What is unfolding at Pillar of Fire Church is obedience to Jesus’ command to make disciples. Men and women are learning how to follow Christ and the truth of the Word and passing it on. What started in a prison classroom has become a living expression of the Great Commission in a community experiencing poverty in San Diego.
Presence in the Neighborhood
Pastor Danny is a familiar sight on the streets of Southcrest, a neighborhood in southeast San Diego where gang activity, heroin and fentanyl overdoses are part of daily life.
“Hola,” he calls out as he walks to the store. “¿Cómo está?” he’ll ask a neighbor sitting on a stoop.
People know him. He lives a few blocks from Pillar of Fire Church, where he pastors, and is steadily present. They’ve seen him at open church gatherings, too, like the annual Thanksgiving meal and Harvest Festival where kids laugh and carry home small bags of treats. Over time, he has become part of the fabric of the place. “Every time we’re having a function we invite people in.”
One day, a simple greeting turned into something more. A woman stopped him, visibly shaken. Her husband had died. She had nowhere else to turn. Would he conduct her husband’s celebration of life service? If you had told Danny 20 years ago that he would one day be the pastor people sought out in moments like this, he would not have believed you.
“I never in a million years thought I would be a teacher or a pastor. That wasn’t my get-down,” he said.
Transformation Begins
His past tells a different story. Addiction. Sleeping on the street. Gang life. It wasn’t until he was sentenced to 20 years to life in a California state prison that something began to change. It helped that he arrived with a hunger that set him apart.
“I was very hungry for the Lord,” Danny said. “It was the Lord who taught me how to read. I spent 20 years in prison, and all I did was study the Word of God.”
Even then, it wasn’t enough. He wanted to go deeper.
As his 20-year sentence was nearing its end, a new opportunity appeared at Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Blythe, CA, where he was incarcerated. A challenging seminary-level program called Capstone had just been introduced. Part of World Impact’s The Urban Ministry Institute, Capstone is a four-year, rigorous course of study designed to equip leaders for ministry in the very communities Danny knew so well. It was unlike anything he had encountered before.
Typically, inmates are not allowed to begin Capstone if they are close to release and unable to complete the full program. Danny pushed back on that. He asked the prison chaplain for an exception, promising he would continue his studies once he was out.
He kept that promise.
It was, in fact, more rigorous than anything he had studied up to that point. The coursework demanded discipline, consistency, and a level of theological depth he had not yet experienced. But Danny leaned in. What had started as hunger had turned into commitment.
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A Church Takes Root
After his release, Danny finished what he had started.
Within days of coming home, he met World Impact’s Prison Ministry Director, Rich Esseltrom, who would become a mentor to him. Over a simple meal, they talked about what came next—what Danny felt called to do with the life he had been given back. Danny had already made that decision.
“I told the Lord if He ever let me out, I would serve Him all the days of my life,” he said.
TUMI became part of how he would keep that promise. He continued the Capstone coursework he had begun in prison, this time on the outside, studying and growing within a community that was doing the same work in neighborhoods like his.
As he worked through the program, his life began to take on new shape. Around that same time, he met, and began courting, Pamela, his future wife and co-founder of Pillar of Fire. She had a front-row seat to the change happening in his life. At first, she wasn’t thinking about church leadership or formal training. She had other plans.
“I was more focused on my career,” she said. “I thought I would just serve where I could.”
But as their relationship grew, so did her exposure to what Danny was studying. She sat in on classes, listened, and paid attention. The material stayed with her—the way Scripture was taught, the depth of it, and how directly it connected to life in their community.
Before long, she joined him in the program. They studied side by side. Danny graduated in 2017. Pamela followed in 2018. By then, they were married, had planted Pillar of Fire Church in Southcrest, and the work they had been doing personally was beginning to take root in a shared vision.
From the beginning, the training that had shaped them became part of the church’s foundation. It was woven into the life of the congregation.
For Danny and Pam, TUMI is a tool that addresses real challenges their community is facing. Addiction, trauma, broken families, and spiritual confusion require more than good intentions. Through training that connects Scripture directly to life and calling, leaders are equipped to respond with clarity and hope.
At Pillar of Fire, leadership is tied to formation. TUMI’s Fight the Good Fight of Faith and Capstone show up in leadership training, one-on-one discipleship, in small groups, and in gatherings across the church. Over time, it becomes part of how people learn, grow, and lead.
Strengthening the Wider Church
That rhythm has begun to extend beyond their own congregation.
Other churches in the area have taken notice. Some don’t have the capacity to host their own training, so they send leaders to Pillar of Fire. Those leaders attend classes, work through the curriculum, and then return to their own churches to serve.
“They don’t stay here,” Pamela said. “They go back and pour into their own communities.”
She describes it as something that spreads over time, as people carry what they’ve learned into the places they’re already rooted. The effect builds. Leaders grow in confidence. Churches become stronger. The work continues outward.
“We’re kind of like the glue,” she said. “People come here, get equipped, and go back to where they’re called.”
Also read: TUMI x God Behind Bars: A Moment of Faith and Transformation Behind Prison Walls
A New Generation Steps In
Back at Pillar of Fire, that same pattern is unfolding within the people closest to them.
Breanna, Danny and Pam’s daughter-in-law, several years ago became part of their household and their daily rhythm of life and ministry. What drew her in wasn’t a program or a class at first. It was the way Danny and Pam lived. There was a steadiness to it. A sense of purpose. Breanna had come from a broken home, the foster care system and abuse. This was a kind of peace hadn’t experienced before.
“I watched the way they were committed,” she said. “Church wasn’t something they fit in. It was their life.”
Her first step was simple. She went through Fight the Good Fight of Faith with Pamela and began sitting in on Capstome classes. What started as curiosity deepened as she began to understand Scripture in a new way.
“I realized I didn’t really know God,” she said. “Not in the way I thought I did.”
She stayed with it.
Through pregnancies, raising young children, and the demands of daily life, she kept showing up. The church made room for that process. Children were present during classes. Other members stepped in to help. The expectation was that people would walk through it together.
“It takes the church being the church,” she said. “You become a family.”
Over time, she completed the full Capstone program.
Disciples Who Make Disciples
As Breanna’s faith matured, she began to take responsibility for others coming behind her. She started a young adults group at the church, creating space for people in their 20s to study Scripture together and ask questions openly. They worked through Fight the Good Fight of Faith at a slower pace, allowing time for discussion and reflection.
She called the group Lit YA—Leaders in Training Young Adults. At first, only a few people came. Some stayed, others moved on. She continued anyway, trusting that the work would take root over time.
One of those who stayed was 24-year-old Anthony.
He had recently moved back to San Diego and began attending Pillar of Fire with his sister. The timing lined up with the start of the young adults group, and he joined in. Now he is working through Capstone himself. A few modules in, he has already begun sharing what he’s learning with others in his life.
“What I learn, I try to teach right away,” he said. “I’ll call my dad or my friends and pass it on.”
For him, the environment feels familiar in a different way.
“It’s like having a family,” he said. “What they teach me, I can teach someone else.”
Also read: The Future That Started in a Prison Classroom
The Work Continues
Back in Southcrest, the work continues the way it began.
Danny is still out walking the neighborhood. He greets people by name, stops for conversations, and invites them in. Over time, those small interactions build trust. People begin to recognize him, and in moments of need, they know where to turn.
Inside the church, people are learning how to study Scripture, how to walk alongside others, and how to carry that into their own relationships and communities. The process takes time, but it continues to move forward.
What started with a promise in a prison classroom now reaches into families, into a church, and into a network of leaders serving across the city. And it keeps going.
