Our Story

Gateway Fellowship Church started with the vision of reaching people who are far away from Christ. We felt the best way to do this is to focus on people and disciples instead of methods or marketing. Everything we do is summed up in reaching the unconvinced, and making them life long followers of Christ, who in turn, do the same.

In the September of 2007, 8 people met as Gateway Fellowship for the first time in John Van Pay’s living room. Within the following months, a Core Team of 35 people formed and began making intentional relationships with 1200 unchurched friends. Out of that relational web, Gateway Fellowship Church started having public services on February 10, 2008 at Bob Beard Elementary in Helotes, Texas. Gateway saw a grand opening attendance of 283 and 28 salvations. By July of 2008, the church had moved to it’s current location, the Silverado 16 Movie Theatre. The move provided a more desirable location, atmosphere, and triple the space needed for ministry. At the end of 2008, Gateway had seen an average attendance of 214, 134 salvations, and 59 water baptisms.

By January of 2009, Gateway had moved from one service in a theatre that seated 210 people, to two services in a theatre that seated 340 people. The church began to deepen it’s teaching, engage in messy discipleship, and further the community outreach. During the Fall of 2009, Velocity Student Ministry expanded and started their own service on Sunday morning. At the end of 2009, Gateway had seen an average weekly attendance of 315, 106 salvations, and 49 water baptisms.

Easter of 2010 was the biggest service Gateway had experienced. For the first time the church had 3 services to accommodate the crowds, and the church saw 729 people in attendance and 87 salvations. At the end of 2010, Velocity had grown to reaching 80 students on a Sunday morning with 4 VTeams meeting throughout the week for discipleship. Gateway saw an average attendance of 487, 225 salvations, and 24 water baptisms

In the first quarter of 2011, Gateway has seen an average attendance of 525, 32 salvations, and 14 water baptisms. Gateway’s first church plant, Camino Victorioso (a spanish speaking contemporary church) began having preview services in January and will have their grand opening on April 24th, 2011. On Gateway’s 3 year birthday, February 13, 2011, the church announced that the second Gateway church plant will be in the inner city of San Antonio. The zip code is 78207 and is the poorest zip code in the state of Texas according to Wells Fargo.

In summary, Gateway doesn’t seek to be one large mega church that reaches thousands. It is our vision to be the catalyst for a network that plants healthy churches that reproduce the same. That we may experience a spiritual revival of disciples, that will be as diverse and different as they come, that will reach millions of unconvinced people for the glory of the King.

If you’d like more information about Gateway, click here.