Delmer Geesey

Guiding conversations with community leaders.

In this podcast, we'll explore the human journey of leaders, their stories of humility, triumph, roadblocks and lessons learned. Come join us as we journey together and uncover the questions you've always wanted to know. This podcast is brought to you by the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce, perhaps providing resources, connections and belonging for business professionals.

And Rocket Space, an event and meeting venue in the heart of the East Valley with a full service four person podcast studio. So today we have an amazing guest with us today. I'm super excited to learn about him. I don't know much about him other than our bios. So, Sarah, tell us who we have today.

Yeah, we are in for a treat today. Today's guest is a true East Valley native. He grew up in Chandler and Gilbert and is a graduate of Chandler High school, class of 1970. He knew from a young age he wanted to be a pastor and has dedicated his life to serving others. In 1990, he established Life Community Church in Gilbert where he still serves as the pastor. He is also the president of Leading Edge Academy, which today has seven campuses and more than 2,400 students. He's known to be hardworking, humble, generous and kind. He is Delmer Giese.

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. So glad to have you here today. All right, so we always start our show off with rapid fire. Okay, so Sarah, you go first.

All right. Would you rather find your dream job or win the lottery?

Dream job. Any day.

What is your guilty pleasure?

My guilty pleasure is eating chocolate covered cherries.

Would you rather host a party for all your friends or enjoy a dinner for two?

Party with all my friends.

That's not fair to ask a pastor.

No, it's not, but it's true.

Have you ever moved across country?

No, never have.

Would you ever appear on a reality show?

It would be boring if I did.

What is your favorite dessert?

Key lime pie, probably.

What song makes you smile?

Oh, I hate to admit it, but Tiger by the Tail by Buck Owens.

Love it. Are you more cautious or bold? Bold. Okay.

What is your favorite rainy day activity?

Watch the rain. Sit on a porch and watch the rain come down and just chill.

We don't do that very often here, do we?

Not often.

Yeah. Okay, our last question. Glass half full or half empty?

Always half full. Yeah, always half full.

We could have probably predicted these, Sarah.

I know. Yeah, these. Yep, absolutely. Gilbert City Lifestyles is a locally owned publication whose mission is to find and share great stories in our community and help build a stronger, more vibrant local experience.

Become A Digital Subscriber at citylifestyles.com forward/gilbert.

Okay, so first I want to, I want to jump in because for me I see you regularly at Liberty Market. You're just. If I want to find you, if anyone in the community wants to find you, they know that that's where they go.

He's the regular there, huh?

Yes. But interestingly, this little eatery was not always an eatery. Liberty Market. And that. But that corner has been significant in your life since your childhood. And so I want to dig into that a little bit and have you talk about what your childhood looked like here in Chandler and Gilbert.

Really interesting. There's a little church behind what is now Joe's Barbecue. And my dad was the pastor of that church when I was 4 years old. And believe it or not, my mom would send me to Liberty Market when it was a grocery store and put money in an envelope with a shopping list and I would go down to the store and. And of course I couldn't read and I would take it to the man at the grocery store and give it to him. He would put it all in a bag, put the money back in an envelope and I would walk home and I'm 4 years old and who even lets their 4 year old now out of the yard? And then sometimes I took my 3 year old sister with me. Just to think of it now is crazy, but I lived here until I was five years old and then we moved to Casa Grande.

But funny to think you sitting in that store or that restaurant today, it means something.

Oh yes, it does. And of course I shopped there before Liberty Market was a restaurant. So it's nostalgic for me.

That's amazing. So I'm going to dig more into that too because I would love to hear more of the history of this little area that you grew up in. But let's talk about the people that influenced you at a younger age. I assume parents were involved. Right? You mentioned your dad was a pastor. Was that how you got into the line of business you are today?

I think it is. You know, my dad was a pastor and in those days churches were really small, maybe especially ours was. And so it was more of an extended family, even though none of us were related. But it was a very small church and my parents really loved what they did and the bug caught me and I loved it all my life. And I always say I'm rare. Do you find the person that at 12, 13 years old decides what they want to do and then I've done it all my life. I've never not been a pastor and never not wanted to be a pastor. That's a gift, I think, from God. But it's wonderful to do something your whole life. And I could retire now if I wanted to. I just don't want to stop.

Was there anything else along the way that maybe tempted you in a different direction? You thought maybe you'd do something else?

No, no. I started a charter school 20 years ago, but that really wasn't in a different direction. I read good, great years ago, and it said that companies ought to be complementing one another. And the thing that Jim Collins said, he wouldn't have a tissue company start a sand and gravel company. You'd have a sand and gravel company start a concrete company, because they go hand in hand. And so I had had Christian schools in my churches that I pastored for years, and they're so expensive, and they just break the bank of people trying to send their kids there and break the bank of the church. So when I came to Gilbert 32 years ago, I said I'd never have another Christian school. And then right as the charter school movement started happening, and about mid-90s, I got very interested. And so then in 2001, we started leading Edge Academy, really just as a small little school for our own church folks type of thing. And then it grew and grew and it was gone wild now from a second, third, fourth, and we're opening a seventh campus in Flagstaff this year. And so it's done beyond what any of us ever thought it would.

That's amazing. So as you reflect back on the years, who comes to mind when you think of mentors that helped you along this path? Parents, obviously, were one of them. But were there others that come to mind as you think about this?

John Maxwell, if you've ever heard of him, he was a pastor for years and years, and he kind of broke away from being a pastor in the church world and moved and broadened his horizons and started doing more than just religious conferences and things like that. But I knew Maxwell when he was a pastor in San Diego, and we would go to San Diego to his church and hear church conferences. And then when John broke away and just grew and developed, he was influential in my life because I saw that God's work doesn't need to be confined to just church on Sunday. God's work is so much broader than just church on Sunday that we can do God's work in all kinds of different places, in all kinds of different people. I Think it's all God's work, whether you're religious or not. If you're helping kids, helping people. To me, it doesn't get any more God's work than that. Yeah, that's how I've looked at things.

So Maxwell was a big influence on me.

Oh, Maxwell was. There was a pastor in town, Tommy Barnett, pastor at a church in North Phoenix, was huge impact in my life. That meant a lot to me. He would have a yearly conference, and I got to know him just a little bit. Not dropping names or anything, but I got to know him, and I would be mentored by him. I would drive from Nogales, where I lived, to Phoenix just to spend an hour or two with Pastor Barnett. And I saw his vision, and. And it's just good to see people with vision that's a whole lot bigger than mine. You automatically grow. I automatically grew from that.

What do you think would surprise our listeners about maybe one of the biggest challenges of being a pastor? That maybe people don't think about.

You know, I just don't know. Some people don't like people. And if you don't like people and if you don't love the Lord, I mean, I love the Lord I've had my whole life, and I really like people, and so who would want to do anything else? And yet I talked to some of my pastor friends, and they can't wait to retire and get out of this thing. I'm pushing 70 years old with no plans to quit, and I always say if my body and my brain stay intact, that I'm in good shape. But either one of them leave, I hope they all leave at the same time.

That's awesome. How has your family been part of this journey for you? Let's talk about that a little bit. Your immediate family, as far as them coming along with you on this journey, what was that like?

Well, see, the bug caught me when I was a child, and it caught both my kids. I've got a daughter, and her husband has been a youth pastor for 20 years. And my son is a pastor. He's now in Oregon, and he's been a pastor for 10 years. 12 years. And so I think when I saw my folks and they were the real deal, hopefully I'm the real deal. But when our kids see that it is the real deal and it's just a good thing to do with your life, then I think my kids picked it up from me and it's worked for them. I've got grandchildren that are looking at ministry, and of Course, I'm not pushing and you gotta do the family business. But if it's in your bones, if it's in your blood, if it's in your heart, I think it's just a wonderful way to invest your life in people that I think it has eternal dividends.

So I gotta imagine what family reunions are like in your house.

Oh, it's nuts. Yeah, it's wonderful. And I've got uncles that were pastors. Somehow the gene caught all my relatives. Not all of them, but a lot of them. So a lot of my first cousins are pastors. And it just seemed to happen in our family. I don't know all that I know about that, but it seemed to find our family.

Well, what is it? What is that thing that makes somebody obviously love for the Lord and obviously love for people, but there's something else that makes that tick. What is it?

I think looking from a different perspective, it's probably a family business type thing. And when you get together, you talk shop, you talk what works, what doesn't work, how you can better yourself. And so iron, sharpening iron. When the gang gets together, my son and I talk, of course, he's a generation younger than I, and so he'll ask me, have you ever tried. Tried this, that and the other? And I'll say, yes, I tried this. Don't try this, try this. And so there's a common grounds that we seem to have, and perhaps that's the basis of some of this outside the spiritual and God and all that kind of stuff. It's just a lot of commonality that goes between us. And we've always got new things we're doing. And so you bounce it off one another and get encouragement or don't do that.

How do you think ministry has changed from one generation to the next?

That's a good question. It's different nowadays. Back in the olden days, I call them, you basically had your church and people kind of came every Sunday. And we used to do Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, My Word church all the time. And basically the same group came all the time. And over the years, the culture has changed, things have changed. And I always tease that I'm preaching to a parade because people come in, they go out. People don't necessarily go to church every week. They'll go every other week, maybe once every third week. Sometimes people have two or three different churches they attend. And so they'll listen to you online or a podcast or in person. And so you don't have that small group Setting with the entire congregation like I did when I was a kid.

I would imagine it's a little bit more difficult to actually build that relationship.

Well, it's as much of a relationship as they want to have. See, I can't force closeness on them. So if they choose to get a little closer, then that's fine with me. And if they choose just to listen to me or watch church or do church, whatever they call that, just once in a while, that's their need and not mine. I'm always there, I always speak, almost always anyway. And you always try to have something positive, something that God's going to be with you, God's going to help you. Something from the scripture that's positive and uplifting. And it seems to work for me. I never run out of things to say.

So both my parents were teachers and there's the whole stigma of being a teacher's kid. What about pastor's kids? What was that like for them?

Well, the same kind of thing. A lot of pastors, kids hate God, Jesus and the church and never want to go to any of it. But we never felt that way. My folks were smart and hopefully I was smart. I told my kids and my parents told me that we were privileged. It's a privilege to be a pastor's kid because sometimes we could skip school and go to church functions in other areas. And so we always looked at it as a privilege to get to do this. And I would hear other people say, oh, you poor children, you have to be in the ministry and then in the limelight. And as a little kid, I thought, you're crazy. You don't know how good this really is. And, and my children bought that too. They think it's a privilege to get to do what you want to do in heaven's sakes, get paid for it. Seems almost scandalous to me, you know.

Talking about your parents and their unwavering faith and leadership, you also referenced for us some of the pivotal moments in your life. And one of them was a pretty significant loss that they experienced in your family.

Yes.

How do. I can only imagine how their faith might have been tested at that time and what memories you might have of that.

Well, what happened is after church on Wednesday nights, we called it family night. And they would have Royal Rangers, Missionettes, it's the version of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. And so we'd get together and youth group and all that. And then one Wednesday night after church, we were playing flag football. And when I was 15, my 10 year old brother went in the house to get some dish towels for flags. And he thought the window was open and it was shut. And so he hit that thing and glass splintered. It's before safety glass back in 1968. And so a shard of glass went through him into his lungs and out the backside. One cut his jugular vein and he virtually died there. And so of course they ran in the church, got my folks, took him to the hospital and he really, he passed away that day. And so that was really hard on my folks and they handled it but I'm not sure they ever got totally over was back in the 60s when you don't talk about such things and you just pray and it'll go away type of thing. And so my dad always talked years later that they didn't get the kind of help that they wish they would have gotten. And in those days you kind of just tough it out. It was the John Wayne era and it was hard on them, it was hard on all of us. It was just one of those terrible times in life that your faith really does hold. You see, I've been there. I can understand that God really is there in a real powerful way even to a 15 year old kid when you lose your 10 year old brother. And he and I shared a room since the beginning and so then he was my buddy and so it was a tough time.

But that also helps me to reflect on the way ministry has changed and the fact that we do have support groups and conversations now and even that your father in later years was able to reflect on the need for that.

Yeah. When I became a pastor my dad told me stories of how he tried to talk to some other pastors and. And they just didn't know what to say. What do you say when your son has run through a plate glass window and been killed? And so my dad said they would change the subject because it was uncomfortable for them and who knows what to say and they didn't know what to say. And so dad would say he wished someone would have just listened to him. Of course you live and learn.

Yeah.

Yeah you do. That's interesting. So you mentioned that your children kind of addressed the whole idea of being pastors children as well. And that was never a problem for them through schooling and all that type of thing. But when you think about their perspective now and their kids, you think it's any different from your lens for them, for their kids?

Might be, but I don't think so.

You don't see any.

I never made them, we never made them do things the church wanted them to do. Where a lot of preachers kids get messed up is when they're trying to keep the deacons happy, trying to keep the old ladies in the church happy. So these kids are forced to act a particular way and we never were and I never was with my kid for either one of them. I never said you have to act this way and be sure to put on a good front because Mr. So and so Sister so and so is going to be watching. We never got into any of that and I never had that kind of pressure put on me and I never put it on my kids. And so.

The growth of the church over the years, you've had a lot to do with that. How has it grown? Who else has been part of that process that's helped that growth?

Well, you're not going to do much if you don't raise up leaders. That's what Maxwell said from the very beginning. And so I've hopefully developed some leaders. Jamie Johnson is one of them. You all know her. She came to us right out of high school. She was a kid in the youth group and she didn't have any definite plans. And so we said, would you like to be an intern for a year? And she did. She thrived and came back a second year and she thrived again. And so we brought her right on staff and she's been with us for 22 years. And Jamie is one of the stories. There's multiple stories like that some people moved in, but most of our leaders, we've trained almost from the ground up. There's a lady that's been with me for 32 years. She was a paralegal and was attending our church when we started our church in Gilbert. I pastored a church in Chandler, too. And then we started church in Gilbert and she came over with us and went from a paralegal to really a secretary at about a third of the money, but then moved and became a pastor, got ordained and all those kind of things. And so our story is like that for a lot of different people and different people in the charter school world. I've done the same kind of thing for we're starting not we a couple people in our employee are doing a charter school of their own next year. We've done this several times. We had an autistic, we had a special ed teacher who had special gifts and autistic children. And I encouraged Laura Newcomb to go start your own school. And she did. And she's probably got seven campuses. We started Helped another school get started. One of our principals wanted to have his own charter and so we helped him get started in West Phoenix somewhere. And I just think that's the way to develop. And sometimes great leaders stay with you and sometimes they go. But I found, you know, you give and God gives back to you. And so I'm not happy to see anybody go, but when they do, it always seems to come back around and we've got as much as we need.

There's the business side of this that I'm interested in as well, because your faith and your conversations there come from a different kind of wisdom. But then the business side, you still have to run that. Where did you learn those skills? How did you figure that out? Who mentored you in that kind of process? Was that just family grown or who knows, who knows?

You'd be broke long enough and you're going to figure out how to make money. That's what you've got to do. And that's why I didn't do Christian schools. I loved them. I mean they're just wonderful little atmosphere, a nice little thing. But you go broke and I realized you can't go broke and stay in business. And so I learned to monetize some of the things we were doing. Like our schools. We would always rent from churches. And so churches, it's terrible. They sit empty all week long. Sunday school classes ready to go and there's nobody in them. And so during the week we rent the churches and have for years. And so it's helped churches support themselves and it helped us support ourselves. And then after a while you learn. Our church bought the Gilbert Commerce Center, I don't know if you're familiar with that. It's a 100,000 square foot office complex right behind Dairy Queen downtown Gilbert. After the 911 crash, the real estate market crash, they called us and said, would you like to buy this for 9 million? And. And I said sure. And I called our denomination and asked them and I thought they would hang up on me. And they said, send us the paperwork. I sent them the paperwork and they wrote a $9 million check. And we owned that for five years. And if you remember anything about commercial real estate, after 911 it crashed. But for the next five years it just blew up. And in November of 07, we had bought four buildings for 9 million and sold three buildings for 10 million. And so we had a building completely debt free. And so we, a couple of years later we sold that, bought an Albertsons at Cooper and Ray, and we virtually paid Cash for that. And our school bought the other half of the building. And so for a church to be debt free, it's like for individuals to be debt free. It almost doesn't happen. But when it does, it. It puts you in a wonderful position that you can be as generous as you would really like to be. You know, a lot of folks would like to be generous and give and help and all that kind of stuff, but, man, the monthly bills, it just keeps them broke all the time.

That's the lottery dream right there.

Yeah, see, it is. See, I hit the lottery. I really did. And so I hope that's not too long of an answer to a very quick question.

No, that helps. And again, it's the operational side, because so many listeners here are part of businesses or, you know, in those situations. And it's a whole different kind of operation, the church business itself. Right. And so there's lots of nuances there. I guess I was just more curious about just who helped you mentor through that kind of thing and. Sounds like you just kind of fell into it.

I kind of fell into it. There's some friends of mine that are really bright. They've helped me considerably, but. And people that I partnered with. Ron Bodig, a friend of mine who helped me write the charter. Excuse me, who wrote the charter and showed me where to sign. He's a brainiac. And I've surrounded myself with people. See, I'm not all that bright, but I'm smart enough to surround myself with people who really, really are. Who are really good at business. And I'm humble enough to listen to what they say and not just obedience, but these guys know what they're talking about. And if we got enough humility working for us, they can really help us. And Ron has really helped me. Other people who've worked in our school have been brilliant, but the God's truth is, I never even finished college, and here I am, the president of a charter school. Go figure. But I have people around me that have done all that really, really well.

One of the statements that you shared with us is that every day is pivotal. And you said the power of. And instead of the limitation of or which I thought it's just an important statement. It's very simple, but very important.

Yeah. See, if we limit ourselves to this or that, you've only got two choices. But if you say this and this, there's lots of ways to do things. Right. It's not just my way or your way. Maybe it's our way. Maybe we can find out different ways of reaching a goal. And when you're locked into this or that, you just. You're loggerheads, you counter each other. But if you can get to this and part of this and maybe part of this and different things get thrown into the mix, it's surprising what good things you can really come up with. But if I demand my way and how I think it ought to be or not, then I think that's where I really lose. And so I've thought of the power of and. And the limitations of or. And that's what a lot of folks, businesses, churches think this or that. And it's really not or it's.

And I actually think that could be one of the most simplest solutions to some of the biggest challenges right now.

I think so. I think so. We're too much. Or here we're on wrong sides. We're in the same game here. We're in the same team. And there may be a better way of solving it. We just get together and work it out. And it's worked that way for me in church, in school and in life with my children, with this next generation, you know, I'm kind of an old guy, but the next generation, instead of or you embrace and you take in and you love and it's amazing what they will help me with and teach me.

Yeah, I like that. And I would like to use that.

Yeah, no, no. I'm sure I heard it from somebody. I doubt that I made it up.

So let's look ahead now. So you've got all these things going on, your school's growing, all these things. What's next? What's the horizon look like for you guys? For you?

Well, for me, I plan to do what I'm doing. I plan to pastor life, community, church, until, like I said, my brain or my body, either one leaves. If either one leaves, I've got to go. And what I've done, though, I've set a succession plan where. Where I've got Jamie Johnson and Roy Soblaski, two leaders in our church, both Gilbert leadership graduates. Both leadership graduates. Yes, they are the co pastors now, just in case, God forbid I ever got hit by a bus and was gone a lot quicker than I thought. The church goes right on. And they are the co pastors. They step right into the pastoral role that I'm in. And so my secret thing, I guess I better not say it too loud. As long as people will listen to me speak, I'll probably speak and I'll probably pastor. But there's a whole team of people that do the minutia. I don't want to call it minutia. Call it Ministry of the Details, and all those kinds of things that I've never been very good at. Other people are very good at it, and they love it. And Jamie and Rory both know how to employ those people and get them moving in the right direction. And so that's what I see the future for me. I'm, you know, I. I don't want to not work. The school has got the same kind of projection ahead for it. We've got people in place that make Leading Edge Academy happen, and it's not me.

Let's just dive into Jamie for just a second because I have some concerns.

Okay, I got you. Tell me about them. We can get her fixed.

You know, this Mrs. Gilbert situation that we're facing. Yeah, I just. I don't know what to do with this.

I tell you what. And if anybody deserves it, she does.

She sure does.

She's got confidence and she's. It's just wonderful. You know, you see the public, Jamie, and for true, all of us, you hope it's as good behind closed doors as it is in public. And with Jamie, she's the real deal, too, 100%. She really is. And Roy's the same way. Roy's a ringer.

Yep. Absolutely.

Yeah.

Just wanted to make sure we all knew that she was Mrs. Gilbert.

Mrs. Gilbert. I know. I'm waiting for her to wear the crown and sash to work or on church on Sunday that we could anoint her to be queen.

I can't believe she hasn't yet.

Well, she maybe has. I was gone a couple weeks ago. Maybe she did that. She wouldn't do that.

That's awesome. This has been a great conversation.

Yeah. You know, you're just. You're a wonderful example of community and generosity. It's been a pleasure to get to know you, and I'm grateful for all that you do for us.

Thank you, you guys. It's a great place to live, isn't it?

It is indeed.

It's wonderful.

Yeah.

Wonderful. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Well, if you've enjoyed this show, which I know you have, please subscribe to our tribe, join our crew, and get more episodes of Guiding Growth coming to your inbox as we enjoy talking with more folks just like Delmer today. Thank you for being here. Guiding Growth conversations with community leaders.

Ben, let me ask you a question. How do you see other community members being involved in this podcast?

This is going to be a great opportunity for so many people in the community to have a chance to be heard if they want to tell their story or if they just want to be part of this journey with us and help sponsor in a way that helps bring more people to the table with us. So I think there's many opportunities at hand. Whether you want to again be on the show, reach out to us, let us know what your story is and how you think you could be part of it. We'd love to hear from you. Reach out, let us know, and we'll see if we can make that connection.

Sa.