James Neece was born on May 5, 1941. He had one sibling, a half sister. In 1954, his mother died. At the age of fifteen he went to attend Culver Military Academy in Indiana, from which he graduated in 1960. He then went to Claremont College in California. His father died in 1962, his sophomore year. After attending various colleges and universities, he graduated from Claremont in 1972 with a degree in business economics. In 1965 he married and in 1967 became the father of a baby girl. He and his wife divorced in 1969. He held a wide variety of jobs during his college years and after: car salesman, draftsman, real estate appraiser, bond salesman and trader.

In 1979 he had a sudden, dramatic conversion to Christianity. He joined a local Christian and Missionary Alliance church and was soon elected a deacon. In 1980 he went to Alaska to help with some CMA construction work there and also assisted a pastor there working with loggers. In 1982 he went to Mali the Ivory Coast and Gabon as a short term missionary. Feeling that he needed a deeper grounding in the Bible, he enrolled in Multnomah School of the Bible in Portland, Oregon. He began to do visitation at the Rocky Butte County Jail while he was attending Multnomah.

After graduating, he enrolled at Wheaton Graduate School in Wheaton, Illinois for further training. He also began to assist, on a volunteer basis, the chaplain at the nearby Dupage County Jail. Eventually the chaplain, Charles Haley (who was a staff member of Good News Mission) made Neece his assistant. When Haley resigned, Neece did as well. He came back shortly after, at the urging of the mission, to become chaplain.

He continued as chaplain until early 1987. (He graduated from the graduate school in 1986 with an MA in theology). His duties included administrative work, arranging for worship and evangelistic services, counseling, maintaining liaison with local churches, recruiting and training volunteers and fund raising. He resigned in 1987 largely because of the pressures of administrative work and fund raising. However, the new chaplain did not work out and Neece came back in August as interim chaplain. As of September 1987 he was planning to leave that position shortly and, with his new bride (Virginia Pearle Green, whom he had married in February), manage a retreat center for Christian workers.