Castleton Church of the Nazarene gathers at 7848 Allisonville Road in Indianapolis, Indiana, in the building it has occupied since 1988. The church bills itself as "A Church in Indianapolis" and states plainly that it is "a place for you and your family to come know and follow Jesus Christ." Its motto, "To follow Jesus, love and reach people for Him," shapes the rhythm of the week: Sunday school at 9:30 a.m., fellowship and worship on Sunday morning, Kid's Church for the youngest worshipers, a praise and prayer gathering on Zoom every Wednesday at 7 p.m., and service carried out through monthly donations to Shepherd Community and a partnership with Indianapolis Public School 96.
A Praying Church With Three Core Values
Castleton is a life-giving church in Indianapolis, committed to follow Jesus, love and reach people for Him. Its mission statement reaches much wider than one neighborhood: "The mission of the Castleton Church of the Nazarene is to make Christlike disciples in the nations." The church calls itself a Great Commission church, a global community of faith commissioned to take the Good News of life in Jesus Christ to people everywhere and to spread the message of scriptural holiness across the lands.
Its members are described as people who have made Jesus Christ Lord of their lives, sharing in Christian fellowship and seeking to strengthen one another through worship, preaching, training, and service to others. The historical essentials of the mission are evangelism, sanctification, discipleship, and compassion, and the essence of holiness is Christlikeness.
Three core values shape all of it: "We are Christian. We are Holiness. We are Missional." Prayer is the engine of those values. "Every great movement of God begins in prayer," the church says, and it saturates worship services, groups, and ministries in prayer, expecting God to work out his perfect will and timing in everything that is done.
That prayer is practical rather than abstract. Four questions are put to the congregation: Am I prepared for worship? Am I in a discipleship group? Have I answered the call to ministry? Will I pray and listen for divine appointments? The answers are meant to lead people into the seven characteristics the church follows: Meaningful Worship, Theological Coherence, Passionate Evangelism, Intentional Discipleship, Church Development, Transformational Leadership, and Purposeful Compassion. Every believer, in other words, is encouraged to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and to make disciples for Jesus Christ.
From Broad Ripple to Allisonville Road
Castleton's story begins in 1954, when the church started as the Broad Ripple Church of the Nazarene and served that community until 1988. In 1988 the congregation relocated to its present property at 7848 Allisonville Road, dedicating its new building and property on October 30, 1988. The church continues to describe itself as serving a growing Indianapolis community with the same love and passion it had at the beginning. The Allisonville Road building remains the center of everything: a worship center, a family center, classrooms, and gathering places for groups throughout the week.
A Sunday Morning, Step by Step
A Sunday at Castleton has a clear sequence. Sunday School classes meet at 9:30 a.m. and run until 10:15 a.m., and two adult classes meet during that hour, The Bible Class and The Living Letters Class. From 10:15 to 10:45 a.m. the congregation gathers for fellowship time, and morning worship begins at 10:45 a.m. The greeting for the gathering is "We Gather for Worship!" and the way out is "We Leave and Enter Our Mission Field!"
The service itself follows a deliberate order. Scripture is read, the congregation sings with a blend of traditional hymns and contemporary songs, and a "Kingdom Impact" segment shares how people are making a difference. The congregation prays, children hear a children's sermon, and the pastor preaches a timely message from the Bible. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is observed once a month.
Arriving is easy. There is ample parking at the front of the worship center and the family center, with designated guest parking spaces and handicapped accessible parking spaces. Families with children are expected, and the children's program begins in the same room as everyone else before the children are dismissed. More details for a first visit are available through the church's plan a visit option.
Kid's Church: The Whole Family in the Room
Castleton's children's ministry is called Kid's Church, and it meets every Sunday morning during the worship service. Everyone begins together in the sanctuary for the first part of the service, and after congregational singing the children are dismissed to Kid's Church, where they receive an age-appropriate Bible lesson and activities that help them in their walk with Christ. Parents do not have to choose between worshipping with their family and their children learning. The church wants to be an intergenerational congregation where children and families experience people of all generations coming together to worship and to live out a life fully devoted to Jesus.
That intergenerational idea runs deeper than logistics. Mature believers can walk alongside parents to help lead children to faith in Christ and a life of following him, and children in turn help mature believers remember the childlike faith of children. Together, the church says, they become a family.
Guests are treated with hospitality, with questions answered and the hope that everyone feels at home. Every Kid's Ministry worker has completed training and background checks through Ministry Safe. In the classroom the story of the Old and New Testament is taught through Bible character sketches and hands-on activities that reinforce the truth, pointing each child toward faith in Christ and a lifetime of following Jesus. The stated goal is raising up the next generation of world changers to love God and his house. Families can pre-register their children for the program.
Kingdom Impact: Stories Told Before the Message
Every week, before the message, the congregation spends time on Kingdom Impact, a special moment in which the pastor shares an inspiring story or introduces someone whose life is making a real difference for God's kingdom. The stories carry testimonies of faith in action, lives being transformed, and ordinary people doing extraordinary things through God's love. The point of the segment is emphatic: God is at work all around, and each person can make a kingdom impact.
People recognized this way include Tanya Wendell, celebrated for the incredible impact she makes through leading worship; David Featherston, recognized for his faithful service as technical director and property manager; and Herb Jensen, recognized for his impact as lay minister, Bible teacher, and church board member. Each is described the same way, as faithful in using God-given gifts and talents to serve the Lord with excellence and dedication.
Groups for Women, Men, Seniors and Sunday School
Castleton wants every person involved in a small group or Sunday school class, and it offers a range of settings for that. Women's Ministry meets at the church for Bible study and fellowship on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month at 10:00 a.m. The Men's Prayer Breakfast gathers on the fourth Saturday of each month at 8:30 a.m. Primetime, the group for senior adults, meets once a month at a local restaurant and is co-led by Deanna Jensen and Herb Jensen with his wife. Sunday School classes meet every Sunday morning at 9:30 a.m. in two adult classes, The Bible Class and The Living Letters Class.
The wider group family includes men's groups, women's groups, parents' groups, ministry groups, young adults, and youth. Individual groups are identified by interests such as single men, single women, singles, veterans, prayer, outreach, education, fellowship, worship, and the Holy Spirit, and each group notes whether children are welcome, whether child care is available, and whether it meets in the church building. Meeting times and other details are kept with the church's small groups.
Joining one of these groups is also the natural starting point for serving. Castleton believes in the "priesthood of all believers," meaning every person has spiritual gifts and a calling to be discovered and lived out personally and in community. The church says it will help people find a place of service where they can live out those gifts, and the invitation is simple: there is a place for all to serve.
Can Meat, School Partners, and the Building Fund
Castleton's compassion work is practical and local. The church calls itself the "can meat" church for Shepherd Community, an intercity compassion ministry center that serves the community in the near east neighborhood of Indianapolis. Every month the congregation donates a shopping cart of canned meat to that ministry, and it also partners by participating in events and sending volunteers.
The second local partnership is with Indianapolis Public School 96, where the church sends donations and volunteers to encourage teachers and students at the school.
Those partnerships have their own giving funds, alongside support for missions and the church building. Online giving supports the Project 26 Building Fund for the support and upkeep of the building, the World Missions fund through the World Evangelism Fund and Mission Special Offerings, Compassionate Ministry for the Shepherd Community can meat ministry, and the IPS School 96 partnership. The church quotes Luke 6:38 from the NIV: "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." Giving can be made online.
What Castleton Believes
The statement of beliefs names eight convictions. Castleton believes in one God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It holds that the Old and New Testament Scriptures, given by plenary inspiration, contain all truth necessary for faith and Christian living. It believes human beings are born with a fallen nature and are inclined to evil continually, and that the finally impenitent are hopelessly and eternally lost.
Salvation, for the church, is the atonement through Jesus Christ for the whole human race, and whoever repents and believes on the Lord Jesus Christ is justified, regenerated, and saved from the dominion of sin. Believers are then to be sanctified wholly, subsequent to regeneration, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit bears witness both to the new birth and to the entire sanctification of believers. The church also believes that the Lord will return, the dead will be raised, and the final judgment will take place.
Those convictions grow out of the church's identity as a Wesleyan-Holiness people. In its core values, Castleton affirms the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the historic Trinitarian creeds, and a "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" unity that calls the church to forgive as it has been forgiven and to exemplify the character of Christ. Because God is holy, the church teaches that the Holy Spirit seeks a second work of grace, called entire sanctification or baptism with the Holy Spirit, cleansing believers from all sin, renewing them in the image of God, empowering them to love God and their neighbors, and producing the character of Christ. Holiness, in other words, is understood as Christlikeness.
A missional people, the church says, is a sent people, answering the call of Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit to witness to the Lordship of Christ and to participate in God's work of building the church and extending his kingdom (Matthew 28:19-20; 2 Corinthians 6:1). That mission begins in worship, moves outward into evangelism and compassion, presses on toward Christian maturity through discipleship, and prepares women and men for Christian service through Christian higher education.
The People Who Lead and Serve
Lead Pastor Michael Dees, known as Pastor Mike, began his ministry at Castleton Church of the Nazarene on December 1, 2024. He teaches that the church should be not only a church that prays but a praying church, saturating worship services, groups, and ministries in prayer, and he says the desire for Castleton is to be a place where people follow, love, and reach people for Jesus Christ.
Around him, the ministry team includes Herb Jensen, a lay minister who teaches the Bible and co-leads the Prime Time senior adults' ministry with his wife; Deanna Jensen, women's ministry director and co-lead of the Prime Time ministry; and Tanya Wendell, worship leader. Charlotte Wetzel serves as president of Nazarene Discipleship International. David Featherston is technical director and property manager. The church has also welcomed messages from Rev. Bill Swesey, and Gayle Burlend serves as a pianist.
Sermons, Devotions, and Learning Resources
The church's sermon messages are organized so that a person can follow a thread. Messages can be searched by series, by topic, by speaker, and by Scripture book, and each message identifies the passage it draws from. The speakers include Pastor Mike Dees, Herb Jensen, and Rev. Bill Swesey, with series and topics that range across the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. The congregation also sings, prays, and hears messages live, since worship services are livestreamed on the church's YouTube channel for those who cannot be in the room. Archived messages are available through the church's sermon library.
For daily reading, the church points people to a daily devotional. Its learning resources cover the denomination's international ministries, including Nazarene Discipleship International, Nazarene Missions International, Nazarene Youth International, Nazarene Compassionate Ministries, global missions, mission teams, and The Cause, along with USA/Canada materials such as the Cycle of Resurgence, kids and youth resources, and the Preaching Collaborative. Gatherings range from Bible study and marriage events to youth and young adult activities, and each small group notes whether child care is available.
One Church, Many Ways to Belong
Since 1988, Castleton Church of the Nazarene has met on Allisonville Road in Indianapolis, and the pattern of the week has stayed steady: Sunday school at 9:30 a.m., fellowship at 10:15, worship with Kingdom Impact and a message from the Bible at 10:45, Kid's Church for children, women's Bible study twice a month, a men's prayer breakfast each month, Primetime gatherings for senior adults, and a Wednesday praise and prayer time on Zoom. Around that rhythm sits a wider life of service, including a monthly shopping cart of canned meat for Shepherd Community, volunteers and donations for Indianapolis Public School 96, giving toward the upkeep of the building and support of world missions, and an insistence that every believer has a place to serve. Castleton sums up that whole life with a single line: "To follow Jesus, love and reach people for Him."