Boca Raton Community Church Focuses on Unity, Prayer, and Community Engagement

Matthew McDaniel’s journey to serving Boca Raton Community Church as senior pastor was, in many ways, less than linear, but one McDaniel says was marked by God’s extraordinary guidance and peace. After graduating from the University of Arizona, he worked in retail management, and a friend told him a church in Tucson was looking for someone to work with young people. From leading churches in Tucson and Ohio to moving to South Florida to work in his in-laws’ business, Aker Kasten Home Health Care, and then being voted in as senior pastor, the transitions weren’t jarring. It was God opening up opportunities before he even thought about them.

McDaniel describes God as a chess master, with all the moves laid out. He just needs to be where God puts him on the board. Boca Community and Boca Raton Christian School, their pre-K-12 school, were both thriving, but running as parallel rather than interconnected organizations. They have made intentional decisions to bridge those two ministries back into a holistic, unified movement.

The second decision was bringing prayer back as a basic heartbeat of the church, personally and corporately. Their church services are filled with prayer. Their mission guides their decisions: glorifying God by growing in Christ and going into the community. They are one of Boca’s longest-lasting churches and are stepping back into being influential as its community church.

Church culture demographics are hard. McDaniel measures their makeup against the people connected to this community rather than an abstract diversity target: Have they invited the people who live or work right next to them to church? Brought them to Christ? Served them?

They have longtime faithful members, young families coming in, and significant Brazilian and Caribbean representation, especially in the school. But McDaniel is convinced he can’t focus so much on who’s not here as on what he believes God wants them to do.

He ponders whether they can build relationships that lead people toward Christ, rather than fall victim to marketing, growth models, or digital disconnection. He is convinced each of them is gifted in ways that are strengthened by the gifts in the next person. He keeps coming back to Acts 2:42–47: devotion to teaching, fellowship, and prayer came before the people were added.

He wonders what it would look like for a church to use its giftedness in collaboration with other churches. It’s not just about a bigger church. It’s about a greater representation of the glory of God in South Florida. How is God being glorified in Boca Raton because of them? He wants other churches to consider that question as well.

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