Meet Jim Ramsey

PERSONALLY SPEAKING

 (If I am going to be personally involved in the private, most important parts of your life, teaching and coaching you, I suspect that you would want me to show you some vulnerability and share some personal  information about myself, including my values and role models so you can decide whether or not we would be "a good fit" to work together.)

MY EARLY YEARS

I have found that early hardships and challenges don’t need to negatively define the rest of our lives. When I was three years old, my father was wounded while serving overseas as a marine. After he recovered, within a year of returning home, he was killed in a motorcycle accident, leaving my mother to raise three children alone, including my youngest brother, who was born the day after my father’s death. Although my mother demonstrated remarkable strength and resilience, losing my dad at such an early age was a difficult loss for her and for me, at the age of 3. 

When I was six, my mother married a Navy officer who was 10 years her senior and had a 13-year-old son. He adopted the three of us kids . Ten years after the were married, my youngest brother was born, making a blended family of 5 kids. As a Navy family, we moved once or twice a year, requiring me to make new friends throughout all of my elementary school years, only to have to leave them all behind. Fortunately, I learned how to make friends ,rather than feeling like an awkward outsider. When Dad retired from the Navy, we settled in San Diego. I felt fortunate to finally have a family that was more grounded and secure. There, I was able to finish junior high through college and make lifelong friends.

EDUCATION and TRAINING

As I studied psychology at San Diego State University, I recognized in myself a growing desire to help couples develop strong, secure marriages and build happy families; regardless of the hardships and challenges they may have faced growing up. Reading case studies about the many painful relational issues faced by couples, motivated me to become a professional marriage therapist. As it turns out, It has been my joy through my lifetime to help people untangle their relationships, improve communication skills and build strong successful families. In California, I earned both a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Psychology plus a Master’s Degree in Theology.

SOME SERIOUS CHALLENGES

In 2000, I was diagnosed with stage III colon cancer and treated with surgery and nine months of chemotherapy. During this time, I learned to focus on my true identity and mission, rather than identify myself as a cancer patient and worry about treatment plans and diagnoses that might be terminal. I am very happy to say that, as of 2022, I am still Cancer free.

In 2013, I survived a devastating car accident, but lost my wife and her 92-year-old mother in that crash. I was driving the car when it lost traction in a freak snowstorm near Ronan, MT and was hit by a truck.

Debby and I had been married 46 years; she was the mother of our two boys and meant the world to me. Now, she was suddenly gone. I found myself rattling around, all alone, in the big “dream house” we had built 35 years before, looking out of the window at the motorhome we just purchased to enjoy our “golden years” together.

God helped me to endure these ordeals without getting angry at Him. I have accepted that God knows everything about the past, present and future and I don’t. So, I chose not to focus on my extremely limited perspective and focus on my pain and become angry at Him. Instead, I chose to trust His will for me and focus on what He wants me to do with my life, trusting Him with my future.

PEOPLE WHO HAVE INSPIRED ME

I am most inspired by those individuals who demonstrate stewardship by consistently giving, loving and sharing with others throughout their lives.

Of all those in the counseling profession who have dedicated themselves to helping people, two individuals stand out in my mind: John Gray and John Gottman.

John Gray has remarkable insight into the gender issues that impact marriages by causing many conflicts.Interestingly, after 35 years of research John Gottman states in his book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriages Work that , after all his research, he has found "that most marital problems are based on misunderstandings."Over John Gray's lifetime, he has written many books that have been read by people all over the world and had an amazing impact on thousands, if not millions of marriages. John has the unique ability to write books that anyone can read and understand which have content that is extremely insightful and life-changing, because they shed a lot of light on gender and perspective and needs differences between husbands and wives. His book Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus out sold all books in America except the Bible for over 20 years.

He is also an engaging speaker. His message is inspiring. One of my favorite John Gray quotes is, “I believe marriage can be a lifetime of “passionate monogamy.” It was a great honor to be part of his therapy team for many years, presenting his “Mars and Venus” workshops across the country, including military bases nationally and internationally.

John Gottman is arguably the finest relational research scientist of all time, having spent over 40 years studying  3000 couples, to better understand the significant differences between couples’ ways of relating to each other that determine success or failure in marriage. This research provides the gold standard for marriage counseling today.

Based on his research, Gottman has developed interventions and antidotes that, when applied, can radically change relationships. He is married to renowned clinical psychologist, Julie Gottman and together they have built an organization that trains couples therapists from all over the world to apply methods based on their research. I am honored to have been an early member of the Gottman Institute team of therapists and have been a fully certified Gottman method couple’s therapists and workshop presenter for many years.

In the area of Christian service, Chuck Smith, Rick Warren and Mr. Jones, as well as my own Grandpa McGinnis have been the key role models for me.

Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel, personally mentored me for many years. I first met him at the beginning of The Jesus People Movement when so many “Hippies” and drug addicts were being converted and baptized in the ocean. I was the youth Pastor at the 1st Assembly of God Church in Alhambra and I brought our 200 plus HS kids  to Calvary Chapel Friday nights for evangelistic services with Lonie Frizbie, who was Chuck’s Youth Pastor. About 10 years later Chuck  helped me start Montana’s first Calvary Chapel, which I pastored for over 30 years.

Chuck Smith spent his whole life establishing and building a congregation of over 10,000 people in Costa Mesa California and created a legacy of more than 1000 congregations all over the world. Many of them are also mega churches. During a time when most churches discriminated against members of the counter culture because of their lifestyle and comportment, he welcomed everyone into his church to be accepted and loved. Lives were changed and many of these young hippy drug users are respected and successful pastors today, such as Greg Lorie.

Over the years, hundreds of thousands of people have been impacted by God’s Word and His love displayed through Chuck Smith. His teaching and preaching of God’s Word and God’s love displayed through Chuck has also radically affected many young ministers he trained and mentored, including me.

As a young minister, I was impressed by how, both at church and at the summer camps, Chuck always participated in doing the dirty work. He insisted on being called by his first name rather than by his title. This was the kind of man he was – completely focused on humbly helping others and teaching the Bible verse by verse. He wanted people to see the world through God’s eyes and understand His great patience and unfailing love for us.

Another man that has had a tremendous impact of my life is Rick Warren, who served as pastor of Saddleback Church in Southern California over 40 years. The church has grown from 18 couples to over 20,000 congregants. Rick is not only an outstanding preacher and teacher, but a really gifted author. He has written The Purpose Driven Church and The Purpose Driven Life among others. When he wrote The Purpose Driven Life, it turned out that this book would affect thousands and thousands of people’s lives. Currently, it’s one of the top-selling books in the world and has been published in 137 languages at last count. With the success of this book, before retiring, Rick repaid Saddleback Church for all the wages and housing allowances that he received from them during his entire 40 plus year ministry. Obviously, Rick hasn’t been involved in church ministry for the money.

Another thing that is unique about Rick is the way he has handled personal tragedies. His wife struggled for years with breast cancer and managed to survive, but his son in his early 20s hung himself because he couldn’t overcome tremendous problems with depression throughout his short lifetime.

At a pastor’s conference I once attended at Saddleback Church, Rick told us that he wouldn’t hire a staff pastor that hasn’t gone through personal tragedies and significant life struggles, because he wanted his ministerial staff to be able to grow through these kinds of experiences and relate to the needs of their people.

The third man that has had a real impact on my life was Mr. Jones, who was my wife’s only pastor before she met me. He pastored the same independent Baptist church for 65 years, a church of less than 100. He taught through the entire Bible verse by verse and then would start all over again in Genesis, after destroying his previous sermon notes and outlines. He wouldn’t let the people in the church call him Rev. or Pastor, but simply “Mr. Jones.” He taught his church deacons that they were to function as the “servants” of the church.

Finally, the man who had the most impact on my life was my grandpa, Morris McGinnis, who was my greatest role model. He and his wife raised 6 children on various farms, located across the state of Montana. He always had a very large garden, Orchard and raised chickens, hogs and cattle for beef and milk. He moved every few years because he worked to establish new churches in various locations in the state and then would pastor them a few years, until they were firmly established. The amazing thing to me was that despite holding meetings for weeks at a time to establish a church, he would always at the same time find ways to provide not only his family’s physical needs, but also their emotional and spiritual needs. On top of all that he managed to share a lot of activities with them such as fishing and hunting etc. He not only had time for his children but also his grandchildren, including me.

The greatest proof of his character and priorities was that all of his children grew up to be remarkable adults ranging from school teachers, ministers, missionaries and successful businessmen, who we devout Christians. All but one of them stayed happily married and raised happy, successful children.

In my opinion, the reason this minister was successful not only building churches but also building a strong and healthy family was that he was a genuine Christian man, who lived out Christian motivations and principles in every aspect of his life. At the same time, he was “a man’s man” who would challenge Montana cowboys and ranchers to boxing matches as part of the attraction to coming to his meetings to hear him preach.

MY HOMETOWN

Welcome to my home and office location on Placid Lake in the Seeley Swan Valley of Western Montana. After living and working in Missoula for over 40 years since establishing my office there in 1979, I am now finally “semi retired” and have lived in the Seeley Lake area for about two years.

Diane and I go on a daily hikes with our dog, off leash, on mountain trails and dirt roads along streams and around lakes. Meet Duke, pictured on the right. He loves to hunt pheasants and ducks. Most of all he is “a water dog” and has to be in the boat whenever possible. 

I have a fishing boat tethered to our dock, in front of our house and office that is geared for everything from downrigger trolling to flyfishing for trout or bass fishing. I also have a Makenzie river drift boat parked by my garage.We love it when our families and friends come to visit us and we have boat rides and water sports to enjoy.