Pastor Mick was born and raised in Torrance, California. He graduated from California State University Long Beach with a degree in Communications and subsequently attended graduate school at both Grace Graduate School of Theology and Talbot Theological Seminary. Though raised in a "good family", Pastor Mick realized his need for Christ and became a Christian in his teens, on the tail end of what is known as the Jesus Movement of the 60's and 70's

After college, he met and married Jan. They moved to the bay area where he worked for a major oil company for several years while also serving as a "lay" leader of his church fellowship in the areas of youth ministry, worship leading, and teaching home fellowship groups. Pastor Mick entered the full-time ministry as a church planting missionary with The Evangelical Alliance Mission (T.E.A.M.) in Latin America in 1987 where he worked with a team to start a new church in Caracas, Venezuela. In 1991 Pastor Mick returned to the states to help start Calvary Chapel of Indio (CA). He served there as Assistant Pastor until 1994 when the church commissioned he and his wife to start the congregation in Blythe (100 miles east of Indio).