About Us - A Fruitful Life

Rick Clendenen was born the youngest of fourteen children in a coal-mining town in Harlan County in eastern Kentucky. He was raised in a Christian home and his grandfather was a Pentecostal preacher. He became a Christian at age 17 and received a call to the ministry in 1974.

He served as a pastor of a church in North Texas for four years before joining the staff of Christian Fellowship Church in Benton, Kentucky. He and his wife Debbie committed themselves to serve others quietly behind the scenes during fifteen years of volunteer support service there. As a result of a burden to help people become functional in the Body of Christ, he taught workshops to help believers discover their spiritual gifts.

In 1996, Rick made his first mission trip to Kenya marking his promotion to international ministry. Since that time, he has taught the principals of supportive ministry in fifteen nations, training and equipping leaders and establishing new churches. He traveled to 35 nations and logged hundreds of thousands of miles both here and abroad. In 2008, Rick Clendenen Ministries, Inc. was formed. Bro. Rick has been a part of over 500 church plants using the Community Transformation Program model that has proved very successful in establishing believers in a local church and assisting them in literacy skills and improving their livelihood through vocational training.

Rick and Debbie have two grown children and three grandchildren. Their son Richie and his wife Jenny are senior pastors of Christian Fellowship Church in Benton and their daughter Renee and her husband Landon serve there as well.

Bro. Rick has authored numerous books including his life story “Mentoring From The Mountaintop” and “Playing From The Second Chair – A Biblical Guide to Supportive Ministry”. On Tuesday, May 19, 2020, Bro. Rick was promoted to heaven. Debbie continues their work in his absence as a speaker for groups of millennials and women and a mentor to their many spiritual sons around the world..