Matthew Barnett is well-acquainted with God’s calling on his life to care for the poor and destitute. As the pastor of The Dream Center in Los Angeles, Barnett and his staff perform that kingdom task on a daily basis.
But things have amped up since the coronavirus outbreak has hit the United States, and The Dream Center has answered the call to calm the fears of those who are in dire need. The church is now feeding more than 11,000 people a day during this crisis, believing in faith, like Jesus and the five loaves and two fishes, that their supply will never end.
“Basically, we are a hospital on the Hollywood Freeway,” Barnett told Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of Greenelines on the Charisma Podcast Network. “We have 700 people live here every day free of charge.
“We weren’t really sure of the numbers, and we weren’t sure of the ability to take on that need when they closed the L.A. school district a couple of weeks ago. We knew that there were thousands of people in our church. There is a lot of fear in the air. Our biggest move was to get all of our church and all of our troops in alignment to get ready.
“The first day we opened up, it was like wildfire. We only had two days of food reserved in our food bank to do it. We just believe that miracles will come along the way and God will be with us when we go. We decided to test God and go and see if that would really happen.
“Now it’s crazy. I’m just looking down right now to see cars lined up and the workers. You can’t really minister and preach the name of Jesus. You’ve got to just feed them and move on. But we found some ways to really be a spark as people are coming back because it’s their only meal to rely on. We’ve been able to say some prayers as they go by. I think the community is really being ministered to by the fact that one of the only people standing for them in this time of need is offering something free of charge, and that is the church. So, ministry is happening now and people are more open to it because we met the need first.” {eoa}
For more of this incredible story, listen to the entire podcast.
Charisma Staff