Adult & Teen Challenge's Harvest 2025 Initiative Reaching Thousands

With nearly three million lives touched and 29,000 decisions for Christ, Harvest 2025, an initiative of Adult and & Teen Challenge, U.S.A. launched in July of 2021, aims to reach more people struggling with addiction than ever before.

According to the website, the threefold goal of the initiative is to increase outreach, expand infrastructure, and improve effectiveness.

The statistics are staggering. Data reported from Harvest 2025 states there are more than 48 million people suffering from substance abuse and, in 2020, numbers showed a 30% increase from the year before. This is reportedly an unprecedented increase.

The numbers are overwhelming, but the Harvest 2025 initiative is rising to the challenge. With a goal of reaching one million people with the gospel, documenting 50,000 decisions for Christ, expanding its ministry capacity to include military programs, and graduating 15,000 from residential centers, which provide opportunities for educational or vocational training, Adult and & Teen Challenge is calling for a team of harvesters to help meet the needs of the demanding labor.

All over the country, lives are being forever changed by the transformative work of the Holy Spirit and testimonies of recovery are flooding the inboxes of national leaders.

Many of those testimonies are thanks to new programs, such as the non-residential program Ready Now Recovery which aims to reach the 90% of those struggling with addiction who will not be able to enter residential programs due to reasons such as children, debts, and jobs.

For one young woman in Arkansas, the Ready Now Recovery program helps sustain her sobriety after over a decade of substance abuse.

Having grown up in the church as a pastor’s kid, the need to be “perfect” weighed heavily on her. At 18 years old, she began stepping away from the Lord and by 25 she was drinking and smoking marijuana every day. She continued to slip deeper into her substance abuse and was abusing pain pills by the time she was 30.

“I ended up in jail and knew I needed help. I needed Jesus to save me from myself,” she says.

Now in recovery, she states that the Ready Now Recovery group offers her the support she needs to maintain sobriety.

“I am so thankful to the Lord for giving me a second chance. I’m also blessed with wonderful Ready Now Recovery leaders and a great support system of peers.”

Another participant states that following the worst relapse he had ever experienced, resulting in separation from his wife, he had lost all hope. However, through the Harvest 2025 outreach and ministries, he not only found Christ but was baptized in water and in the Holy Spirit.

“The transformation that occurred while I was standing at the altar was truly life changing,” he says. “My personal goal is to become a facilitator and help others learn what I have: that only through my Heavenly Father and my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ can I attain continuous sobriety and lifelong recovery.”

President and CEO of Adult and & Teen Challenge, U.S.A, Gary Blackard, states, “We’re very excited about the people reached so far, the number of salvations, our leadership development, and the launch of our small group ministry.”

As the initiative expands, so is the reach. Not only are participants being transformed, but facilitators are being blessed as well.

One such couple who facilitate a small group in California state, “we have been blessed with the firsthand experience of watching and helping others put their past behind them and start to build a new legacy for their life.”

However, Blackard also acknowledges that there is still much work to be done over the next two years.

“Areas of focus for us are to see more people enter our programs, more Ready Now small groups started across the nation, and to initiate more engagement in our 90-day outreach initiative, Project Reach.”

Rebecca Mitchell, chief development officer for Adult and & Teen Challenge, says, “This is a pivotal time in our society. People are in need of Jesus now more than ever. Evangelism is in our DNA and we will continue to increase our outreach efforts and believe God will continue to move mightily.”

According to Blackard, as the initiative enters its final stages, there is still a great need for resources, but the best gift people can give is intentional prayer.

“I’d ask our church body to be intentional in prayer,” he says. “Be specific about praying for the resources needed to be able to invest in our centers and in these initiatives so we can reach more and more with Christ. Prayer changes everything. That’s how we will continue to see lives transformed.”

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Ashley B. Grant

Ashley B. Grant has a master's degree in Human Services Marriage and Family Counseling from Liberty University and is a credentialed Christian counselor through the American Association of Christian Counselors. Grant also holds certifications in crisis pregnancy counseling and advanced life coaching. Ashley is a fourth generation Assemblies of God preacher’s kid and has one daughter and three sons.