February 2008
Ron
Eivaz
Relating well to the people of his
congregation at Harvest Christian Center is something
that Senior Pastor, Ron Eivaz, takes to heart. His main
focus is growing leaders up in the church that are spiritually
and emotionally healthy people, ready to live and minister
like Christ. Pastor Ron Eivaz is an engaging and funny
speaker, and his love for his Heavenly Father is obvious
through his love for the people at Harvest. We here
at myturlock.com have looked forward to our interview
with Pastor Ron, and we are delighted to share a glimpse
into his life with you. If you are interested in going
to any of the services at Harvest, or have other questions,
we have included their website. The office staff at
HCC is competent, able, and happy to answer your questions.
This church is growing and flourishing in a time when
churches all over the country are closing their doors.
They are building a new office space, which is almost
finished, because they need to remodel the foyer to
accommodate the many worshippers. The pastor was gracious
enough to take us on a tour of this new area, for which
we thank him. This is a thriving part of the body of
Christ, and it’s wonderful to be part of that
experience. And, of course, there is a complete church
listing for the city of Turlock, accessible from our
homepage, that we encourage you to look at, if you are
currently needing a church home.
Us: How does Harvest
Christian Center serve this community?
RE: One of the things we did for the
last nine years was a Thanksgiving outreach where last
year we fed 1400 people. That was the small thing we
did once a year. Now we are trying to be involved more
on a regular basis; whether it’s a weekly feeding
for the gospel mission or sending out teams to give
out sandwiches and share the gospel. We are trying to
teach our people that church doesn’t happen when
they are here in the building. They are the church.
In the workplace, or in the community they need to be
the church and demonstrate the church.
Us: Tell me about
your family.
RE: My wife is Jennifer and I have
a son named David who will be turning five in a couple
of days.
Us: What are your favorite things about
being a pastor?
RE: The coffee!.… I love working
with people. I love leadership. I love being able to
train and equip leaders. I would say that that’s
my number one passion. In leadership, you always have
a new challenge, whether it’s taking an organization
to a new level or taking them through a building program
or whatever it is, there’s always a new challenge
in front of you. If you’re being motivated by
training leaders and taking an organization to the next
level it never becomes mundane. There’s always
a new challenge in front of you. I love to teach.
Us: How long has this
church been around?
RE: It was incorporated in 1917, as
the Pentecostal mission. They changed the name in 1935
to Bethel Temple. It was that until 2000 when we changed
the name to Harvest Christian Center. If you trace it
all the way back to its incorporation, it will be 91
years in September of this year. I think we are one
of the oldest, newest churches in town. We are one of
the historical churches in town but I think we are one
of the newest churches in town because it seems like
the church within the last 7 to 10 years has been like
a new church plant. Not only with the name change but
really the whole culture has changed. The culture, philosophy
and the DNA.
Us: Where do you see
HCC in 10 years?
RE: I see ourselves doing more of what
we are doing now, reaching more people. I see ourselves
being in multiple locations. We have a vision for reaching
the city from the north and south so I feel we are supposed
to be in multiple locations. Continue to be more involved
with the community and with world missions. Not only
supporting missionaries, but sending teams to other
nations to do more hands-on ministry. There is nothing
like sending a team overseas because they will come
back and want to support missions a lot more. Even if
they go for one week, they will come back as missionary
supporters. You look back at the older generations;
they were really into world missions and really supported
them. Our generation, the younger generations don’t
just give naturally to world missions unless they touch
it, feel it, and taste it for themselves. So that has
been a real strategy for us. I would love to see the
majority of our church at least once in their lifetime,
go on a missions trip.
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Us: Because you pour
into others mainly, how do you keep yourself fresh and
spiritually fed?
RE: I try to get a few conferences in
a year. I am always on a daily basis listening to CD’s
and reading books that will keep me sharp because it’s
really easy in the daily routine of doing things and the
vast responsibilities in front of you to not sharpen yourself.
You have to keep yourself sharp. That’s a big thing
for me and has been for a lot of years. I will always
be listening and reading stuff that will not only nourish
me, but challenge me and sharpen me. Of course that doesn’t
replace my own devotional time. My time with the Lord
is number one. I keep that fresh and I really try to keep
in mind that I’m not spending time with God so I
have something to preach. I spend time with God because
I’m a believer. I always try to keep in mind that
I am a believer before I am a pastor. I’m trying
to make sure that there is enough being deposited in me
so I am ministering out of my overflow and not from the
bottom of the barrel.
Us: Harvest has several
conferences coming up in 2008. What are they, are they
open to the
Public, and what are the costs?
RE: All of our conferences are open to
the public. Most of them we don’t charge for and
some we do. We had the Financial Revolution Conference
that just happened January 27th-January 3oth. In May we
have our prophetic conference with Chris Vallotton (Bethel
Church, Redding) and Denise Goulet(ICLV, Las Vegas) In
June we are going to have the School of Worship. There
will be a cost for registration. We’re going to
have Dan McCollam, Rick Pino, Kim Walker and possibly
one more person. It’s a school
for worship leaders and worshippers. We’re going
to have workshops on worship leading and how to find the
flow of the Holy Spirit when you’re leading worship.
You’re not just leading songs; you’re actually
going in the river of His presence. The pastor and worship
leader relationship and how you flow together and just
different philosophies of worship leading. The whole worship
area is a huge thing for us in this church. In some ways,
we work really hard to do well at it. We really want our
worship to be the best. Not in competition with people
but we want them to come in and get a great worship service.
Not for enjoyment but to connect with God. Not just musically
be good but to be able to take people into the presence
of God. That’s what worship is all about. Then in
August will be our Holy Spirit conference with Bill Johnson,
Paul Goulet and Rachel Hickson. We’ve never had
Rachel Hickson speak at Harvest before. She’s coming
from the U.K.
Us: Does HCC have a
mission statement or a slogan? Would you explain it?
RE: Our slogan is Reaching the city,
influencing the nations. Our goal is that as long as there
are still people in Turlock that don’t know the
Lord, were going to keep at them to reach them. Our work
is not done. That’s kind of been shifting. A big
portion of our church comes from outside of Turlock. We
have people coming from all over Stanislaus County. A
lot of people are coming from the West side. Patterson,
Gustine and then of course, Ceres. We’ve been getting
a lot of people from Modesto that actually come to church
here. We are becoming more of a regional church than just
Turlock. We would like to have a school of Ministry overseas
and do different things to equip and train the indigenous
pastors. I don’t think we can ever go to a country
and be as effective as an indigenous minister that we
train and equip. So that is our heart.
You can watch Harvest Christian Services
at
hcctv.org
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