People You Meet Doing Neighborhood Missions: Phil
Following Jesus Into The Ups and Downs of Their Lives
Phil is an amazing person.
He came to Griggs almost immediately after I arrived in 2015.
Before that, he had spent several years attending a Pentecostal church, but they eventually asked him not to return because he came down with a long-term illness and they were afraid he’d spread it to their aging congregation.
So he had spent a couple of years out of church when I started at Griggs, and thus started canvassing the neighborhood.
I knocked on his door one day, invited him to Griggs, and he started coming on Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, and Wednesday nights. He came hyper-consistently for about 3 years.
Phil was in his 60’s. He had a long and winding story.
He was married, but his wife had been living in some sort of care facility for years, and they didn’t really get to see eachother anymore. Phil had spent some time in prison. And after a couple of years of attending Griggs, he let us all know his real name was not Phil. But he asked that we continue to call him Phil.
He knew (knows) everything about the Bible. Probably more than you do. And I mean that. He’s an incredible thinker and theologian.
After talking with Phil you’d be clear on the fact that he knew the gospel. He could articulate the gospel. He was familiar with some Greek. And he had sharp discernment for when something was of the Spirit or not when he was spirtually healthy.
He lived with a woman everyone called “Aunt Ruthie” in a small house in the neighborhood. I hope to tell you more about Aunt Ruthie in a future post. She was a firecracker. She was about 10 years younger than Phil, but looked the same age.
Aunt Ruthie (I later found out that also wasn’t a real name), was Phil’s son’s mother-in-law. Or at least she used to be.
Phil’s son married Aunt Ruthie’s daughter. At some point, both kids passed away. After that, Phil started living with Aunt Ruthie and had been for a long time when I met him.
I remember visiting them often in the little house on the corner. I sat on an old couch situated on an old carpet while Aunt Ruthie was laid back in the recliner watching Big Bang Theory. That didn’t stop us three from conversing about Jesus and praying together.
Aunt Ruthie and Phil would also talk about old times. They would share stories from the former days of the neighborhood.
Phil served communion at church, Phil was an usher, Phil sang, and Phil was awesome. Phil IS awesome. But I haven’t seen him in years.
Phil and Aunt Ruthie had a next-door neighbor named Mary. She was always fighting with Aunt Ruthie out in their yards. I’m talking screaming matches you wouldn’t believe. There was swearing, yelling, and it got physical on occasion (at least that’s what I was told).
When Mary and Aunt Ruthie were not fighting in their adjacent yards, they were best friends. They were like sisters. Inseparable.
Mary and Phil were also best friends. And it doesn’t appear they fought at all. Probably because Phil was hyper-accommodating.
Partly what I mean was that Phil’s just the nicest guy in the world.
I also mean that, if Aunt Ruthie told Phil to do something, anything, as ridiculous as it could be, he would do it. I saw this on multiple occasions.
She would ask him to get her a glass of water, and he would do it. She would ask him to walk down to the food bank, get some food, and bring it back, and he would do it. She would ask him to take 10 dollars down the street to a lady named Ms. Cathy, and he would do it. Then, Aunt Ruthie would criticize how he did the task, how long it took him, and how he could do it much better next time.
On one occasion, Phil told me that he used to pray all the time that God would change Aunt Ruthie’s personality. Then he paused and said, “But instead, God has been changing me.”
Anyway, my guess is he was also hyper-accommodating with Mary. My guess is that he just did whatever she said. This caused Aunt Ruthie and Mary to fight over Phil.
It seems to me that one day, Phil had to decide between the two. It came to a head when Marry was getting evicted and moving to a trailer in a different West Greenville neighborhood. At the same time, Aunt Ruthies other daughter had just been released from jail and returned to the house. So Phil decided to move with Mary to her new trailer.
Phil came to church only a handful of times after that. He now had to get a ride from his sister to make it to church. He used to be able to walk.
His sister dropped him off every Sunday morning for about a month. And then, one day, Phil dissapeared.
He went from never missing a service to never showing up again.
His sister popped into church a little while after his disappearance and told us that she was worried about him. She feared that Mary was a bad influence on Phil. She told us that Phil had battled an addiction off and on and she feared the switch to the new trailer would trigger him.
The last time I saw Phil was when he accidentally started a Facebook Live post where he was talking with Mary and her 11-year-old son (who I had baptized the year before) in that new trailer at about 1 in the morning.
The reason I think the post was an accident is because they were talking about nothing at all. I believe it was about directions to this place or that. Phil was good with directions.
I don’t know how Phil is doing right now. But I am excited to see him again one day. As complicated as his life was/is, as unpredictable as it was, I know that Phil loved Jesus, loved the scriptures, and loved the church. I’m glad I got to worship with him for a few years on this side of eternity.
Phil is an amazing person.
About this post:
The goal of this post, and the posts like it that will follow, is to encourage church revitalizers to consider themselves neighborhood missionaries who find broken people, minister to them, and enjoy the ups and downs of the journey.
It’s a look into real life, real disciples, and the real mess of church in hard neighborhoods.
My hope is to show people that following Jesus (meaning, going after the people he would go after if he were physically ministering today) is not linear, not perfect, but it is in fact the task we are given. And it’s always worth it.
These are true experiences of mine, though the names have been altered - even the ones we found out were already fake.