Jeffrey T. Crick, MAHSC, MMHC-BC, CpastC, CCLC
From Under a Bridge to a Governor's Pardon.
This is what redemption looks like when it's documented.
My name is Jeffrey T. Crick. I'm from Knoxville, Tennessee — and for a long stretch of years, I was the man you crossed the street to avoid.
Addiction took me to places most people only read about. I slept under bridges. I swept broken bottles off the floors of burned-out buildings just to have somewhere dry to lay my head. I racked up convictions. I lost relationships. I lost everything that looked like a future.
But God had other plans.
Through years of recovery, relentless education, and the grace of an Almighty God, my life was rebuilt from the ground up. I earned multiple undergraduate degrees in Christian Leadership and Counseling Ministry, a Master of Arts in Human Services Counseling, and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Pastoral Counseling. I am Board-Certified as a Master Mental Health Coach (MMHC-BC) and hold a Certification in Christian Leadership Coaching (CCLC) through the American Association of Christian Counselors.
On December 20, 2024, Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee signed a full executive pardon on my behalf — clearing every conviction from my record and formally recognizing what God had already declared: this man's story is not finished.
That earthly pardon matters. But it is a shadow of what Christ already did at the cross.
I now serve as a Christian College Professor, teaching Ministry, Leadership, Chaplaincy, and Christian Addictions Counseling to students across the country. I walk alongside men in recovery, burnout, and identity loss — because I know the territory. I've lived it.
ReDefined Mission exists because proof matters. Not just testimonies — documented, signed, photographed proof that redemption is not a metaphor. It's a fact.
— Jeffrey T. Crick, MAHSC, MMHC-BC, CpastC, CCLC
My Story in Three Chapters
Every man's life tells a story. Mine just happens to be one most people wouldn't believe — unless they've lived something like it themselves.
Chapter One — Living My Way For years, I did things my way. That meant addiction. Homelessness. Handcuffs. I was the man other people warned their kids about. I thought I was in control. I wasn't. I was drowning and calling it swimming.
Chapter Two — The Moment Everything Changed I didn't find God at the bottom. God came down to where I was and found me. That's the part nobody tells you — you don't have to clean yourself up first. You don't have to have it together. You just have to stop running. When I stopped, He was already there. The Governor of Tennessee eventually signed a pardon for my record. But the pardon that changed my eternity came from somewhere else entirely.
Chapter Three — A New Life, Given Away Now I spend my days doing for other men what someone once did for me — showing up, telling the truth, and refusing to let them believe their story is over. I teach. I counsel. I walk alongside. Not because I have it all figured out, but because I've been where they are and I know the way out isn't willpower. It's surrender.
This is what a ReDefined Mission looks like.
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." — 2 Corinthians 5:17
