Divine Innovation (or is it Intervention?)

“The Columbus Dream Center is a volunteer-driven organization dedicated to providing hope to low-income, homeless and under-served individuals and families in Columbus, Ohio.”

Once upon a time, thirty years ago to be exact, Pastors Steve and Wanda Campbell built a ministry entitled The Better Way in downtown Columbus. This ministry started as a small safe-haven to hurting people, but little did they know that it would grow to be the one of the biggest outreach organizations in the city.

While Pastor Steve and Wanda continued to serve the people of Columbus, God was planting seeds of divine innovation into the minds of a young couple; Chad and Katie Fisher. Early in their marriage, Chad and Katie were given a book that described a ministry in Los Angeles entitled The Dream Center. While they worked to build their own church, they closely held this idea of a center of outreach beyond church walls.

Fast-forward to 2013, in a sandwich shop in the Short North, two friends met without knowledge of a shared dream between the two of them.  Pastor Steve and Pastor Chad had been brainstorming on the next thing God had in mind for each of their ministries. In the middle of one of their conversations, Chad asked: “Have you ever heard of The Dream Center? What would you think about starting one in Columbus?”

The most powerful God moment in that story happened at that exact moment. Steve then revealed that he and Wanda were part of the original founding of the Dream Center in Los Angeles. Ever since then, they had wanted to spread the idea of that outreach to other cities across the country.

In the next few short years after that discussion, Steve and Chad worked together to transform The Better Way into The Columbus Dream Center through the funds of Rock City Church, individuals, other organizations, and other local churches. With an increasing number of volunteers captured from the Rock City congregation, the Dream Center is able to reach the under-served, disadvantaged, and disregarded population of Columbus. Just a few of the things the Dream Center provides are free medical care through partnerships of local hospitals, discipleship through partnerships with local churches to help aid in addiction and other life-controlling issues, weekly homeless outreach, and holiday celebration help.

Today the Columbus Dream Center continues to transform the heart of the city, providing the hopeless with hope, the faithless with faith, and brings the Lord all who seek His goodness and glory.