Obituary of Richard N. Phillips August 11, 1933 - November 2, 2024

A Celebration of Richard N. Phillips’ Life, age 91, of Jasper, Texas will be 11:00 a.m., Wednesday, November 6, 2024 at First Methodist Church, Jasper, Texas with burial to follow at Hancock Cemetery, Jasper, Texas. Visitation will be 9:00 a.m. until time of service at the church.

Dick’s parents already had a boy who was two years and five months old when he was born. The doctor sent Dick and his mother home from the hospital when they had exhausted all options to find a formula that the baby could keep on his stomach. It was a matter of a short time before he would die. At home his parents knelt beside their bed and prayed that if the Lord would let him live, He could have him for His service. Not long after they prayed, a couple came by to visit them and learned of the situation. They urged them to take the baby to their pediatrician. Finally they convinced them to do so even though they had confidence in their doctor. The doctor massaged the baby while asking what all has been done for him at the hospital. "Have you tried canned milk, he asked? “Yes, we tried Pet milk.” “Did you try Carnation?” No, they all are the same.” “There may be some difference. Go and get some and we will try that.” That was the difference that saved his life.

It was on Easter Sunday in 1941 that Dick accepted the Lord for himself. From his earliest memories he had always been in church with his parents and brother.

In 1947 his father was employed by R G Letourneau in Longview, Texas. Mr. Letourneau was a Christian business man and maintained a Christian summer camp in Wynona Lake, Indiana. During this summer Dick was able to attend that camp because of this man’s generosity. He wanted all of the children of his employees to have spiritual experiences so he only charged $7.50 for flying them there for a week in his company plane named “Load Star.” During that week God again spared his life during a boating accident on the lake. The last evening of the camp, all campers and counselors attended a revival service at Billy Sunday’s Tabernacle there in Wynona Lake. During the invitation, as all were singing Just As I Am, one by one most all of the campers went down to accept the Lord as their Savior. Only Dick and one other camper were left on the crude bench. Tears streamed down his face as his head was bowed. Tears of shock and shame. He had been with his fellow campers all week and assumed that they were Christians too. He had not said or done anything to bring Christ to them. The Lord used that experience to reveal to him that he was to be a soul winner.

In the years that followed, Dick thought about when he became an adult what he could do. He had been tinkering with junk clocks and thought that he would have a clock and watch repair shop and make a witness to customers in several ways. First he would have spiritual pictures and scriptures on the walls. He would have a record player playing sacred music in the background. This was before there was any music playing in stores. He also would speak of Christ as there was opportunity to do so. During his high school years he would once in a while think of the ministry. By the time he was a senior he was thinking of the ministry and once in a while thinking of the clock and watch repair shop. He finally realized that the Lord was calling him into the ministry. One Sunday morning as he was getting ready to leave for Sunday School he told his parents that he wanted to become a preacher. They told him when he got to church to tell this to the pastor. When he arrived at Wesley Methodist Church in Longview, Texas, he went to Rev. Compton Riley and told him his desire. Rev. Riley said, “Today is Life Service Volunteer Sunday, and when I give the invitation for full time Christian service, come down to the front of the church where I am.” He did and he was committed to Christian ministry.

During his senior year he preached his first sermon on a Sunday evening for his uncle, who was pastor of the First Methodist Church in Center, Texas. His uncle was one of his father’s brothers, the Reverend Chester Phillips. In later years Dick was to be appointed to two of the churches that his uncle pastored earlier. These were Roberts Avenue UMC in Beaumont, Texas and Pleasant Retreat UMC in Tyler, Texas. His second sermon was preached in his home church in Longview.

Upon graduating from high school he went straight into Lon Morris College, our Methodist college in Jacksonville, Texas. After finishing his first year in college, in June of 1952, he was encouraged by his home pastor, Rev. C. A. West, to seek an appointment as a student pastor. Rev. Wes introduced him to Rev. Guy Wilson who was district superintendent of the Huntsville District. Rev. West encouraged Rev. Wilson to consider him for an appointment. Rev. Guy Wilson called Dick the next week an offered him the Kennard Circuit. Thus began his ministry. His first service was held on June 8, 1952.

After being in the ministry for around three years Dick received a letter from his parents which told him the rest of the story about his birth. They had only told him about the pediatrician saving his life. In the letter he was told about their prayer. He was over whelmed to learn that from the beginning he was destined to be a minister. He was glad that they never told him about their prayer because he could have felt obligated to go into the ministry and not heard the call very clearly.

In June of 1956 Dick was appointed to the Curtis Circuit at Jasper, Texas. This circuit was composed of three churches, Curtis, Homer, and Ebenezer. He was appointed to serve there for three months, but stayed three years. Curtis had a youth group (MYF), but he organized one at Homer. Both youth ministries grew and they won the sub-district banner many times for having the most youth at the sub-district meeting. One of the counselors was Shirley Womack. She worked with both youth groups together with Dick. Before long they became close friends that ultimately became more than that.

Dick asked Shirley to go with him to Albuquerque, NM, for Christmas with his parents. She consented. While there on the morning of the 23rd, he told Shirley the next morning they were going to have a mountain top experience. On the morning of the 24th they drove out to the foothills of the Sandia mountains. “We are going to climb this mountain and when you have hiked as high as you can let me know and we will stop there,” he said. When they got to the place she was ready to stop he asked her to sit on the rock behind her. “No, I’ll stand.” He tried to get her to sit, but to no avail. So while there he asked her if she would marry him. She said, “Yes, if I had known that was what was going to happen I would have run all the way to the top.” When Dick would tell that story she would always deny she said that. It was hilarious all those years. When they decided on the date of March 23, 1957 for the wedding, the first thing Dick said was, “Great, the dogwoods will be in full bloom and we can use them for our flowers.” And so that year they were blooming at their best and the Curtis altar was lined with dogwood and magnolia leaves.

In June of 1959 they left Jasper with a small U-Haul trailer loaded down for Denver, Colorado where they stayed for two years. There they organized a great youth group and would take them to the mountains during the summer and camp out for a week and have many spiritual experiences.

Upon returning to Texas he was appointed to Huntington in June 1961. Shirley gave birth to their first child, a daughter, Laura, on Monday the 12th at Richardson Hospital in Jasper, before he moved to Huntington on Thursday. It seemed like she planned that so she wouldn’t have to help move in.

In June of 1964, Dick was appointed to Chandler, 10 miles west of Tyler. It was September 22, 1964, while there, that Shirley gave birth to their second child, Mark. While at Chandler, Dick was known as the walking preacher. He walked everywhere. He walked all over town visiting and even out of town a little way to visit. One of his members, a young father, got in his car a block away from the parsonage and drove by to see if he had a car. To the day they still keep in contact and call him the walking preacher. During their time in Chandler a tornado did a great deal of damage to the downtown and to many homes.

There were several churches in the following years until they got to Roberts Avenue Methodist in Beaumont. While there their daughter, Laura, graduated and attended Lon Morris College where she met Jeff Campbell. They dated some during those two years. It was after they enrolled at SFA in Nacogdoches, Texas, that they became great friends, fell in love, and upon her graduation, they were married at Roberts Avenue in Beaumont. Of course you know who they got to perform the ceremony.

While in Beaumont their son, Mark, graduated from high school and also attended Lon Morris College in Jacksonville, Texas. Dick was appointed to Pleasant Retreat Church in Tyler at Conference in 1985. Upon completing the two years at Lon Morris, Mark also enrolled at SFA. After graduation he met Angie Andrade and after some time of becoming great friends and falling in love they were married at First United Methodist Church in Nacogdoches with you know who performing that ceremony too.

During the subsequent years that followed the marriage of each couple, Dick and Shirley were blessed with four grandchildren. Laura and Jeff have two girls, Kailyn and husband Arnaldo and Kylie. Mark and Angie have a son and a daughter, Jacob and Katee. Family time has always been a major priority with Dick and Shirley. There is so much joy in all the memories. There are the special days, the wonderful trips, the delicious meals at each home and gathering, the stories and laughter, and the spiritual experiences that are shared, and the love that never fails for each other and the Lord.

While serving Pleasant Retreat Church in Tyler, they built a family life center. Every Wednesday night the congregation would come to the church for a prepared meal by three of the best cooks in the church. Yes, one of them Shirley. Dick called them the three Musketeers. They are together in Heaven now.

Among Shirley’s gifts was that of creating great dishes of food. Dick would bring home recipes that were outstanding from revivals he preached and meals he would eat there. Many of these are in her cook books. She was the greatest asset to his ministry. Everyone loved her. When they were appointed to another church the people, especially the women, would say, “We will let you go, but we will keep Shirley.” She and Dick were destined by God to minister together. Before Dick was appointed to the Curtis Circuit the first time in 1956, Rev. McGown was pastor. Mrs. McGown once told Shirley she would make a great minister’s wife. Sounded like a word of prophecy, didn’t it?.

Dick didn’t know it when he was appointed to St. Paul’s in Bryan that it would be the last appointment before retirement. That ministry began there in June of 1992. It was among the best places and congregations of his ministry. While there the women of the church published two cook books of Shirley’s recipes. They had a wonderful ministry there and retired the last day in September 1998, and moved back to Jasper.

Years before retirement the Curtis Church wanted to sell the old parsonage. Dick and Shirley bought it and had it moved to their property west of the church. During the years that followed they worked on the house. Before retirement while in Bryan members of the church would come to Jasper on Saturdays and help work on the house with them. They added the family room and helped remodel the whole house inside and out. This house became known by the Phillips’ as, “The home that love built.” When they moved back they ended up n the house they started out in and also ended up ministering in the same churches. Curtis and Homer celebrated the dedication of the home to the Lord with an open house one Saturday evening. Dick and Shirley always had an open house at Christmas where ever they were. Shirley cooked and prepared goodies of all kinds. The special punch was a recipe that Dick had brought back from a church in Baytown, Texas. What a wonderful life they had for fifty-one years. These congregations they served together through the years have become family. Curtis and Homer asked Dick if he would be their pastor in his retirement. Obviously he said “Yes!” Dick says, “They didn’t seem to remember me well from before, because they asked for me to be their pastor again.” He served three years here from 1956-1959, and again from 1999 to?. (June starts 14 years this time).

On March 21, 2008, Good Friday, Shirley was suddenly called home by our Heavenly Father, but Dick is still here serving these congregations and loving it. He and Shirley have dearly loved every congregation they have served.

Dick is emphatic about the Lord getting the praise for any good that comes from his ministry and relationships with others.

Schedule of Services

Visitation

First Methodist Church

Wednesday, November 6, 2024

9:00 AM - 11:00 AM

Jasper, Texas 75951

Celebration of Life

First Methodist Church

Wednesday, November 6, 2024

11:00 AM

Jasper, Texas 75951