Fellowship Memphis

For the past 2 weeks local news has been buzzing about the Memphis-filmed movie, The Grace Card, a movie intended to highlight the racial conflict in Memphis and to show how God’s grace can bring healing to a community. I was able to attend the premiere and after the movie there was a Q & A with the actors and director. Racial reconciliation was an obvious conversation topic, but another theme emerged that surprised me: God doing extraordinary things through ordinary people. The majority of the movie crew and actors were not professionals, they were simply ordinary men and women willing to be used by God.

This theme was further amplified for me by a familiar name at the end of the credits, where the dedication read “In loving memory of Wing 5: Doug Phillips, Misty Brogden, and Cindy Parker.” I’m not the type to sit through movie credits, but this “in memory of” was the reason I was sitting in the Orpheum in the first place.

Doug Phillips was my dad. He died in a helicopter crash last year on his way back to the Brownsville base after airlifting a patient to the Med. Much like the hero in the movie, in his earlier years my dad was a youth minister and a full time policeman trying to mesh the worlds of career ministry with a full time job. My dad’s ministry became his coworkers on the MPD, the aviation unit, and eventually the Hospital Wing. He was a very simple man, not eloquent or highly educated, but willing to be used by God for His purposes. After Dad’s death we were flooded with letters and phone calls from people sharing stories of how he acted as a counselor in their heartaches, how he led them to the Lord in the back of a squad car, or how he taught them to fly helicopters.

As I left the premiere with my dad’s legacy fresh on my mind, Acts 4:13 echoed in my heart: “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and took note that these men had been with Jesus.” Not all of us are gifted to act in Christian movies or speak in front of large groups of people, but like my dad, we have the opportunity to interact with family, friends, and coworkers who don’t know Jesus. That being said, as ordinary men and women, let us live this week in a way that others might “take note” that we have been with Jesus.