Our Leaders

Pastor Lukus Counterman is our Lead Pastor. He enjoys visioneering and leading GGC in Word-centered living by means of preaching and teaching. As a founding church-planting pastor, he looks forward to continuing this ministry in Salt Lake City, training leaders through the residency program, seminary, and church. His role as a reserve chaplain in the Air Force has provided many opportunities for gospel witness and counseling. He is actively involved in the development and direction of GGC’s missions program.

Lukus holds a DMin from Dallas Theological Seminary and a PhD from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, allowing his ministry as an adjunct professor for Gateway Seminary at the Salt Lake School of Theology teaching site.

Lukus and Liesl have loved watching their children grow up in Salt Lake City. They have a son entering medical school, a daughter and son-in-law serving at GGC, and two daughters still in the nest. Lukus and Liesl enjoy ministering together in many ways, and look forward to more years of serving the church, for the glory of God.

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Pastor Will Galkin is our pastor for Church Planting and Revitalization. He is active in training our church-planting fellows. He oversees the ministry of Plant for the Gospel, the original ministry founded to facilitate the planting of Gospel Grace Church in 2012. Since Gospel Grace began, Pastor Will has served in preaching and discipleship, always seeking to make Christ known and to make disciples more able and energized to reach the Salt Lake Valley.

Pastor Will is finishing his DMin through Midwestern Seminary. His dissertation is in its final stages and will serve as a practical resource for future church revitalizations in Utah. Will and his wife Christy have served the church in a far-reaching way through Galkin Evangelistic Ministries (2005-2019) and now serve full-time in Salt Lake City. Will has been integral in team building for the Gospel Family of Churches, including Gospel Hope Church (Riverton) in 2017, Gospel Peace Church (Logan) in 2020, and now (2024) a new revitalization in Rose Park.

Will and Christy have five children, three in college or grad school, and two still at home. In the summer, they are very active with Plant Camps (mission camps that bring in students from across the country). They fill their lives with hosting, serving, evangelizing, and discipling believers and are a gift to Gospel Grace Church.

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Pastor Jon Kopp leads the Worship and Community Group ministries at Gospel Grace and coordinates our congregational leadership development. His intentional focus on personal discipleship flows into his leadership and counsel. Also a founding pastor, Jon and his wife Beth have integrated their lives into the church and the community surrounding GGC. They serve together as a team in counseling and hospitality. They are rearing three children in grace and truth, and their faithful lives bless those around them.

Pastor Jon has an undergraduate ministry degree and has completed the Formations Certificate from the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation. He is on track to finish a Master of Arts from Sioux Falls Seminary. 

Pastor Jon enjoys developing leaders from within the congregation as he directs our leadership development program, LEAD School that serves both Gospel Grace and our Gospel Family of Churches. His energy and pastor’s heart infuse the congregation as he leads the church in worship.

Pastor Jon enjoys developing leaders from within the congregation as he directs our leadership development program, LEAD School that serves both Gospel Grace and our gospel family of churches. His energy and pastor’s heart infuse the congregation as he leads the church in worship.

Contact Jon

Pastor Josh MacAvoy is our Administrative Pastor and Family Pastor. He oversees the day to day operations of the church, including church staff, deacons, and full-time residents. He leads the youth group toward Jesus, as week after week he preaches to the teens, oversees discipleship and youth group events. He directs a team of workers who help with our children’s discipleship through New City Kids Club, Gospel Growth Teaching Time, Kids Church and Nursery.

Pastor Josh holds a Masters of Theology from Heart of America Theological Seminary. His love for the Word of God is a gift to the families of Gospel Grace. He seeks to make Jesus the center of everything from a teen activity to an administrative meeting with church staff. 

Pastor Josh and his wife Christie serve the Lord together at GGC and are training their three boys in the works and ways of our good God. They originally moved to Utah to be part of another church planting endeavor in 2013, but God made it clear to them that GGC needed the MacAvoy family. Since then, Pastor Josh has continued to use his gifts to shepherd the flock here at GGC.

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Pastor Jotham Manoranjan serves with Guest Connections and the Young Adults ministry. He was trained through GGC’s pastoral resident program after completing his PhD work at the University of Utah. He then finished a masters in Bible through Maranatha Baptist University and was ordained for ministry in 2019. He met his wife Erika at Gospel Grace Church, in our original location on the campus of the University of Utah. They married in 2017 and have been blessed with two beautiful children.

Jotham is a bi-vocational pastor, and his days are filled with engineering, ministry, and family responsibilities. He loves to meet with people and share the Word of God with them. He is pursuing a PhD (Midwestern Seminary) in applied theology, on missiology, focusing on his home country of India. 

Spend some time with Jotham and Erika, and you will feel welcomed and encouraged in your spiritual journey.

Contact Jotham