Gateway Fellowship started as a small group of 8 people in John Van Pay’s living room on Labor Day weekend, 2007. With a God-sized burden, they wrote down the names of neighbors on a piece of butcher paper. A mission was born to help their friends become devoted followers of Jesus. They invited those friends to their grand opening service on February 10, 2008, at Bob Beard Elementary in Helotes, Texas. Two hundred eighty-three people showed up and 28 of their new friends surrendered their lives to Jesus. A few months later, Gateway Fellowship was homeless because the school district wouldn’t allow churches to rent during the summer. God opened the door at the Silverado 16 Movie Theatre. A simple method of discipleship was embraced through a worship service and small groups in homes.

 

John received a vision to start Finishers, a church planting network. The purpose is to train and send teams to start new churches. Gateway’s first church plant, Camino Victorioso (a Spanish speaking contemporary church) had their grand opening on April 24th, 2011. On Gateway’s 3rd anniversary, February 13, 2011, the church announced City Fellowship Church as the second Gateway Fellowship Church plant on the westside of San Antonio. In January 2012, a team was sent to downtown San Antonio to plant the Gathering Church at the old Borden warehouse.

 

After growing to a church family of 1,000 and maximizing their space, Gateway embarked on 15 prayer walks from the Silverado Movie Theatre to 11.5 acres of land on Loop 1604. They boldly asked God to provide this land so they could have a permanent home. On December 20, 2012, Hobby Lobby bought the $2.4M piece of land and donated it!

 

Gateway doesn’t seek to be one large megachurch. It is their vision to be the catalyst for a network that starts healthy churches who reproduce the same all over the world. Will you join the mission?