Our Story

Gateway Church began in the hearts of Pastor Alex Ennes and his wife Shari back in spring 2006. In September of that year, they began full-time work on launching Gateway in downtown Cleveland.

They soon met Jason and Carrie Brumbach, and the Brumbachs became the first couple to help launch Gateway. Both couples decided to move downtown – the Enneses to the Warehouse District and the Brumbachs to the East Fourth Neighborhood. Within only a few months, Gateway Downtown had a launch team of about 12 people.

Gateway’s first public worship service was held Sunday, April 1, 2007. This gave the young church only two week to prepare for anyone interested in attending on Easter Sunday. After much hard work was put into finding a meeting place, Gateway received permission to meet inside Hilarities 4th Street Theatre, inside Pickwick & Frolic Restaurant and Club. The launch team would love to say they were clever enough to plan on launching on April Fool’s Day in a comedy club, but the truth is that the date was already set before they approached the club’s owner. Nevertheless, the church used those circumstances to let people know, “This is no April Fool’s joke. There really is a new church inside Hilarities comedy club.”

Gateway has steadily grown and 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 Street, providing free carnivals for inner-city kids at West Side Ecumenical Ministry, packing boxes and other projects with the Cleveland Foodbank, setting up water-filtration devices in Uganda and ministering to the homeless in Cleveland.

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