Harvest Bible Chapel is an

evangelical Christian Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual exper ...

megachurch A megachurch is a church with an unusually large membership that also offers a variety of educational and social activities, usually Protestant or Evangelical. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research defines a megachurch as any Protestant C ...

Rolling Meadows, Illinois Rolling Meadows is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 24,200. History In 1836, Orrin Ford became the first landowner in the area that is now Rolling Meadows, staking his claim of in an area ...

. Founded in 1988, it has grown to seven

campuses A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a college campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls, student centers or dining halls, and park-like se ...

in the

Chicago metropolitan area The Chicago metropolitan area, also colloquially referred to as Chicagoland, is a metropolitan area in the Midwestern United States. Encompassing 10,286 sq mi (28,120 km2), the metropolitan area includes the city of Chicago, its suburbs and hi ...

. In 2008, the church was listed by ''Outreach'' magazine as one of the 100 fastest-growing churches in America. In January 2019, it was listed as one of the 50 largest churches in the United States. The church's current ministries include

Vertical Worship Vertical Worship, previously known as Vertical Church Band, is a contemporary Christian and worship band from Chicago, Illinois as part of the Harvest Bible Chapel. They are signed to Provident Label Group and have released seven albums through ...

and Harvest Christian Academy.

History

Founded in 1988, by Canadian-born James MacDonald, Harvest Bible Chapel grew from a group of 18 people meeting in a local

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

to a multi-site congregation of thousands. The church moved into a converted warehouse in Rolling Meadows, Illinois in 1995 and grew to include as many as 8 campuses; it added campuses in Elgin and Niles in 2004;

Crystal Lake Crystal Lake or Crystal Lakes may refer to: Lakes Canada * Crystal Lake (Saskatchewan) * Crystal Lake (Ontario), drain into the Lynn River, which drains into Lake Erie United States * Crystal Lake, California, a mountain lake in Nevad ...

in 2007; downtown

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

in 2009;

Aurora An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also commonly known as the polar lights, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of bri ...

in 2011; Deerfield Road in 2012; and

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

in 2018. The church's rapid growth led to its inclusion in Outreach Magazine's "Top 100 Fastest-Growing Churches in America" in 2008. In January 2019, Harvest Bible Chapel was listed in the Hartford Institute's database of American megachurches as one of the 50 largest churches in the United States. On April 25, 2021, Harvest Bible Chapel selected Jeff Bucknam to be the new lead teaching pastor

Associated companies and organizations

Vertical Church Films

Vertical Church Films was launched in 2012 to produce Christian

feature film A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

s. The ministry has produced three critically acclaimed short films, ''The Ride'' in 2012, ''Once We Were Slaves'' (retitled ''The Two Thieves'') in 2014, and ''

The Shepherd ''The Shepherd'' is a 1975 novella by British writer Frederick Forsyth. Plot ''The Shepherd'' relates the story of a De Havilland Vampire pilot, going home on Christmas Eve 1957, whose aircraft suffers a complete electrical failure en route f ...

'' in 2017. Vertical Church Films' first feature film, ''

The Resurrection of Gavin Stone ''The Resurrection of Gavin Stone'' is a 2017 American Christian comedy drama film directed by Dallas Jenkins, written by Andrea Gyertson Nasfell, and starring Brett Dalton, Anjelah Johnson-Reyes, Neil Flynn, Shawn Michaels and D. B. Sweeney ...

'', starring

Brett Dalton Brett Patrick Dalton (born January 7, 1983) is an American actor. He is best known for playing Grant Ward and Hive in ABC's series ''Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'', as well as Michael Munroe in the 2015 video game ''Until Dawn''. Early life Dalton gr ...

, Anjelah Johnson,

Shawn Michaels Michael Shawn Hickenbottom (born July 22, 1965), better known by his ring name Shawn Michaels, is an American retired professional wrestler. He is signed to WWE as Senior Vice President of Talent Development Creative. Widely regarded as one of ...

Neil Flynn Neil Richard Flynn (born November 13, 1960) is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his roles as Janitor on '' Scrubs'' and Mike Heck in the ABC comedy series '' The Middle''. He has had notable appearances in television series, ...

, and

D. B. Sweeney Daniel Bernard Sweeney (born November 14, 1961) is an American actor. Early life Sweeney was born in Shoreham, New York, on November 14, 1961. He attended both Tulane and New York University. Career In 1990, Sweeney starred as Treplev in Jeff Co ...

was released in nearly 1000 theaters in the United States on January 20, 2017. As of 2021, VCF no longer makes films at Harvest Bible Chapel.

Camp Harvest

Camp Harvest is a camping facility in Michigan owned and operated by Harvest Bible Chapel.

Harvest Christian Academy

Harvest Christian Academy is a preschool-12th grade school that launched in 2004.

Vertical Worship

The band

is connected to Harvest Bible Chapel.

Vertical Church Network

Harvest Bible Chapel launched the Vertical Church Network in 2002, under the name Harvest Bible Fellowship. It was a

church planting Church planting is a term referring to the process (mostly in Protestant frameworks) that results in a new local Christian congregation being established. It should be distinguished from church development, where a new service, worship center or ...

ministry which planted over 200 churches North America and other continents.

Walk in the Word

Launched in 1997, ''

Walk in the Word James MacDonald (born October 4, 1960) is a Canadian-born evangelical Christian pastor, television evangelist, and author. He was the senior pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel megachurch in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, United States and was the host ...

'' became the radio outlet for MacDonald's teaching ministry at Harvest Bible Chapel. In 2012, the program received the "Billy Graham Award for Excellence in Christian Communication" from

National Religious Broadcasters National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) is an international association of evangelical communicators. While theologically diverse within the evangelical community, NRB members are linked through a Declaration of Unity that proclaims their joint comm ...

. In 2014, Walk in the Word expanded to global television and, in 2016, received the award for "Best Television Teaching Program". In February 2019, MacDonald announced that the show would no longer be broadcast on radio and television, but would be available in digital format on his website.

Controversies

In October 2013, ''

World In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

'' reported: "As MacDonald and Harvest celebrate 25 years of ministry, they face a barrage of criticism from former elders, pastors, and staff who say the church leadership has operated in recent years with too little transparency and accountability". According to ''World'', a group of former Harvest Bible Chapel elders had spoken out publicly about their concerns, alleging that the church had a "'puppet elder board'". After three elders resigned their positions, citing a "'culture of fear and intimidation'", Harvest publicly reprimanded two of the former elders and removed them from church membership. In September 2014, Harvest and MacDonald apologized for their actions toward the two former elders and lifted the church discipline against them. In October 2018, Pastor James MacDonald and Harvest Bible Chapel sued two former members (Ryan Mahoney and Scott Bryant) and their wives, as well as journalist Julie Roys, for defamation. Mahoney and Bryant ran a website called The Elephant's Debt that had been publicly critical of MacDonald and Harvest. In December 2018, World Magazine published an exposé by Roys on the church and pastor, outlining an alleged history of financial mismanagement and authoritarian and abusive leadership by MacDonald. The church disputed these claims. On January 7, 2019, following a court decision denying the church's request to keep subpoenaed documents secret, the church sought to drop the lawsuit, saying that it had no legal means of protecting innocent third parties. McDonald took an "indefinite

sabbatical A sabbatical (from the Hebrew: (i.e., Sabbath); in Latin ; Greek: ) is a rest or break from work. The concept of the sabbatical is based on the Biblical practice of ''shmita'' (sabbatical year), which is related to agriculture. According to ...

from all preaching and leadership" on January 16, 2019. On January 25, Chicago radio personality

Mancow Muller Matthew Erich "Mancow" Muller (born June 21, 1966) is an American radio and television personality, actor, and former child model. Considered a shock jock, his career has been well known for controversy and clashes with the Federal Communicatio ...

, who described himself as a Harvest attender and a friend of MacDonald, publicly criticized McDonald's leadership, called for the elders of Harvest Bible Chapel to be removed, urged church members to stop making financial contributions until needed changes were made, and asserted that an outside group should be brought in to lead the church. On February 12, 2019, James MacDonald was fired from Harvest Bible Chapel after recordings were released of MacDonald making inappropriate comments.James MacDonald Fired from Harvest: Leak of “highly inappropriate” comments by founding pastor of Chicago-area megachurch caps months-long clash with critics.
''

Christianity Today ''Christianity Today'' is an evangelical Christian media magazine founded in 1956 by Billy Graham. It is published by Christianity Today International based in Carol Stream, Illinois. ''The Washington Post'' calls ''Christianity Today'' "evange ...

'', KATE SHELLNUTT, FEBRUARY 13, 2019 In the recordings, obtained by Mancow and aired on his February 12 show, MacDonald joked about orchestrating a plot to

blackmail Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to fa ...

Harold Smith, the CEO of ''

'' magazine, by planting illegal

child pornography Child pornography (also called CP, child sexual abuse material, CSAM, child porn, or kiddie porn) is pornography that unlawfully exploits children for sexual stimulation. It may be produced with the direct involvement or sexual assault of a chi ...

on Smith's computer. This move came after years of reports from former elders, pastors, and staffers accusing him and the church of financial mismanagement and other improprieties. On February 19, the church's executive committee resigned and announced other planned structural and financial changes to the church. Later that month, MacDonald's two sons resigned from positions at the church, and in March its Assistant Senior Pastor also resigned after the

Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) is an American financial standards association representing Evangelical Christian organizations and churches, which qualify for tax-exempt, nonprofit status and receive tax-deductible co ...

suspended its accreditation of the church. Further reporting by Julie Roys showed that MacDonald had used church funds to purchase a vintage 1971 VW Beetle (valued at $13,000) for

Ed Stetzer Edward John Stetzer (born 1966) is an American author, speaker, researcher, pastor, church planter, and Christian missiologist. Stetzer is Billy Graham Distinguished Chair of Church, Mission, and Evangelism at Wheaton College and Executive Direc ...

(contributing editor at Christianity Today) and Harley-Davidson motorcycles for several other Harvest members. On April 30, 2019, the outgoing elders of Harvest Bible Chapel issued an apology for filing the 2018 lawsuit. The apology asserted that even if the lawsuit may have been "lawful," it was "a sinful violation of 1 Corinthians 6", and therefore it "biblically should not have been pursued."

References

{{reflist

External links

Official Website
Evangelical megachurches in the United States Evangelical churches in Illinois Christian organizations established in 1988 Southern Baptist Convention churches Megachurches in Illinois