Hi. I'm Daniel.
I've been stuck with the nickname TH3DAN
for about 30 years.

Who I Am

A pastor who is still figuring it out — and writing about it honestly.

I didn't grow up thinking I'd be a pastor. Honestly, the people who knew me best would have laughed at the suggestion.

I went to USC, earned a BS in Public Policy and Management, and had a plan — law school, then whatever version of success I'd been building toward my whole life. I was good at building things. I was also good at making myself the center of them. I left USC, moved back to Bakersfield, and married my high school girlfriend, Mariana — which, if you knew me then, was probably the first genuinely good decision I'd made in a while. Coming home also meant coming back to faith. Not casually. I gave my life back to Jesus, and that meant looking around at the wreckage of a life built on self-reliance and selfishness and realizing I had a lot of people to apologize to. I made those calls. Some of them were hard.

I didn't become a pastor. I became an entrepreneur. I built a Data Center Infrastructure company. I co-founded a UCaaS and VoIP company. I bought a CrossFit gym. I was in business, and I was reasonably good at it, and I was genuinely trying to follow Jesus while doing it — which turns out to be more complicated than it sounds.

What I loved during that season was being a lay elder. Serving in the church without being upfront. Helping carry something without being the face of it. That felt like the right lane for me. I wasn't built for a stage. I didn't have a seminary degree. I didn't have a theological pedigree. I had a business background, a complicated past, and a genuine love for the local church.

Then God apparently decided my reluctance was not a disqualifier.

I've been the Lead Pastor at Resurrection Church in Bakersfield since 2021. What has happened here has almost nothing to do with my qualifications — and almost everything to do with His stubborn grace. God is moving. People are coming to Christ. Baptisms are happening in bulk. We are genuinely amazed by it. We love to call ourselves the island of misfit toys — the kind of church where you don't have to look the part to belong. I joked recently that I need to get some tattoos just so I fit in.

We are not a polished megachurch. I am not a famous pastor. There is no bottomless budget.

We are a church that God seems to be doing something in — despite the person leading it. That "despite me" reality is at the center of everything I write.