Dan Minor grew up inside Harvest Church and Harvest House, two local institutions with the same family roots but different roles: one a congregation, the other a nonprofit, both started by his mother and father in 1984. In 2025, the nonprofit, which focuses on providing housing, jobs, addiction recovery and food security for locals, served 545 adults and children with housing programs and community-based case management. In the last year, its food pantry also served 6,256 people. The impact: 97 percent of Harvest House housing clients entered with chronically unstable income, and 89 percent exited with stable income. Now 45, Minor leads both institutions, as the pastor at Harvest Church and as president and CEO of Harvest House. This dual role puts him at the intersection of faith, housing, mental health and a universal question that’s more relevant than ever: Who gets to belong?

Here, Minor talks about being raised around “misfits,” the moment the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando changed everything for him, the fallout that followed and why he’s committed to building a faith community where safety matters more than certainty.

What was it like growing up in the Harvest Church and Harvest House family?

“For me, it was a place where ‘misfits’ felt normal. On the way to church, my dad would pick up people who didn’t have rides. Some had brain injuries, trauma and things that made them ‘different’ in the eyes of the world. But in the car, they weren’t different. They were family. Growing up like that, I didn’t understand the concept of who’s in and who’s out—the kind of clear boundaries religion can draw.”

You initially wanted to go to law school, then became an accountant. How did you find your way into ministry?

“One night, I had a dream about a sad human being, and I woke up thinking: What I’m doing isn’t touching the core sadness people carry. I knew I could do that better inside the church, even though it wasn’t a great financial plan.”

What do you focus on from the pulpit?

“My sermons are often about harmful theological burdens that have been placed on people—shame, scarcity and fear. That shame turns into othering, separation and believing there isn’t enough for all of us, so we have to cut people off—cut benefits, rights and belonging.

“There’s a lot of harmful, toxic theology in the evangelical world. A lot is being done in the name of God that, the way I read the New Testament, there’s no room for: bigotry, hate, homophobia, racism.”

Your sister Erin has spoken publicly about being gay and growing up evangelical. How did that shape you?

“I wish her coming out was enough to make me publicly inclusive. It should have. What pushed me over the edge was was the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando in 2016 [an anti-LGBTQ attack that killed 49 people].  I officiated Eddie Sotomayor’s funeral. He died there and was a classmate of mine.

“It was packed. I gave the eulogy between a drag Tina Turner performance and “Boys in the Street” [a 2017 song that follows a father’s move from rejecting his gay son to accepting him]. I remember thinking I was going to be fired in the morning.

“The board didn’t fire me, but we lost about 70 to 80 percent of our congregation and about that much of our income. People thought if they stayed, they were abandoning their faith. For me, it was the opposite. I felt like I was abandoning faith if I didn’t speak.

“I lost peers, friendships, relationships. People in ministry across the nation wanted nothing to do with me.
But when it comes to human rights, we can’t compromise, especially when it’s not our rights.”

What does the congregation look like now?

“It’s diverse. Retirees, middle-aged people, young professionals, families and kids. People of different races and backgrounds. Gay, trans, straight. Former executives, nonprofit people. Average attendance is now roughly 175 vs. roughly 300 pre-2016.”

What do you wish people understood about faith communities right now?

“Not everyone believes Jesus is Republican. People of faith are getting a bad rap right now because the loudest image is political. But there are a lot of people of faith who don’t believe politics belongs in faith. One of the most soulful moments of my life was publicly admitting to my sister that I had been part of harming her community at one time, directly or indirectly. There’s something healing about admitting you harmed people, then saying, ‘I want to start by listening. I want to use whatever privilege I have to help fix what I helped break.’”

Harvest House has become one of the region’s best-known human services nonprofits. Why did your family go in that direction?

“It started with the food bank. Then, in the early ’90s, we realized people coming for food often had addiction issues. My parents mortgaged their home because the nonprofit couldn’t get a loan and bought a duplex. They started an addiction program in 1992.

“The needs kept expanding: families, emergency shelter, youth, affordable housing. We watched people overcome incredible things in our programs, yet still be unable to afford to live anywhere. We’re working on Lakeview Village, a 25-unit affordable housing project for people at 60 to 80 percent of area median income. It will be our largest project.” [Approved in January 2026, Lakeview Village in north Sarasota is set to receive $2.5 million in Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery federal funding through Sarasota County.]

You’ve expanded mental health services, too. Why?

“We were doing case management, but mental health was the missing piece. The highest-trauma people often have the lowest access—transportation, child care, long waits, therapy hours that don’t match real life. Three years ago, we piloted a mental health program. Recidivism for men went from 42 percent to 14 percent; for women in addiction recovery, it went from 42 percent to zero. We had 189 participants. So we launched Wellness Within Reach and now we bring therapy to where people live. We provide about 4,000 hours of therapy to people in our care.”

What keeps you sure this work matters?

“There are moments that make it undeniable.

“One week, our director of family services told us about a single mom [in our program] who’d escaped an abusive relationship. Every time someone knocked on the door, her 8-year-old would grab a baseball bat, tell her to go hide and say he’d distract his daddy.

“And then the week before Christmas, we had a party. Church members adopted 39 families and bought what kids asked for, like bikes and guitars. Some of the kids didn’t even know what a wish list was.

“At the party, I talked to this little boy, and after I walked away, I realized that was the kid who wanted to grab the baseball bat to protect his mom every time someone knocked on the door. Now he was safe.

“Forget all the religious stuff. This is sacred. This is holy. I don’t care what somebody believes. This is about putting people in a position to put their lives back together—doing what we can with what we’re given so humans can have the lives they deserve.”