Biography

BIOGRAPHY Bob Phillips

EARLY YEARS Bob Phillips was born in Greenville, S C and spent the first 19 years of his life there. He attended Judson Baptist Church, a SBC Church, where he was called to preach and ordained in 1963. He was educated at North Greenville Junior College (as it was known then), Mars Hill College and Southern Seminary. He was pastor of churches in Michigan and Florida, then for many years ministered as a Vocational SBC Evangelist. During this time while preaching revivals across the country the Lord developed his skills as a fund raiser, raising money for various churches and ministries on the mission field to build churches, missions, clinics and homes with WORLDMISSION. He led teams of preachers, doctors, carpenters electricians, etc. to Haiti (13 trips), Dominican Republic, Bahamas and Jamaica.
CHANGE OF THEOLOGY About 1978 an event took place in Bob’s life that would change him forever. While the pastor of a church in South Carolina, God in His sovereignty, revealed to Bob the “Doctrines of Grace”. Some one gave him a copy of A W Pink’s book, The Sovereignty of God. Having always been fascinated with predestination, he ploughed right in. A few weeks later he began to think he did not like this doctrine very much. For at least six months he tried to rationalize and explain away the Doctrine’s of Grace. Like a man in quicksand the more he argued against the doctrines, the more he began to embrace them. Finally, the Holy Spirit opened his eyes and he was able to link the doctrines together. He began to see things in the Scripture that he had never seen before. One day he woke up, looked in the mirror and discovered he had become a “dreaded Calvinist.”
RUDE AWAKENING After being called to larger church as associate pastor, the stark reality of the consequences of his change in theology began to become apparent. This was a church which was baptizing at least 200 people a year. With his new understanding of the scriptures and evangelism his new convictions were soon tested. His first task was to arrange for the new converts to be baptized. As he began to call the “new converts” he began to see experiencially what he had been learning intellectually. Hardly any of the people who had been “saved” had any interest in being baptized, much less becoming sanctified. He came to see the difference between “God Centered Evangelism” and “Man Centered Evangelism.” As he was to discover, there was also a difference between “God Centered Theology” and “Man Centered Theology.’ Ernie Reisinger was right. They should lock all people who become Calvinist’s up in a cage for two years. Like driving a tank, but not knowing how to operate it, Bob proceeded to learn new, fresh lessons about how to handle his new found theology. He quickly learned that the “bull in the china shop” approach does not work very well. Not long afterwards he had the opportunity to preach for the pastor while he was away. Guess what “Einstein” preached on! You guessed it! The Doctrine of Election. Brilliant!! Well, needless to say, he was given the choice of renouncing these “heretical, anti-Southern Baptist’ beliefs or be terminated. The pastor took him on a retreat with the rest of the staff in an attempt to “deprogram the heretic.’ The pastor told Bob, “maybe we should stop talking people into being saved and just let God save them,’ in a rather condescending way. To this Bob replied, “my, what a novel idea, why not let God save His people!” Anyway, there was no denunciation of the Biblical Gospel, but there was the termination of Bob’s job.
SACRIFICES The path he had chosen to travel was not going to be an easy one, as many, many of you have already discovered. The term, take up your cross, became filled with new meaning. It dawned on him the next week as he went to work on a cold, rainy day driving a Coca Cola truck, carrying heavy cases of drinks for $114.00 a week. Gone was the big salary, gone was the free medical insurance, gone was the free electricity, etc, gone was the security, gone was the self esteem of being a respected pastor, gone was the chance of becoming the pastor of a Southern Baptist Church for many years. There was no Founders Ministry. The number of people who believed these doctrines that he had embraced could be counted on one of his hand’s, at least as far as he knew. He was now a “heretic,” carrying Coca Cola bottles for a living
WILDERNESS EXPERIENCE He then embarked on a wilderness journey much like Moses experienced and much like A W Pink endured. He entered the field of Vocational Evangelism again. The Lord provided some meetings, but not enough to earn an adequate salary. Bob preached when he could for the next several years. Along the way he worked to supplement his income delivering Krispy Kreme doughnuts, doing telephone telemarketing, delivering Magazines, driving a cab (which was a great job for witnessing in Miami), working in a Christian Camp (which gave him great experience for beginning the Lost World Retreat Center in Belize years later), One thing remained constant. The more difficult the way became, the stronger the blessed true Biblical Gospel burned in his breast! The more doors that were closed the more he rested on the Lord to give him direction and use him again. The Lord answered that prayer and put into Bob’s heart the word WORLDMISSION! It was to start out burning like a smothering ember and rage into a burning fire in his heart and mind.
BIRTH OF WORLDMISSION One day he sat down at a desk in Office Max in Greenville, S C and with a used typewriter he wrote on several pieces of paper the vision and dream of WORLDMISSION. He still has those documents in his office today. The Lord has fulfilled many of those dreams already while some are still being realized today, such as a Caribbean Retreat Center somewhere in the Caribbean. It is on the opposite side of the Caribbean than Bob thought it would be, but it now goes under the name of the Lost World Jungle Lodge. Within these premises will be housed the Lost World Mission Outpost. An explanation of the Lost World is given on another page. The main purpose of WORLDMISSION is to spread the true, Biblical Gospel around the world as the Lord leads. This will be accomplished by sermons, books, teaching opportunities, conferences, supporting missionaries, indigenous pastors, seminaries, and any method the Lords opens for us.
SUPPORT OF MISSIONARIES & PASTORS Another ministry of WORLDMISSION will be to support ministries we feel led of the Lord to partner with. So far the Lord has brought into our lives Ramzan Hosein, from Trinidad, Baruck Maoz, from Israel, Leland Browder, from South Carolina and Conrad Mbewe, from Africa. We will pray that God will bring such others as He chooses to bring into our life. The primary factor that will decide which ministries we support financially, with prayer and with our close friendship as we work together will be their love for the true Biblical Gospel. Ours will not be a ministry to build a huge cooperative bureaucracy just to support missionaries regardless of what they believe and teach. Biblically Responsible Evangelism will be another area with emphasis as well. We are already involved in church planting and ministering to new or struggling Reformed Churches.
CHURCH PLANTING & ASSISTING NEW CHURCHES One of the greatest burdens of Bob’s heart are pastors, especially those who are struggling and hurting because of their belief in the Doctrines of Grace. We want these pastors, indeed all pastors who share our theology to know that they are not alone. Therefore we want to find pastors and churches who need moral support. We want to determine which churches need financial assistance and we will attempt to partner you with other churches and lay people of like beliefs to assist you. Currently, there are a great number of church plants around the country, which are meeting in a school, a VFW Lodge, a church building which has been leased to them once a week, in a home, in a library or some other facility because of their convictions to preach a pure, Biblical Gospel. Many are meeting where they are because they have been dismissed from their churches because of their theology. Some are starting from scratch because they are following the leadership of the Holy Spirit. WORLDMISSION has made a point of finding many of these churches so that we can become their friends. We want to bond with you to offer you encouragement, give advice, a place where you can connect, communicate, interact and bond with one another. We have placed a page on our website where we will list churches such as these and new Reformed Church Plants. We have created a way for you to communicate with us and these sister churches. We will feature one church each month on a special page so others can become familiar with you. We will provide a method for other churches to support you financially in your struggle.
ADOPT A CHURCH: We have a page where your church can adopt a church which is a new plant or is struggling financially. You choose the church you would like to adopt. You will have no authority over your adopted church, but will only help them. You can constantly pray for them, which frankly the best assistance you can give them You can send them financial support on a monthly basis. You can make a one time gift to them. You can support their pastor with a salary. You can send mission teams to help them begin to build new buildings. You can help them to purchase land. There are many creative ways you can assist them. Remember, you are being asked to help them flourish, not control them. God knows, we have far too much of that already. If you feel led to adopt a church WORLDMISSION will help you find a church to partner with according to the leadership of the Holy Spirit. We will assist you in working out the details of you partnership. You and your adopted church will decide the length of time your partnership will last and all the other details. We are just there to guide and bring people together. May God bless us to build up the Body of Christ together. Remember, we have experienced many of the heartaches you have experienced. Bob has started churches from scratch, has inherited churches with Armenian theology and seen God build Reformed Baptist congregations over a number of years. We want to be there for you.
WORLDMISSION CONFERENCES WORLDMISSION is in the process of scheduling Conferences around the United States and in foreign countries. WORLDMISSION will be hosting the BELIZE CITY BIBLE CONFERENCE (A Study of Romans) June 14 thru 21, 2009. It will be held at Lake Independence Baptist Church and will include all the Baptist churches of Belize City. The host pastor is Ashley Rocke, the President of the Belize Baptist Convention. We have a team of six preachers who will preach at different churches on Sunday, the 14 & 21. Then five days during the week the conference sermons will be preached. Leland Browder, President of Missions Unlimited will preach on Churchmanship. Ramzan Hosein, President of Trinidad & Tobago Bible College will preach on the first seven chapters of Romans. Bob Phillips, President of WORLDMISSION, will preach on chapters 8 thru 12 of Romans
A CONFERENCE IN YOUR AREA: If you are interested in hosting a WORLDMISSION Conference in your area, city or church please contact us. We will help you organize the conference and will provide speakers for you if you wish. If you wish we will come to your city to meet with other pastors to organize the conference for expenses only. We want to help spread the Biblical Gospel, provide support, encouragement and friendship to all those who share our beliefs. All we ask is that Bob preach in the conference and we may share about our worldwide ministry, including our “Spiritual Base camp” for this ministry in Belize at our Lost World Jungle Lodge. Also Bob is available to speak by himself for conferences, mission conferences and evangelistic meetings for your church or area. There will be no high pressure evangelism and these meetings will be conducted from a Reformed Perspective. Please contact us!