Our Story

Gateway Church began in the hearts of Pastor Alex and his wife Shari back in the Spring of 2006. In September 2006, they began full-time work on launching Gateway Church in downtown Cleveland. Shortly after this, they met Jason and Carrie Brumbach and the Brumbach’s became the first couple to help launch Gateway. Both couples decided to move downtown so the Ennes’ moved to the Warehouse District and the Brumbach’s moved to the East 4th area. After several more months, Gateway had a launch team of about 12 people who helped get the church started.

The date was set that we would have our first public worship service on Sunday, April 1st. This would give Gateway two weeks before Easter to be prepared for anyone who would be interested in going to church on Easter Sunday. After a lot of work to find a place where Gateway could meet, we were given the go ahead to meet inside of Pickwick and Frolic’s Hilarities theater. We would love to say that we were brilliant and planned on launching on April Fool’s Day in a comedy house, but that date had already been set before we approached the owner. Nonetheless, we used that date to let people know that “This is No April Fool’s Day Joke. There really is a new church inside of Hilarities comedy club.”

Our church has steadily grown since its inception and has taken very seriously the idea of serving the city. Gateway has led out in picking up trash after St. Patrick’s Day with Downtown Cleveland Alliance, planting flowers and trees on West 9th, providing free carnivals for inner-city kids at West Side Ecumenical Ministry, packing boxes and other projects with the Cleveland Food bank, setting up water-filtration devices in Uganda, as well as ministering to the homeless in Cleveland.

We look forward to what God will continue to do through Gateway and in downtown Cleveland.