About the pastors
John Eldredge
Lead Pastor
Pastor John has a Practical Theology degree from Christ For The Nations Institute and is ordained with The Foursquare Church. He served as a missionary with his wife, Joanna, in Quito, Ecuador. They have been married for 29 years and are the parents of four amazing children. Pastor John served at Gateway Christian Center as the associate pastor under Pastor Joe VanKoevering from 2001 to 2009. He and his wife were planted out from Gateway to start "Life Church" in late 2009. In May of 2023, Life Church merged with its parent church, Gateway Christian Center, with Pastor John as the senior pastor.
His hobby of "pickin" and selling on eBay turned into a full-time job a few years ago and you just might see him on any given Friday or Saturday checking out estate and yard sales. He has a great sense of humor and has been known to play the occasional practical joke. He also believes Star Trek is better than Star Wars. His greatest passion, however, is to love God like crazy and love people like crazy. "When we start to get that right, the whole of the Gospel falls into place."
Joanna Eldredge
Associate Pastor
Pastor Joanna was born in Panama, Central America, grew up in New York, and then in the early 90's moved to Florida where she met and married her husband, John. Both graduated from Christ For the Nations in 1998 and served as missionaries in South America. Joanna was also a teacher and director of the English department in a Christian school in Quito. Upon returning to the US, she was ordained as a Foursquare minister along with her husband.
John and Joanna feel incredibly blessed to have had the opportunity to homeschool all four of their children. Their youngest graduated from High School last year. While Joanna considers her family her most important ministry, she has enjoyed serving in many ministry areas including children’s ministry, youth ministry, women's ministry, hospitality, administration, social media and video editing.