It all began with a prayer from Carol Steingard in the spring of ’87. She prayed that a Vineyard Church would be planted in Barrie (The Vineyard movement, based out of California and led by the late John Wimber, is characterized by contemporary and intimate worship music, informal and relational services and small home group meetings, a belief in the supernatural activity of the Holy Spirit, and finding culturally relevant ways to reach out with the compassion of Jesus Christ).

Several families from the Barrie area were attending a newly planted church in a public school in Etobicoke which would become known as Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship.

In the fall of ’89 a house group was formed in the home of Doug and Laura Fearon. They soon outgrew this space and moved to Bill and Carol Steingards’ home. Greg and Barb Smith lead the group until Peter and Heather Jackson came on the scene. Peter and Heather invited Deb and Marcel Labbe to leave Hawaii where they had been attending the School of Worship with Youth With A Mission and become the worship leaders at this new church plant.

On July 13, 1990 the Barrie Vineyard Church had it’s first meeting at Timothy Christian School. Marcel asked “who’s here for the first time”? Ha Ha! We leased an office on Saunders Rd. and Dave Atton came on staff as Associate Pastor. Out of this office we ran a free clothing giveaway. Other activities started up like free car washes, musical outreaches, puppet teams, free food giveaways, and family camp.

Laurie Mills came on staff in 1992 and in 1994 we moved our offices to Brock St. taking our growing clothing ministry with us as well as a newly added food bank.

In October of 1996 we held our first service at 21 Patterson Road. We had 6 interesting years there hosting events for Life 100.3 as well as being the preferred venue for every youth band around. When Peter and Heather Jackson moved on to focus on establishing a school of ministry at the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship as well as do itinterate ministry, Dave and Flo Atton became the senior pastors of the Barrie Vineyard.

In the year 2000, the church left the Vineyard movement and joined with Partners in Harvest, which is a family of churches affiliated with the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship and led by John Arnott. The church became known as Gateway Harvest Fellowship. In November of 2001, pastor Dave Atton heard the Lord speak a clear word to his spirit, about Gateway becoming a “prototype church”, whatever that means.

Within a month Dave was asking Jerry and Pam Steingard to pray about the possibility of joining forces with Gateway Harvest and helping them to transition the church into the house church format. As of January of 2002, Jerry was taken on staff part-time to help with this transition.

In the summer of 2002, we began several home churches and in November 2002, when we sold our building on Patterson Road, we leased an office in downtown Barrie (110 Dunlop St. East, Suite 205). In early 2003 we also leased the office next door (suite 204) for a new ministry that was birthed out of our church, called The Barrie Healing Rooms, directed by Anna Castonguay. We hope this practical ministry of bringing physical healing in the name of Jesus Christ will become an inter-church ministry, not just a Gateway thing.

On the first of April of 2003, Dave and Flo Atton felt it was time for them to resign as pastors at Gateway and pass the baton on to Jerry. Laurie Mills, who has worked with Dave for many of these years as his assistant, felt too that her time on staff was coming to an end and she resigned in July.

It has been a season of change and transition for Gateway Harvest Fellowship but we believe the Lord has some wonderful days ahead for us in the next adventurous chapter of partnering with Him and each other. You are more than welcome to check us out.

We meet weekly in our home churches which are spread out throughout the city and we come together once a month, on the first Sunday of the month at 11:00 a.m, at Lion's Gate Banquet Hall on Blake Street. (with the exception of July, August, and September when it is the third Sunday of the month to avoid long weekends).

As of May 1st, 2004, our church office has moved to a storefront at 32 Dunlop Street West and we share the space with the Barrie Healing Rooms and a new ministry called "Healing of the Heart".