He was six years old when he preached his first sermon.
Pastor Joshua M. Daniels, new at Saginaw’s Mt. Olive Institutional Missionary Baptist Church, says he would have started sooner, except his father told him he needed to learn to read before he could address the congregation. The Rev. Samuel Daniels was the family’s initial generation in the clergy.
“When I was four, five, I would have dreams that I was behind the pulpit,” explains Pastor Daniels, whose debut theme as a first-grader was, “The Baby (Jesus) Who Saved the World.”
He takes the reins from Pastor Marvin Smith, who has retired.
Daniels hails from the Houston area and his childhood experience and education extended into formal ministry as a young adult, and then his first pastorship in Beaumont, a smaller town 85 miles up the Gulf Coast along the Texas border. He moved with his family in 2021 to become pastor of a prestigious Los Angeles congregation, but the hustle and bustle and endless highway traffic were at odds with the slower-paced downhome lifestyle.
“To me, L.A. was not a ‘people city,’ ” he says. “Saginaw has more of a Southern feel.”
When he learned of the Saginaw opening, he was eager to pursue the opportunity.
Still, he says, the decision to move was based “not on the city,” but the historic role of Mt. Olive in Saginaw’s First Ward, what Marvin Smith often described as “the meaning of the steeple” that stands like a beacon on North Sixth Avenue between Norman and Farwell streets.
The website, mtoimbc,org, outlines 20 areas of involvement that range from stage performance to sports, followed with the summary, “A good measure of our spiritual heart is our depth of concern for other people.”
Daniels says, “This is a church that is alive, only in need of a shepherd.”
By obtaining nearly a dozen vacant lots that surround the campus, Mt. Olive congregants show that they are reaching beyond the four walls of the physical church.
As far as a possible future move if the First Ward’s overall abandonment continues, Daniels says the top priority is to maintain and continue updating at the current location.
His spouse is Arianna, and son Joshua Jr. is seven years old, between sisters Jarrington, 10, and Jenesis, 2.
So how do the kids feel about moving from Los Angeles to Saginaw?
“They are excited about seeing snow fall for the first time,” Pastor Daniels says.
