Clint Pickens has been working with troubled youth and with a special calling to abused children since 1990. His goal is to reach them with the gospel and then disciple them in the Word. Part of his vision is to provide volunteer opportunities and training for the local church to do the same.
Early Background
Clint Pickens grew up around crime and in a dysfunctional family. His father was shot to death by his mother in his front yard and his mother died 11 months later with cancer. He knows what it is like to lose everything suddenly like many of the people he works with. After the death of his parents, he lost his home, job and had to drop out of college all in about a year due to this. He became a drug dealer and meth addict. All of this has given him a background of compassion for those he works with.
While Clint was in the county jail for one month, he realized he needed to change his life. There, he read the Bible for the first time in his life. After he was released, he flew to California to get a job and try to change his life. However, he was unable to do it on his own.
After 11 years of drug abuse he tried to quit on his own; but he then realized for the first time he was an addict. Desperate, he got on his knees and asked if God was real and out there. If this God existed, Clint asked him to take the desire for drugs away, which God did that night! Later upon hearing the Word of God, the Holy Spirit came upon him in great conviction and he made his profession of faith in 1989 at Calvary Chapel Pacific Hills.
Introduction to Ministry
Since being saved, Clint has been preaching the gospel and teaching the Bible. He started working with Pacific Youth Correctional Ministries to youth at risk in 1990. He served at Orangewood Children’s Home for abused, abandoned and neglected children and in the Orange County Juvenile jail and as the Jr. High Pastor at his church.
After serving the youth in California for several years, he became a missionary to England and Wales for 20 years. He spent 10 years in England in an area dubbed at the time as “the third worst area in England” and started an outreach ministry there to the youth there. Then another 10 years in Wales, where he served with GO Ministries and as the Senior Pastor of a Calvary Chapel in Swansea and Pillar Community Church which he established. When he left, he handed over the church to a young man he had trained from ages 14 to 31.
Starting South Texas Youth at Risk
After serving in the United Kingdom, Clint came back to the USA in February 2017 as a full-time missionary to youth at risk. He started South Texas Youth at Risk, which is affiliated with Pacific Youth (Pacific Youth was established in 1984 and offers non-denominational, evangelical faith based solutions for some of society’s worst problems). As a missionary to youth at risk, Clint has to raise his own funding for ministry and living costs, so please consider partnering in this work.
Clint and Rhoda met when Rhoda would come home for her University breaks and attended the same church. They were both involved with youth at the time, Rhoda was working with youth in a deprived area of Scotland and Clint was a missionary in England working with youth at risk and helping plant a church there. They married in 2002 and have 3 children together. Clint and Rhoda Pickens continue to serve in the ministry to this day.