Harvest Bible Chapel - Church in Elgin

Alani

I love Harvest in Elgin!!! Definitely like one big family! Come as you are jeans and a t-shirt, shorts and flip flops.

Kristina

love everything about this place and the people there! the size can be intimadating but it doesn't feel big once you attend it feels like a family.

Scarlet

Two Fridays ago I spoke to Pastor Craig Steiner for 17 minutes on the phone. I was hung up on and left very disturbed and saddened by the call. In September, two of my close friends stood outside Harvest Bible Chapel in Aurora holding signs about the abortion holocaust and trying to pass out literature calling on the church to arise and work to abolish this great evil (nearby Harvest stands one of the largest Planned Parenthoods in the nation). My friend Matthew Wiersema stepped on their parking lot to offer literature to others, and he was arrested and charged with criminal trespass. If he was told by police to not go on the property, he does not remember hearing that from them. Prior to the arrest, a staff or volunteer member at Harvest brought my friends bottles of water and offered for them to come have a hot dog (which they were making). About two weeks ago was the court date that was set. I had hoped, and assumed, that Harvest would not show up to take a fellow brother-in-Christ to court for stepping on their property and offering Christian literature and that charge would be dropped, but I was wrong. I called Pastor Steiner to appeal to him to drop those charges, explain why we exhort local churches and to share about Matt’s character. He had a very hard-hearted attitude on the phone and said that he “doesn’t agree with our methods” and said over and over that this will be a “learning lesson” for Matt. I explained that Matt is a faithful brother-in-Christ who, in addition to working a full-time job, goes out on the street very regularly to street preach and evangelize, often goes before work and on Saturdays to local abortion mills and an IVF prison to proclaim the Good News, plead for lives to be saved and offer personal help and assistance. He has seen the fruit of a number of lives saved from slaughter. Last month, Matt and I visited a local mom who had just given birth who, many months prior, turned away from abortion at PP-Aurora when Matt was holding a sign and reached out to help her. A number of us, Matt included, have helped pay her rent and other expenses for many months because she needed to be on medical bed rest. Now that baby is born and alive. Matt is someone who fears God and seeks to obey His commands. He is someone who lives his life outwardly for the Lord, and is now being persecuted by Harvest Bible Chapel as they seek to have him “learn a lesson” from them for daring to go to their church building on a Sunday and exhort fellow believers to love and good works. Harvest is blatantly disregarding 1 Corinthians 6 when it warns against a believer taking another believer to court. I’m calling on Harvest Bible Chapel to repent and drop this criminal charge against a faithful, local brother and also to repent for a lack of love and good works towards the countless children that are being led to slaughter all around them. There are more than 100 churches in Aurora, Illinois. Why is it that a local abortion mill stands in peace with often not one Christian there to proclaim about the Lord, plead and offer help? Should local churches really be “above” an exhortation to repent and arise?

Angel

This is a place more concerned with their "good" image and positive "vibe" than they are for their neighbor who Jesus said we are to love. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’" Matthew 7:21-23. REPENT Harvest Bible Chapel, repent of your hard hearts and stiff necks.

Lawrence

Fantastic church, sound doctrine, good people. Best church I’ve ever been to. The spirit is alive and working here.