Jarvis is a graduate of Memphis State University and the Evangelical Institute of Greenville, South Carolina.
 
In 1988, Jarvis left a promising career in the field of marketing and sales administration to go into fulltime ministry in Greenville, SC.  In 1990, Jarvis and his family left Greenville in order to serve as Camp Director with Camp Pioneer, a youth Bible camp in Pearl, MS.

Jarvis joined the New Lake Outreach Center, an inner city ministry located on the corner of Farish and Monument streets in Jackson, Mississippi, as the Director of Special Ministries in January 1994.

He was highly recommended and recruited to be the first Executive Director of Mission Mississippi, which he accepted in May 1994 and continued to serve in that position through November 1997.

Jarvis was invited to join the national staff of Mission America as a National Facilitator of City/Community Ministries in November 1997.  He accepted the challenging role and began serving on the national staff May 1, 1998.  His role involves the exploration, formation and implementation of City/Community/County partnerships that include diversity denominationally, ethnically and racially with the vision of sustained holistic transformation.  In hundreds of cities in America, this transformational process is beginning to take place

Jarvis is involved in numerous Para-ministries and civic organizations and presently is the Mississippi Regional Trainer for The Intimate Life Ministry based in Austin, Texas.  He has served many years as a Volunteer Chaplain for the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.  He was unanimously appointed as a member of the Mississippi Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to serve a term through the year 2004.  Jarvis is involved in preaching and teaching throughout Mississippi as well as across the country.  His ordination is from the First Evangelical Church of Greenville, SC.  He has made a life commitment to labor and sacrifice to see young and old come to know, to love, to worship and to serve Jesus Christ.

Jarvis and his wife, Brendalyn, have five children and reside in Pearl, MS.