About The Author
About Derek Hansen
I am not the pastor who figured it out early.
I came to faith in Jesus in my thirties — not through a church I grew up in, but through a genuine encounter with a God I had not yet met. I was raised in the Mormon church, and the journey from religion to relationship, from performance to grace, from trying to earn what could only be received — that journey marked me in ways I am still unpacking. It shaped everything about how I lead, how I preach, and eventually how I write.
What it did not do was make the rest of my walk with God easy.
For nearly half of my twenty-plus years in ministry — years spent leading worship, counseling people, preaching on Sundays, and pastoring a congregation I genuinely love — I was what I now call a functional Christian. I knew all the right things. I showed up in all the right places. And when the lights went out, I was still wrestling with the same struggles I was helping other people through. On the outside, put together. On the inside, quietly asking God why none of it had actually reached me yet.
That gap is real. And it is far more common than anyone admits.
My wife Tina and I have navigated that gap together for twenty-five years of marriage. We have walked through evictions, financial instability, cramped seasons, and the slow beautiful work of letting God heal not just our circumstances but the expectations that old pain had quietly built inside us. We have four children. In 2019 we lost our oldest son, Clayton — and there is not a day that passes where his absence is not felt. That loss deepened everything in me. It made the message of this book not just something I believe but something I have had to stand on when nothing else would hold.
I serve as Campus Pastor of Dream City Church in the White Mountains of Arizona — part of one of America's most recognized church networks, founded by Tommy Barnett and led by Pastor Luke Barnett. I am grateful every day for the platform they trusted us with and the community we get to serve.
I wrote Saved but Stuck because I spent too many years in a gap that nobody told me was normal. Too many years managing what God was ready to heal. Too many years presenting a version of myself that looked further along than I actually was. And I believe there are more people living in that same gap than the church is willing to talk about honestly.
This book is my attempt to talk about it honestly.
If you are saved but still feel stuck — if you love God but still feel the gap between who you are on Sunday and who you are when nobody is watching — you are in the right place. You are not failing. You are not fake. You are simply in the middle of a process nobody adequately prepared you for.
And understanding that process changes everything.
Read Chapter 1 free and begin the journey.