Matt Barnett: Reviving Inner Cities
CBN.com THE DREAM CENTER
Matt Barnett grew up in church. His father, Tommy, is pastor of Phoenix First Assembly of God with over 15,000 in attendance each week – named “one of the three largest churches in America” by Time Magazine. As a young man, Matt dreamed of the kind of church that would be open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year; that would serve the inner-cities’ physical and spiritual needs, bringing a message of hope to the hopeless.
In 1994, Matt, then 20, moved from Phoenix to Los Angeles because his father was looking for someone to take over a small church with 18 people in the inner city. Pastor Tommy asked about 10 pastors, all of whom turned down the opportunity to pastor the tiny church.
“I thought I was coming to LA to grow a traditional church,” Matt said. “Then I got into the neighborhood and saw all the gangs and the violence. I felt like God spoke to my heart that we would open a church that would operate 24 hours a day.”
With all the brokenness around him, Matt realized he had to get busy rebuilding the people first before building the church.
“The social structure of this city was broken down,” he said.
One of six families is living below the poverty line. Over 11,000 people sleep on the sidewalks every night in LA and thousands of underage runaways live in trash dumpsters. Community resources are stretched to the breaking point, and most shelters have a six-month waiting list.
In 2001, Matt purchased an old 400,000 square foot hospital with 9 buildings. Today, the Dream Center, with over 1,000 rooms, reaches more than 35,000 people each week through 40 weekly services and 273 ministries and outreaches. The Dream Center also houses close to 500 people who are being rehabilitated from drugs.
“Hundreds of people are coming off drugs every day and hundreds come from around the world to volunteer to help,” Matt said. The Dream Center obtained special licensing so they can legally take in underage teens. Matt also pastors Angelus Temple located two blocks from the Dream Center.
“In the first four years of the Dream Center's establishment, prostitution and gang violence in Los Angeles dropped 73 percent, the homicide rate dropped 28 percent and rape dropped 53 percent,” said Matt, now 34. The mayor and city council have publicly acknowledged the dramatic impact of the Dream Center and praised its efforts.
In 2000, President Bush (then governor of Texas) visited the Dream Center and deemed it a model for faith-based organizations. One girl, Kristin, was an exotic dancer at the age of 18. She came to the LA Dream Center after she hit rock bottom and turned her life around. Today, she is a volunteer and enrolled in the discipleship program.
THE POWER OF PRAYER
“Every single turning point in the life of the Dream Center and Angelus Temple came from significant moments of prayer,” Matt said. “The Dream Center came as a result of prayer meetings. Every sustainable work we have done happened in moments of intercession.”
Matt believes that prayer not only refreshes us, but opens up to strategies where we can literally take back cities.
“We see the effect of prayer in lives all over the city,” Matt said. “It’s not just something to edify us; it unlocks keys to solve society’s problems. It’s after those crisis points that you dig deep into God. True prayer leads to action, then something is stirred inside of you to fix something in humanity.”
Matt says revival is not how long you pray in a church building.
“Real revival is when a community is transformed - practically, spiritually, and emotionally - where people who aren’t even believers, and those in government positions, know that change has occurred in the city because the church is there. With true revival, the city is transformed. Are people coming off the streets? Are lives being affected in a tangible way that everyone knows the church is the reason behind the change in the community? That’s revival.”
