Frontline Responders: Wade Phillips

MERIDIAN, Miss. (WTOK) - It’s time for another edition of our Frontline Responders segment and this week we are spotlighting Wade Philips.

News 11 talked with Philips earlier this week about his dedication to serving the community.

Wade Philips is the Executive Pastor at Northcrest Baptist Church in Meridian.

Phillips and Northcrest have been hard at work all this week with the Love Out Loud event, doing different community service projects throughout the city.

This is the tenth year Northeast Baptist Church has hosted the Love Out Loud event and Philips explains the mission behind the ministry.

“I think what we’ve done is not just start this one week of service, but what I see throughout the year churches doing things just like this now, so that’s been one of the most encouraging things. We never wanted this just to be just a Northcrest thing, we want this to be where the Christians in our community are showing the love of God to the people in our community,” said Wade Phillips.

Phillips has been a part of the Meridian community for 20 years serving in not only ministry but media as well and getting his journalism career started right here at News 11.

“There are a surprising number of similarities between news and pastoring. First of all, just simply, I am still giving the news, it is the good news now, you know. Wanting to clearly communicate with people, I’ve learned a lot from that,” said Phillips.

Phillips started as an intern in 1996 and worked his way up to the News Director position.

He describes some of the most memorable stories he covered during his time in the news industry.

“There are several big ones. Hurricane Katrina is obviously the one that probably sticks out to a lot of people. From leading up to it, to the Wall-to-Wall coverage that we did during Katrina to the days afterwards when we are dealing with everything going on there. The Mississippi Burning Trials was another one that I covered. Edgar Ray Killen and the Civil Rights murders in Neshoba County. Seeing that trial in 2005 after so many years and seeing that conviction there. That was another hugely important story I covered during that time,” said Phillips.

Phillips says teaching the words has always been close to his heart and that’s what lead him to his current position as Executive Pastor at Northcrest.

”I started Seminary 9 years ago. I just finished with my master’s and my doctorate in December and then three years ago we changed my role to Executive Pastor, which just puts me over the staff and the day-to-day ministries. I love being able to just open up the Bible and explain to people this is what the word says, and this is what is means for you. This is what you should do about it. This is what God has done for you. This is what God expects from you,” said Phillips.

Wade Philips was actually a part of the News 11 team and the driving force for the original First Responders’ series that recognized individuals who embody service over self and do their part to make the community a better place.

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