CONNECTING PEOPLE TO JESUS

our story

In April of 2006, Pastor Alex Ennes and his wife Shari launched the first Gateway Church in downtown Cleveland with a vision of planting multiple churches in the Greater Cleveland area.

After helping start Gateway West and Gateway Heights (now City Church), a small group was prayerfully sent out to start Gateway River in the spring of 2013. Although we planned to be in Rocky River, God opened the door for us to launch at the Crocker Park movie theater in Westlake. In 2015, we were graciously gifted the North Ridgeville Baptist Church building and property. It was during this season that we changed our name to Gateway Church. In the summer of 2018, Pastor Dan Ghramm replaced Pastor Alex as our lead pastor. Dan and his wife Amanda had previously helped launch Gateway West.

We worshiped, served, and grew at our North Ridgeville location for nearly 10 years. We grew so much that we were faced with the dilemma of accommodating an ever growing congregation. God again provided and in January of 2024, we were graciously offered a larger church building from North Eaton Baptist Church. On Easter Sunday, 2024, we began meeting at this new location.

We have since turned our North Ridgeville facility into the Gateway Outreach Center. Here, we serve the surrounding communities in a variety of ways. We host car shows, elections, community education, family events, clothing and food pantries, biblical counseling sessions and more.

We love our story! It serves as a reminder of God’s presence and provision. There’s more to our history than can be shared in this brief space. Join us for a Get to Know Gateway meeting with Pastor Dan to learn more!

Our mission

Connecting People to Jesus

As Christians, we are living testimonies of how lives are changed by the truth and hope of the gospel. At Gateway, it is our mission to share the gospel message of Jesus with the world both near and far. We strive to do this through a framework of: Knowing God, Living in Community, Making Disciples and Changing the World.

What we believe

Our core beliefs are found in the Baptist Faith and Message of 2000.

Our Leadership

The Bible teaches that every believer has a role to play within the body. At Gateway, we follow the Leadership Pipeline strategy which focuses on maximizing individual strengths while implementing multiple levels of accountability. To this end, we have various levels of leadership (Pastors, Elders, Senior Leadership Team, Ministry Directors and Ministry Partners). Each level is accountable to the others and meets frequently to discuss church administration and where God is leading us.

About Dan

Dan was raised in a Christian home in the state of Washington where he became a Christian at a young age. In high school, he felt the Lord’s leading towards pastoral ministry.

While studying Bible and pastoral ministry at Clarks Summit University, Dan met and married his wife Amanda. The two eventually moved to Grand Rapids where Dan attended seminary while he served in full time youth ministry at Grandville Baptist Church. After graduation, Dan and Amanda moved to Cleveland, where Dan became the Discipleship Ministries Pastor at North Olmsted Friends Church. Six years later, Dan led a core team to plant Gateway Church West in Cleveland’s Westpark.

After seven years at Gateway West, Dan and Amanda moved back to Grand Rapids, where he helped oversee planting churches for the Send Network. However, they could not get Cleveland out of their hearts. In 2018, they moved back to Northeast Ohio for Dan to pastor Gateway Church in North Ridgeville and for Amanda to continue leading Bridges Interpreting, a sign language interpreting agency.

Dan has a heart for community engagement, church planting, discipleship, counseling, and preaching. He is working on his doctorate in biblical counseling from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and hopes to graduate in December 2025.

Dan and Amanda live in North Ridgeville, where they stay extra busy preparing their five children (Elijah, Malia, Jacob, Joshua, and Sophia) to move out someday. Dan loves good coffee, home repair, tools and gadgets, and date nights with Amanda (definitely not in that order).

About Mike

Pastor Mike is from Brighton, Michigan and moved to Ohio after teaching Social Studies and Bible for three years at an international school in South America. Mike has a Bachelor’s in Education and Group Social Studies and a Minor in History. He is currently pursuing a Master’s of Christian Education through the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Mike has a passion for partnering with parents to help disciple their kids and students. He currently serves as Gateway’s Family Pastor. Mike also serves Principal at Christian Community School in Grafton, Ohio.

Both Mike and his wife Rachel have a gift for ministering to students and stay busy with their three young children (Madalyn, Benson, and Aaron).