The Barnabas Center is named after a New Testament church member who sold a field he owned and brought the money to the apostles to give to those who had need. Barnabas, whose name means Son of Encouragement, later became one of the early church's first missionaries. He and Saul taught in Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians. (See Acts 4 and 11 for more on Barnabas).

The Vineyard's food ministry has already set up shop in the Barnabas Center. A large warehouse with 2 large loading doors stores most of the food. The building also features a 642-square-foot walk-in cooler and a 140-square-foot freezer.

Missions director John Taylor said the ability to refrigerate food will significantly increase the church's ministry potential. "The biggest plus I see is that we'll be able to take advantage of free food offered by local farmers because we'll be able to store it in the walk-in cooler," Taylor said.

The cooler and freezer, which are worth about $60,000, were donated to the church. Taylor says that without this generous gift, it's unlikely that the new building would have anything but conventional refrigerators.

The food storage area also will house supplies for the mission field.
The health clinic is expected to begin operating in early 2000, Dietrich said. "Initially, it's going to provide health education courses and screenings," she said. Eventually, the clinic could provide a place for volunteer doctors and nurses to offer basic medical care.

The classrooms will allow the church to hold a variety of educational courses to give people job training, money-management skills and legal aid. The rooms also will be used to pray with people receiving services at the center. "It will increase the number of people we can help," Dietrich said. "It's going to be exciting."

We're going to have a facility we can grow the ministry into. It's the realization of a vision come true."