Why Peer Groups Matter for Ministry Leaders : Jim Marvine

Full-Text Transcript

Jason Daye
Hello, friends, and welcome to another insightful episode of FrontStage BackStage. I’m your host, Jason Daye. Each week, I have the opportunity to sit down with a trusted ministry leader, and we tackle a topic all in an effort to help you and pastors and ministry leaders just like you really thrive in both your life and leadership. We’re proud to be a part of the Pastor Serve Network, and we ask you, if you’re watching, to give us a thumbs up on YouTube and drop your name and the name of your ministry in the comments below. We love getting to know our audience better. Whether you’re joining us on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform, please be sure to subscribe and follow. I’m excited because today I’m joined by Jim Marvine. Jim has served in a number of roles, both in the local church and as President and CEO of nonprofit ministries. He brings a wealth of experience to this conversation, and we’re really looking forward to diving in. So, Jim, welcome to the show.

Jim Marvine
Thanks, Jason. Great to see you. Great to be here. Thank you.

Jason Daye
Yeah, it’s good to have you with us. Now, Jim, you have the experience of working at the local church level. You’ve been president and CEO of multiple nonprofit ministries. Now you join us here at Pastor Serve. You’re the director of Ministry Serve, and we’ll get into more of that. That’s this nonprofit leaders and ministry leaders’ peer groups, which is super exciting. But before we get into all of that, Jim, talk to us a little bit about how you felt called into full-time ministry because you spent time in the marketplace, and then God kind of shifted your calling over time. So, share with us a bit about that.

Jim Marvine
Great. Thanks, Jason. Yeah, I spent about 30 years. I’m a Kansas City guy, so I’ve spent about 30 years in the healthcare industry with product sales development, and then I got in physician practice management, and then in about 2011, I really felt the Lord calling me to full-time ministry. And it’s not this great calling where you hear God’s call and everything’s great. I went through a really challenging time professionally. And I think sometimes that’s how the Lord prepares us. It’s through hard things, not necessarily. Hey, you’re going to go into ministry. It’s going to be great. So, we went through some real challenging times to get me probably to a place where I was going to surrender and say, I want to do this full-time now. So I got a call at the end of a contract I had with one of the universities here. I was managing medical practices for them. It was a guy down in Dallas with Bill Glass Behind the Walls. It was an advances in prison ministry, and he asked me to come down and be his field director. And so that’s when I moved from Kansas City to Dallas in 2011. Nine months into that, he decided that he was going to leave, and they’re looking around, going, Hey, could you fill in as the interim CEO for a few months while we do a search? And I thought, well, that’s great. That’ll find me time to find another job, because this guy brought me down. And I thought, well, you know, if he’s leaving, they’re probably not interested in me. But the ministry had some financial struggles, so they came back to me 90 days into it and said, Hey, we want to offer you this full-time job. And I’m thinking, Well, of course you do. Nobody else wants to take a million dollars in debt ministry on right here. So that really started it all, and I got to the point where I was thinking, Gosh, I’ve never been a CEO of an organization. So, it was one of those things where I immediately called to see 12 guys down in Dallas and said, Hey, I need a peer group of like-minded leaders. The thing was, these guys were business leaders, Christian business leaders. And so I did it for a few months, and I thought, Gosh, this is really good, but my issues as a ministry leader are different than yours. So I reached out to a friend of mine, who I’d used as a consultant in Atlanta by the name of Bill Frisby, who had a ministry called Strengthening Leaders. I called him, and I said, Bill, I’m in the C12 group. I’m kind of struggling here. I’m isolated. I’ve never been in this leadership role before. It’s great. I love it, and things are going well, but I need more. I said, I’m in a C12 group up here, but we need a group like this for ministry leaders, executive directors, and CEOs. And he started laughing. He said, Funny you should say that. I just left Chick-fil-A headquarters with a group of 12 nonprofit leaders. We just kicked off our first peer group. So we decided that when he gets to Dallas, we’re going to get on the phone and we’re going to start making calls. And Jason, within, I bet, three weeks, we had 16 leaders in Dallas that said, Wow, where do I sign up? It’s like somebody throwing you a lifeline because you’ve got nowhere to go with your stuff, a lot of times as leaders. We’re isolated and having to make tough decisions and calls, people are upset with you, and that kind of thing. So it was the Lord, because we ended up meeting at the Hope Center. There was, I mean, it was marketplace chaplains to Mercy Ships, Josh McDowell’s CEO, E3 partners, East West. It was all that. I’m thinking, what am I doing in the room with all these guys? It’s like Jimmy would say that it’s the who’s who in the room, and they’re looking at me, going, and who’s that? But it was awesome. We did it for nine years. And just the takeaways. I mean, we saw everything because ministry leaders have the same issues as everybody else. I mean, we saw death, divorce, and kids going to jail. I mean, it was guys walking away from the faith. I mean, it’s real-world stuff. Just being a leader doesn’t mean that you’re not going to have to walk through some of this stuff. So it was awesome. I mean, it’s an opportunity coming and being vulnerable. It’s a place to come and share. Confidentiality is key, of course. But just have a safe place where there’s a trusted community of peers that you can bring challenges to, and you can bring issues and questions. It was life-changing for me. I don’t know if I would have made it in ministry without it, to be honest with you.

Jason Daye
Wow, that’s a big statement. It’s interesting, Jim, as you’re kind of sharing your story, there are several things that you kind of point out that were a challenge. One is, you find yourself now in the role of a CEO of a nonprofit ministry, right? And that was new and fresh for you. For a lot of people who step into those leadership roles, it is new. It is a fresh challenge. So just that, in and of itself, can be a bit overwhelming. But then, Jim, you talked about the fact that the old cliche, it’s kind of lonely at the top, right? You’re in that role. There aren’t a whole lot of people around you, necessarily, and not everyone necessarily understands, or at least you feel like there aren’t that many people who understand exactly what you’re going through. One of the things, Jim, that you picked up on in C12, for people who do not know what that is, that’s Christian business leaders in their groups. There are chapters around the country where there are Christian business leaders. But you found that there might be some overlap, but that it’s a different world when you’re in the marketplace versus when you’re nonprofit, right, Jim? So, talk to us a little bit about what some of the things were that you felt were missing and why you wanted to shift to, and God put the pieces together in an amazing way, awesome story. But you wanted to shift to somehow meeting with people who were in nonprofit ministry as opposed to Christian business leaders. What were some of the differences between those two worlds that you saw in your own leadership that you needed others to talk through?

Jim Marvine
Probably, perspective. I had a mentor by the name of Richard Beach, and he used to say, Ministry is not a business, but you better be about the business of your ministry, or you won’t be in it very long. And I noticed right off that people have a different perspective. But it’s still, really, the business of the ministry that you have to take care of. Especially when it’s a cleanup situation where you go in and there’s debt, there are people that probably don’t need to be there. There are people that you want to hang on to and keep. I mean, it’s a challenge. It’s like most organizations, though, Jason, it’s people and money, right? It’s funding and staffing. But then you throw the board issues in the middle of all that. So, those were probably the biggest challenges for me. Probably making that adjustment from secular world. Because if you go in here, this is what we’re doing, here’s how we’re doing the business. And in ministry, it’s like you almost have to kind of soft pedal things. Which God gave me Galatians 1:10 when I got there. Am I now here to seek the approval of man or of God? If I’m here to seek the approval of man, I’m no longer a bondservant of our Lord. So I think he was telling me, You obey me. I’ll take care of the people. You make the right decisions, and they’re typically good for everybody when you make hard calls. So that part of it was really hard because people get hurt when you have to make tough decisions, but you have to think, Okay, what’s the most important thing? We used to say in our staff meetings when we had to make difficult decisions, we always got down to what’s best for the ministry. And that made it real easy. It made it real easy to make some of these decisions. But you want to take care of people on their way out and stuff, too. So, that was hard. I think being in that role, it’s not like you inherited a situation with a ministry that’s really doing well and just kind of humming along. You have to go in and make some really hard calls. But I think people, money, funding, staffing, and working with boards are challenging. So, that was kind of the difference. A lot of the fundamentals are the same. It’s kind of attitude and perspective which are a little bit different. Well, this is ministry, right? You don’t make those kind of hard decisions. Well, sometimes you do.

Jason Daye
Hey, friends, just a quick reminder that we provide a free toolkit that complements today’s conversation. You can find this for this episode and every episode at PastorServe.org/network. In the toolkit, you’ll find a number of resources, including our Ministry Leaders Growth Guide. This growth guide includes insights pulled from today’s conversation as well as reflection questions so you and the ministry team at your local church can dig more deeply into this topic and see how it relates to your specific ministry context. Again, you can find it at PastorServe.org/network.

Jason Daye
Yeah, but, as you said, perspective. As you’re making those hard decisions, which are not fun. But you have a different perspective because it’s not like you’re just answering to the stockholders or whoever in the marketplace. I mean, this is real people and real relationships. You want to be like Christ in the midst of it all, right?

Jim Marvine
Yeah. Because you love them, right?

Jason Daye
Right. Exactly. So, Jim, tell me a bit about what you found. Okay, so you’re in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. You start participating in this group of other CEOs and executive directors of nonprofit ministries. What did you begin to experience? Just help us understand a little bit. What was that experience like for you as you guys were gathering together on a regular basis, kind of iron sharpening iron, working through and encouraging one another? What did that look like?

Jim Marvine
The format was that we’d usually have a meal together. We’d meet in the afternoon, so about 11:30 we’d meet down at the Hope Center, and we’d have lunch as guys are coming in. Then we had a graph on the wall, a chart on the wall that was a check-in. Just says, check in. It says, How am I doing personally? One to ten. How am I doing professionally? One to ten. And then what’s my one issue that I want to tackle today as a group? And so you’d get guys, one to ten, three, well, you figure they’re struggling personally. So we talk about those things. And then, how am I doing professionally? Eight, just things are great in the ministry. And then my issue might be, I’m dealing with a 75-year-old founder of an organization that I feel like I’m having to struggle with every time I come in. He’s not letting go, but he’s got me in as a CEO. This is kind of a real story. Great guy, but Bill Glass, who I went to work for, was a four-time pro-bowler with the Cleveland Browns, and a 6’6″ defensive end. And here we’re butting heads as he’s trying to make this transition. So, we come in and we’ll have the issue on the board, and then we’ll rate it. Like A means, hey, this is something urgent I want to talk about today. B would be, I hope we could get to this issue today as a group. Or C, hopefully we can. So we basically had to kind of categorize the priorities to make sure we got around all issues. We would start with the A’s. Hey, tell us a little bit about your issue. Tell us why you’re personally doing five out of 10. And so it opens up conversation, so they’re starting to talk. So, then we get to the question, the challenge, or the issue, and then we would just start asking clarifying questions around that issue. And then once we’d exhausted our clarifying questions, we’d move to, Hey, have you considered this? Right? I know this is something I experienced, and it worked for me. Or how can we help? So, this whole time we’re getting this feedback, and the guy who’s the A is sitting there writing all this stuff down. It’s really good. At the end of that, we just say, What did you hear from the group, or after you, and he’d be able to take feedback on whatever he heard. And then what are your steps going to be? Then they take the steps. And then we just pray for the guy or lady. We had women in our group, which is awesome. Then we moved to the next guy on the chart who had the graph. So once we exhausted that, before we left, we had another chart on the wall. It said, My one thing. And what that meant was what one thing am I going to accomplish by the time I get back in our next meeting a month from now? So we’d meet for about half a day. We’d have lunch, we’d go through the process I just talked about, and then we’d break. But, I’m just telling you, there were some just awesome things that came out of that. We had one ministry at the Hope Center that, if they were in business, they would have been competing with one another. They were both church planters. They were doing Middle East work. And I don’t know that the CEOs had even, they were in the same building, but I’m not sure how much interaction they had with each other. So, they both joined the group, and it was really cool because by the time they got to know each other, they were planting churches and training together over in the Middle East. How cool is that? That was really good.

Jason Daye
That’s very cool. So, Jim, within these peer advisory groups, one, there’s help. You’re surfacing things that you’re wrestling with, and so you have other people who are kind of pouring into that. But you also know there’s a little bit of accountability. You’re saying, Okay, this is something I’m going to get done. So next month, when we meet again, people are like, Hey, how did that go for you? Right? So you’ve got this encouragement, resourcing, help, but also this kind of accountability to keep you guys progressing. Jim, for you personally, as the CEO, you said that you don’t know that you would have survived in that role of ministry without this group of people around you. As you participated in that over time, what did that do for you personally, as a ministry leader?

Jim Marvine
I think it brought more peace, and I also had an outlet. I had guys in between the meetings, we’re always contacting each other. Phone calls, text messages, or meeting, which was great because you’re building a community of like-minded peers, so you develop these relationships. I still talk to guys down there, and I’m back in Kansas City. But I think that. And I think one of the things, too, Jason, was that board engagement was one of the things that, I think, early on for me, was a challenge because it’s kind of the good old boy club. Bill would bring his friends on board. I mean, God love them. They were great. But, when you look at a board, you’re looking at kind of the go, give, gather. You’re going to go with us into prison, you’re going to gather others and donors, and it’s like work, wealth, and wisdom would be the other three that when you’re looking for in a board member. They gotta bring something like that to the table. So, I think we had 22 board members when I got there. To get them to understand their role, I had to do a board retreat, which was probably one of the best things I did. That came from a recommendation out of our group, because I had board members who were telling my staff what to do. Instead of just governing, they got into the operational side of the ministry. I’m going, Hey, wait a minute. I think that’s my job. So how do you tell your board who you report to that they’re not doing engagement correctly? And so we the so having that board retreat was great, because they came and said, Hey, look, the board has one employee. It’s a CEO. It’s not the COO, the CFO, and volunteers, and they speak with one voice. So instead of six or eight guys coming to me with different suggestions, questions, and things I needed to do, they got together and they came to me with one voice, and they had one employee. That just kind of cut through a lot of the stuff that really helped bring some order to the organization, especially during the cleanup. I mean, this thing needed some help. And then you start getting them on board with you, and they start recruiting, and then they start inviting friends on the board. And then we had board policy manuals. So these are the steps that we need, just bringing some order to the organization. I think a lot of ministries start, and those that lead it have a real heart and passion for what they do, but the back end kind of suffers, because maybe they don’t have the experience in business, or they don’t know how to recruit good board members, and that kind of thing. So, all of it together was from staffing; we had people come in and speak once a quarter. We’ll have a guest speaker come in. We had the number two guy at Southwest Airlines come in and talk. Chick-fil-A. And it’s really good to hear an outside perspective. We had people come in and talk about fundraising and grant writing once a quarter. So, I think when you bring that into the mix, or anything that you see that keeps coming up in the group, if there’s a need there, then we address it. We’ll bring somebody in to talk. Last month, here in Kansas City, we had Carrie Humphries with Best Christian Workplace. Peter Drucker said that culture eats strategy for breakfast. And so culture is huge. In any organization, you get a healthy culture, I mean, in an unhealthy culture, and I’ve been in a couple. I wouldn’t have asked Best Christian Workplace to come in and do a couple of these places. But after time, you think this is a good idea. It’s great because those closest to the work know most about it. So you’ve got these frontline people who are the ones that are out slugging it out every day. And so to get input from them about leadership, I mean, it’s putting a mirror in your face at times, but it can be humbling. But it also just helps move the ministry forward. It’s great. I think at Pastor Serve, Jimmy said that you guys just went through another one and got certified. It’s great. It’s a tool. So, those are the kind of things that I think that we can bring in from the outside, too, that are really helpful.

Jason Daye
At Pastor Serve, we love walking alongside pastors and ministry leaders just like you. If you want to learn more about how you can qualify for a complimentary coaching session with one of our trusted ministry coaches, please visit PastorServe.org/freesession. You don’t want to miss out on this opportunity. That’s PastorServe.org/freesession.

Jason Daye
Absolutely. So, Jim, talk to us a little bit about MinistryServe. So you had the opportunity in Dallas/Fort Worth, as you were a CEO, President of a ministry. You had an opportunity to participate. But then, God has been shifting your season of ministry now into you overseeing and helping launch these peer advisory groups, because as you shared, you saw the value for yourself. You said, Hey, we need to pass this on to others. So talk to us a bit about MinistryServe, what you’re doing in Kansas City, and even where you see God kind of leading this ministry as a whole.

Jim Marvine
Okay, great. I left Dallas after eight years as CEO to come back to Kansas City, because there was a ministry here, Doulos Ministries, which was a ministry that I actually got saved through back in 1983, and I’d heard that they were struggling. So they had a ministry called Shelterwood, which is a behavioral health facility for struggling teens here in Kansas City. So, I went to a couple of donors that I knew that were working with Shelterwood, and had talked about, Hey, I understand there are some issues here. We need to get somebody in to help with this ministry. And of course, one of the guys said, How about you? And I thought, I’m not, I got grandkids in Dallas. I’m not leaving Dallas. It’s, of course, how the Lord works. We ended up back in Kansas City, which was great. I mean, it’s home. So I had been at a Parents Weekend at a shelter with Parents Weekend in 1983 with my younger brother, who was in the program. My parents had gotten divorced, and I got saved that weekend. I was 28 years old, and my marriage was struggling, and only how the Lord would work. Then Richard preached on the prodigal son, and I’d never heard it or read it, and I thought, God could love you like that. So, this ministry’s always been near and dear to my heart. And it little did I know 40 years after that, I’d be the CEO. That’s how the Lord works. So, we did that for three years. COVID hit, and the facility went from kind of a ministry to a medical facility because the kids’ issues were starting to get really difficult with self-harm and suicide ideation, and it kind of moved from that to where we needed to be more clinical. So, I engaged with the facility out of Chandler, Arizona, and they came and bought it. They did an asset purchase agreement. We kept the property and all that. I thought, okay, now, we’re out from under Shelterwood. What’s next for me? During that time at Shelterwood for three years, I was still going down to Dallas to my peer group. So, once a month, I was flying or sometimes driving down. I could see my grandkids, too, while I was there. But it was a great thing to keep that going. And so I started to meet with Jimmy and start talking about the effectiveness of this ministry down there, and how we needed something like this in Kansas City. We talked through it, and then decided, I think we started last November with our first group. So I said, Let’s do it here. So, we did an introduction luncheon and had 12 or 15 people there. I think we’ve got 12, maybe 14, signed up here in Kansas City. But, there’s a word. When the value is clear, the decision is easy. So, I kept trying to say, the value guys, you can’t even explain the value of this thing until you experience it. Get in there. You start working with these other leaders, you see they’re having some of the same issues that you’re having, and just building those relationships. So, it’s taking a little bit of time, and people travel, so not everybody’s there every month, but we’ll have a good eight or ten guys there, which is typical. Down in Dallas, they were flying all over the world, and could be there when they could, but we asked them not to miss more than two a year if they could. And so they stuck with that. But that’s basically what started here. So we got some key leaders here in town. An influencer like Jimmy is going to be very helpful in that. So it made sense for me to take that. I’m still CEO of Doulos, but I’m in under partnering with PastorServe, and now working with PastorServe. God gave me Ministry Serve the domain name a couple of years ago. I kept thinking. It kept coming to my mind. Bought it. I thought, well, there must be something to this name. So, it’s been great. I think the thing can be duplicated in other markets. I think it needs to be. I know Bill Frisby is doing a great job in Atlanta and in Dallas with his groups down there. He’s awesome. He had basically kind of trained me. And we talked about doing something in Kansas City. He said, Well, if you do go through this other ministry, that’s fine. I think that’ll still work. But I still see us coming together and maybe partnering at some point. So, it gives you coaching opportunities, too, in between. Guys coming with issues and saying, Hey, we need to talk about this.

Jason Daye
Yeah. What a gift and love that you’re doing that there in Kansas City. Obviously, a lot of incredible ministries that are there. It’s one of those things, as you say, there could be these types of peer advisory groups in cities all across the US, because there are so many nonprofits, whether they’re local or regional nonprofits or national, international nonprofits that happen to be headquartered in a particular area. But just that opportunity. I know it’s a confidential group. One of the questions I have, Jim, is you said that sometimes it takes a little bit of time to get things rolling. I imagine that that might have something to do with leaders and their vulnerability. Talk to me a little bit about how soon people begin to open up, and what does that look like? Because you’ve got to build some trust in some way. So I’m just curious, what does that look like?

Jim Marvine
Amen, and I think Kansas City, knowing Kansas City, it’s a little more guarded. Dallas, things seem a little more free or open. People are a little more open to talk up here. They’re a little more guarded. It’s been that way since I was a kid here. But I think the vulnerability, the humility that it takes. I remember a pastor once said that humility releases God’s power, and I believe that, and I think vulnerability is key. I think it was Henry Cloud who wrote a book on vulnerability that was awesome. But I think when you are vulnerable in a group like that, it frees others in the group to think, well, if you can bring that up, I can talk about my issue here. I’ve got kids that are struggling, too, as a ministry leader, but you can’t go public with a lot of this stuff, because of people and how they respond sometimes. So yeah, I think vulnerability, humility, and transparency are really important. It just gives everybody else in the room the freedom. You see it happen when some guy starts talking about, hey, you know, I’ve got that issue, too, and then we get to pray for each other. But I think you’re dead on when you talk about vulnerability, and I think it takes time. Some guys came in the first week, and they were just being on or something. This is great. You can see some other guys were kind of holding back. But, eventually, now it’s like everybody’s coming in, slapping each other on the back. Hey, how are you doing? Talking. Hey, give me your email. I want to make sure we’re connected on this and that. So it’s really, you could just watch this take place. It’s awesome.

Jason Daye
That is awesome. Jim, as we’re winding down, I’d love for you to just share. What words of encouragement do you have for ministry leaders? What would you like to leave with them as we close down the conversation today?

Jim Marvine
One is, we’re better together, right? I think there’s a lot of talk about cities, movements, and the Christians, churches, and pastors, and I think ministry leaders have an opportunity to really join forces and really do make an impact. Sometimes pastors and pastors do, too. There are some awesome pastors that get together, but sometimes they’re a little more guarded. The lead pastors, especially. I think administrative guys are probably not so much as elite guys. But you know, they’ve been vulnerable before, and they get burned. They’re a little more guarded. But I think ministry leaders, if we could start encouraging each other, we could start seeing things happen in our cities coming together, too, because somebody will have something going on in the inner city, in urban parts of town, and we’ll go down. We do that all the time. We’ll go down to the events that they’re having. So we’re kind of supporting each other. And people are seeing that, even in some competing ministries, you could see that. They’re starting to work together and partner on things. And I think that’s kind of what the Lord’s heart is. We’re all in this together. And once we see that we’re not competing with each other, we’re all after the same thing, and that’s to further the kingdom as we pursue Jesus. So I think that’s it. I would just encourage you to, if you’re in a market where you think, Gosh, I’d like to start something like this. Facilitation is not that hard. We do have the format. We have the package that we could come in and set it up and help whoever wants to get started, get started. Or if there’s an existing group, you know, if you’re in Dallas or Atlanta, I would encourage you to join Strengthen Leaders, Bill Frisby’s groups down there. They’re great, and he’s been doing it for a long time, but other markets that we might go in with, some PastorServe markets that are already existing would be great.

Jason Daye
Yeah, absolutely. I love that. I love your heart, and I love that better together. That idea of how do we sharpen one another? How do we help grow the kingdom? We’re not competitors. How do we lock arms, encourage one another, lift one another up, and pray for one another? So for those of you watching or listening along, be sure to check it out. We have a toolkit for this episode and every episode. You can find that at PastorServe.org/network. In there, you’ll find all kinds of resources from this conversation, including a way to contact Jim. So if you are in another market, another city, and you have the desire for what Jim is sharing about these peer advisory groups. You said, Man, that would be incredible to see something like that happen in our community. We’ll connect you directly with Jim. He’d be happy to talk to you about it, pray about it, and see how we might be able to help support you. So be sure, if God’s prompting you on that, be sure to reach out. Again, PastorServe.org/network. We’ll connect you directly with Jim. Jim, brother, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you for making the time. God bless you.

Jim Marvine
That’s great. Thanks, Jason.

Jason Daye
Here at PastorServe, we hope you’re truly finding value through these episodes of FrontStage BackStage. If so, please consider leaving a review for us on your favorite podcast platform. These reviews help other ministry leaders and pastors just like you find the show, so they can benefit as well. Also, consider sharing this episode with a colleague or other ministry friend. And don’t forget our free toolkit, which is available at PastorServe.org/network. This is Jason Daye, encouraging you to love well, live well, and lead well.