even as He had a solution when Adam and Eve sinned, so He has solutions for the problems of today. Jesus Christ said simply, I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18). Never has the need been greater for God’s people to regroup and bring revival; and the best way to see it happen is to strengthen and multiply churches.
The key to changing society is the presence of the kingdom of God. Its presence comes as people turn to Christ, churches are formed, and believers live and do the works of Christ. This includes prayer, righteous living, evangelism, serving others, feeding the poor, healing the sick, teaching the Word, working and speaking out against evil, church planting, and much more. Through these and other methods believers engage in a series of power encounters with the enemy. The greater the number of successful encounters the further darkness is pushed back.
For example, two Harvest students, a married couple in Compton, California, received Christ several years ago. Their street was lined with drug dealers, prostitutes, junkies, and gang members. People dumped loads of trash in the street regularly and shootings were common. This couple organized a prayer group for their neighborhood and then walked their street weekly, praying over it. Today the junkies, prostitutes, drug dealers, and gangs are gone. The shootings have ceased; trash is no longer dumped in the streets; and children are once again playing in the streets safely.
Some years ago a church that several Harvest students attend moved into a new neighborhood in central L.A. It was a dangerous and filthy neighborhood with someone shot every week. Today, the neighborhood is quiet, peaceful, and safe due to the presence of God’s people who bring hope and sanity, love and caring, prayer, and the Spirit of God.
When the riots were in full swing at U.C. Berkeley, 600 Christians staged a “spiritual blitz,” saturating every part of the university with the gospel for a week. Many radicals, student leaders, instructors, and other people were converted. The presence of the Holy Spirit was felt throughout the campus. For the next three years there were no riots or demonstrations whatsoever. The radicals constantly blamed the Christians for “ruining their movement.” We can crash the devil’s party where we live, too.
Prophetic witness, prayer, evangelism, helping the poor, loans to entrepreneurs in the “majority world,”—these and many other methods are being used by Christians to attack the evil that grips cities around the world. The Wesleyan revival of the 1700s demonstrated that complete societal change is possible when 2 1/2 percent of a nation becomes sold-out Christians.
Spring vacation outreaches on the beaches at Newport and Balboa, California, showed how 400 determined believers could stop the wild parties and lawlessness of 100,000 people in just four years. Successful local church campaigns against “adult” theaters in Long Beach and Norwalk, California, as well as churches preventing a gambling casino in Pico Rivera, prove that darkness can be pushed out of the city by light.
The evil systems controlling the city and the region can be overthrown. When Christians bring churches and the kingdom of God to thousands of blocks in the city, massive change will occur.
Philosophy
Harvest Bible University is interdenominational and has been established to work in concert with churches and other ministries in the area who want to see a rapid increase in the number and effectiveness of churches in the city.
Harvest leaves people’s ethnicity and socioeconomic identity intact. It is a multi-ethnic school that helps each group develop its own approach to reaching its people for Christ. Harvest is designed for regular people who will never be able to afford a major Christian university education; for people who come from oral tradition cultures and therefore do not fit in well with the dominant academic establishment; and for people who have been “marginalized” by “the system” for any number of other reasons.
Harvest is designed to develop character, Bible knowledge, relationship with God, and ministry competency. It uses only teachers who are spiritually mature and have ministries themselves; who teach from experience as well as academic preparation. Every teacher is gifted with the ability to make the classroom come alive, to cause learning and life-change right in the room with little outside homework needed. Harvest is designed for working people with families who are active in their own churches and, therefore, do not have great amounts of time for schooling.
History
Harvest Bible University was founded in Los Angeles in 1994. It has since opened campuses in other cities in the United States and 24 other nations. Harvest students and teachers have planted over 1,000 churches since the university began.
Harvest Bible University Schools
Harvest Bible University is actually three schools in one: A Bible school, a graduate school of intercultural studies (mission), and a seminary. Each of the schools offers degrees appropriate to the purpose of the school and its student body.
Due to the decentralized nature of the university, many of the same courses are used in the various degree programs. But the number of units required and the balance of courses is different in each case. See the Degree Descriptions section of the catalog for specifics.
Harvest School of the Bible
The School of the Bible includes all undergraduate programs—certificate, associate, diploma, and bachelor’s. This is the division that continues the primary purpose for which Harvest was founded many years ago: To help fulfill the Great Commission through the development of individuals who will plant, renew, and multiply churches in the urban centers of the world, including training and developing lay leadership for churches, and providing Bible education for all Christians which is balanced, life-related, and grounded in Biblical principles and church history.
Harvest School of Intercultural Studies
Since the purpose of Harvest is to facilitate the fulfillment of the Great Commission, the School of Intercultural Studies is designed to prepare people specifically to penetrate new areas with the gospel, usually through starting new works, but also through support to existing missions. The latest “cutting-edge” concepts are taught, and the student is introduced to the work of today’s leaders. The school offers Master of Missions and Doctor of Ministry degrees.
Jesus said, This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all nations, and then the end will come (Matt. 24:14).
Harvest School of Theology
The School of Theology provides graduate level seminary education for those who are preparing for the professional ministry and for others who want to excel in their quest for knowledge and effectiveness in the kingdom of God. The degrees include Master of Ministry as a basic graduate degree, Master of Divinity, a first-professional degree, and Doctor of Ministry as the highest level professional degree.
Location & Facilities
Harvest Bible University meets in the facilities of churches in urban areas, with large, clean, comfortable classrooms and chapels, and other amenities. In each case there is abundant free parking right next to the building.
For the location nearest you, call the number in the front of this catalog.
Countries with Harvest Campuses
• Canada • Costa Rica • Ghana • Guatemala • India • Indonesia • Japan • Kenya
• Korea • Malaysia • Mexico • Mongolia • Myanmar (Burma) • Nigeria • Philippines • Russia
• Singapore • Sri Lanka • Taiwan • Thailand • Uganda • Ukraine • United States • Zambia
Affiliation
Harvest Bible University is a member of the Association of Christian Schools, International (ACSI) and the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE).
Accreditation
Harvest Bible University is fully accredited by Accrediting Commission International, an association of over three hundred Christian schools, colleges, universities, and seminaries in the United States and other nations.
Statement of Faith
WE BELIEVE that God is the eternal King. His kingdom is everlasting. He reigns in absolute holiness, justice, and love. From all eternity He exists as the One living and True God in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, equal in power and glory. As Father He is the source of all things; as Son He is the mediator of all things; as Spirit He is the sanctifier of all things.
WE BELIEVE that from His eternal throne, through His Son, His eternal Word, God created, upholds, and governs all that exists: the heavenly places, the angelic hosts, the universe, the earth, all living things, and man, and it is good.
WE BELIEVE that Satan, originally a great, good angel, rebelled against God, taking a host of angels with him, was cast out of God’s presence and established a counter-kingdom of darkness and evil on the earth.
WE BELIEVE that God created man in His image, male and female, for relationship with Himself and to govern the earth. Under the temptation of Satan to become their own gods, our original parents fell from grace, bringing sin, sickness, and God’s judgment of death to the earth. Through the fall, Satan and his demonic hosts gained access to God’s good creation. Creation now experiences the consequences and effects of Adam’s sin, and is subject to God’s judgment of death and Satan’s kingdom of darkness.
WE BELIEVE that God did not abandon His rule over the earth which He continues to uphold by His providence. Starting with Abraham, He established His covenant of grace, binding Himself unconditionally to His people Israel, promising to redeem them from bondage to sin and Satan, and to bless all the nations through them.
WE BELIEVE that as King, God later redeemed His people by His mighty acts from bondage in Egypt and established His covenant of law, revealing His perfect will and our obligation to fulfill it. The law’s purpose is to order our fallen race and to make us conscious of our moral responsibility. It convicts us of our sin and God’s righteous judgment against us, and brings us to Christ alone for salvation.
WE BELIEVE that when Israel rejected God’s rule over her as King, God established a monarch in Israel and made an unconditional covenant with David, promising that his heir would restore God’s kingdom reign over His people as Messiah forever.
WE BELIEVE that in the fullness of time, God honored His covenants with Israel and His prophetic promises of salvation by sending His Only begotten Son, Jesus, into the world to deliver us from Satan’s kingdom, to die for our sins, to be raised from the dead, and to fulfill the covenant of blessing given to Abraham.
Jesus, God’s Messiah, was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, as fully God and fully man. He is humanity as God intended us to be. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, Jesus inaugurated God’s kingdom reign on earth, overpowering the reign of Satan by resisting temptation, healing the sick, casting out demons, and raising the dead. Gathering His disciples, He reconstituted God’s people as His Church to be the instrument of His kingdom.
In His sinless, perfect life, Jesus met the demands of the covenant of the law; and in His atoning death on the Cross, He took God’s judgment for sin which we deserve as lawbreakers and thereby disarmed the demonic powers.
The covenant with David was fulfilled in Jesus’ birth from David’s house, His Messianic ministry, His glorious resurrection from the dead, His ascent into heaven, and His present rule at the right hand of the Father. As God’s Son and David’s heir, He is the eternal Messiah King, advancing God’s reign throughout every generation and throughout the whole earth today.
WE BELIEVE that the Father and the Son poured out the Holy Spirit on the Church on Pentecost in power, baptizing them in the Body of Christ and releasing the gifts of the Spirit in Jesus’ disciples. The Spirit brings the permanent indwelling presence of Jesus to us for spiritual worship, personal sanctification, building up the church, gifting for ministry, and driving back the kingdom of Satan by the evangelization of the world.
WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit indwells every believer in Jesus Christ and that He is our abiding Helper, Teacher, and Guide. We believe in the filling or empowering of the Holy Spirit, often a conscious experience, for ministry today. We believe in the present ministry of the Spirit and in the exercise of all of the biblical gifts of the Spirit. We believe in the laying on of hands for the empowering of the Spirit, for healing, and for recognition and empowering of those whom God has ordained to lead and serve the church.
WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit has inspired the human authors of Holy Scripture so that they have delivered the written Word of God to the church without error. We receive the Books of the Old and New Testaments as our final, absolute authority, the only rule of faith and practice.
WE BELIEVE that the whole world is under the domination of Satan and that all people are sinners by nature and choice. We all, therefore, are under God’s just judgment. Through the preaching of the Good News of Jesus and the kingdom of God and the work of the Holy Spirit, God regenerates and baptizes by the Spirit all who repent of their sins and confess Jesus Christ as Lord and King. By this they are released from Satan’s domain and enter into God’s kingdom reign.
WE BELIEVE that all who repent of their sins and receive Jesus as Lord and Savior are regenerated by the Holy Spirit and form the universal church, the living Body of which Christ is the head and all are members.
WE BELIEVE that Jesus Christ committed two ordinances to the church: water baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Both are available to all believers.
WE BELIEVE that God’s kingdom has come in the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, that it continues to come in the ministry of the Spirit through the church, and that it will be consummated in the glorious, visible, and triumphant appearing of Christ. His return to the earth as King will be the final defeat of Satan and all of his minions and works, the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment, and the eternal blessing of the righteous and eternal punishment of the wicked. Finally, God will be all in all and His kingdom, His rule and reign, will be fulfilled in the new heavens and the new earth, recreated by His mighty power, in which righteousness dwells and in which He will forever be worshiped.
Nondiscrimination Policy
Harvest Bible University admits students of any race, color, or national or ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national or ethnic origin in the administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, and other school-administered programs.
Funding
“My God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). The great missionary Hudson Taylor said, “God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply. He is too wise a God to frustrate His purposes for lack of funds.” Harvest was raised up by the Lord, and He has always provided for it through the people He moves to give, rather than through our trying to raise money. Since many of these people have asked if they can give electronically rather than by mailing a check, we are including this donate button.
