Delivering nearly 25 meals to those in need wasn't exactly the plan for God's Welcome Table. But that is the direction the ministry took Liza Earls and Vicki Pryor.

God's Welcome Table, a ministry of New Gainesville Seventh-day Adventist Church, provides meals for those in need on Monday evenings in the Floyd Road area of Gainesville.

"When we first started out we had a few people that would come every Monday, and now we are just mainly doing deliveries," said Earls, the personal ministry leader at the church. "We wanted to kind of do a food ministry where we could also share the Gospel of Jesus - the two connected together."

Earls added that the goal of the ministry isn't necessarily to gain new members.

"It really is an outreach," she said. "We want people to know that we are here and we have this ministry available to the people that are in need."

The goal each week, for Earls and Pryor, is to prepare a hot and healthy meal.

"Tonight I made Italian pole beans, yellow rice and this is vegetarian meat, soy protein," said Pryor, community service leader at the church. "We are trying to be health conscious and follow our health message."

That health message is based on the Levitical laws and puts a "strong emphasis on plain and simply prepared foods," according to the Seventh-day Adventist Dietetic Association Web site.

But God's Welcome Table focuses on more than just delivering food.

"We've been in this community almost 25 years and a lot of people still don't know the New Gainesville Seventh-day Adventist Church and who we are, what we stand for," said Earls, a member of the church for nine years. "People sometimes just need someone to talk to and they enjoy us coming by. We have conversations with them, and it kind of makes their week go by faster. It really warms our hearts and we really enjoy it."

The church helps the community through other ministries, as well.

"We assist in different ways, too, not only the food ministry, but we provide medication if someone needs a prescription," said Pryor who has been a member of the church for 18 years. "We help with clothing, electricity bills. ... We would like to do more. But as people give us referrals, and the more we get out into the community ... We are planning to do more."