One thing that has changed my life, and many others, is what you point to at the end of your paragraph "It's not living on earth waiting to get to Heaven, but it's bringing Heaven to earth now as you live each day here". This really is transformational in how we understand the point of Christianity!
You say it wasn't necessarily what you were taught growing up and neither was I or most people we encounter. For most people, the Gospel is very focused on forgiveness of sins via Jesus's death. This can narrow our lens to only see one aspect of why Jesus came. For most people, the Bad News is that Sin separates us from God and the Good News (Gospel) is that Jesus died for our sins. While this is true and wonderful and we affirm that - we often ask our students this question:
If 'Jesus died for your sins' is the good news or Gospel, then what was the Gospel Jesus was preaching or what was the Gospel his disciples were preaching while he was alive?
Think about that for a second because the question is not a small or trivial one. The Bible tells us that Jesus came Preaching the Gospel - (Mark 1:14, Matt 4:23, Matt 9:35, etc)
It occurred to me one day that the Gospel I was preaching, mainly "Jesus died for your sins" was radically different than what He preached and how he preached it since he was not dead yet.
So what was he preaching? Matt 4:23 Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the [a]gospel of the kingdom
This distinction may seem small at first, but for us, it changes everything.