Castroville Community Church

Castroville Community Church began in the fall of 2019 just months before the pandemic shut everything down.  It started as a family Bible study and dinner fellowship in the living room of Pastor David Simonson and soon began meeting in the Castroville Library.  But once Covid became widespread we moved back to his home and have been meeting (and eating) there ever since.   

Our Mission

It appears that many large churches work hard to create small communities from their larger ones.  Why do they do that? Because the Gospel of Jesus is best lived out life on life and that is hard to achieve in a large auditorium.  But it is much more natural and organic in a small, cross-generational environment.  We’ve decided, therefore, to skip the step of growing a large crowd only to divide it later and stick with a small group fellowship and multiply that instead.  We’re rediscovering, as it were, the beauty inherent in small, intimate, cross-generational gatherings where each person can contribute their gifts in a significant way.

The most important aspect of this model is that it relies on the church gathered to do the work of ministry.  As opposed to a large church model whereby the members can simply invite people to church and hand over ministry work to the “professionals”, a small group model keeps ministry in the hands of the community.  For when we sit down together to sing or eat and talk and pray it is the lives of the individuals that become the basis for ministry, not the programs.  The Gospel and love of God is transferred from person to person as we simply live life together as a small group community.