Gospel Lighthouse Church/Academy offers hope and success

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

Tyler, Texas — smack dab in the east central portion of the Lone Star State — can claim a lot of things in its 172-year history.

The “Rose Capital of America” it’s dubbed and appropriately sports the largest rose garden in the United States. The “Adopt-a-Highway” movement also started in Tyler. It’s even the birthplace of NFL Hall of Fame running back Earl Campbell.

It’s also where Paul and Dixie Phillips first met.

The year was 1976 and the setting was the East Texas Bible College, located in Tyler at the time.

The Phillips have been spreading a message of faith and hope ever since.

Paul, pastor at the Gospel Lighthouse Church and Academy, has been preaching and teaching for 37 years at his non-denominational church and private Christian school that sits right down from the park in Floyd.

His marriage to Dixie, the church’s pastor and secretary, has been going strong for 40 years now. They have four grown children, and they’ll celebrate a wedding anniversary in November.

Paul and Dixie run the Lighthouse Academy, which currently has 52 students enrolled in grades K-12. The church has two Sunday services, 11 a.m. and 6 p.m., as well as 7 p.m. Wednesday worship. Sunday school starts at 10 a.m.

Now 65, Paul and his wife are united in a simple goal of leading others to Christ through Scripture, worship and the academy.

“Our purpose has never changed. We want to share the Gospel, which is the good news of Jesus Christ, with everyone that we can,” said Paul.

He took over as lead pastor at the Gospel Lighthouse Church in 1981 and they founded the school seven years later in 1988.

The church itself preceded them by a few years. It was dedicated in 1978 and has built several additions over the year, none bigger than construction of the west wing in 2007 that doubled the size of the facilities.

There are about 180 members of the church and the academy employs four full-time teachers that teach four different learning centers in grades K-1st, 2nd-3rd, 4th-7th, and 8th-12th. Paul said the student-to-teacher ratio is about 12 to 1.

“We emphasize basic education. It’s math, reading, arithmetic, English, history, social studies,” said Phillips. “We believe in a Christian environment that teaches a Christian worldview that is safe, as much as we can make it.”

Scanning the spacious areas for teachers to instruct students, you’ll see pictures on the wall spanning decades.

“The first thing you usually see is a trophy case,” Phillips said about many school entrances. “These are our trophies,” he said, pointing to pictures of graduates that hang on the wall of the academy.

There have been tremendous success stories to come out of the Gospel Lighthouse Academy — shining stars like 2008 Gospel Lighthouse graduate Isaac Wendland.

Wendland is one of Iowa’s all-time storied runners in track and field along with cross country. He won seven individual state titles in track and holds the Class 3A record for the state’s all-time fastest time in the Class 3A 800 run for Charles City High School. The dual-enrolled standout also won three individual cross country titles.

Wendland later went on to run in college at Liberty University, a private Baptist institution in Virginia. Liberty’s nickname is the Flames, which so happens to be the nickname for the Gospel Lighthouse Academy’s sports teams — boys basketball and girls volleyball. The Lighthouse Academy competes in an Iowa Christian league.

Current student Daniel Fleming recently scored the highest ever on a college entry test for a Lighthouse Academy student, according to Paul. He has been offered a full-ride scholarship in the engineering department at the University of Iowa.

Dixie said the church and academy stand on precepts and beliefs that do not waver. It’s one of the reasons students who have passed through the academy have reached the heights that they have been able to attain, she said.

“There’s some things that we never compromise on, like good ol’-fashioned values and Biblical truth and principles,” Dixie said.

“This is real life. This is real living here,” said Paul. “We want to put our energy, prayers and faith, and speak into these kids’ lives.”

Paul and his staff focus on helping families, something that has become a challenge over the years as the dynamic of households changes.

Paul said he has helped mentor families with problems that never existed 30 or 40 years ago. And whether it’s an addiction to drugs or marital problems, he said there is always a way out of desperation and despair.

“We try to give families hope. I don’t care how bad a person is,” said Paul. “It doesn’t matter how strong a habit something is or how far somebody has gone, there is always hope in Christ if people are willing to come to him.”

Paul said how he addresses issues that people are dealing with can change, but the word that he preaches never will.

“I think you do have to be flexible and find new ways to present the Gospel. You have to engage the culture and where people are. I don’t think the truth and the message of the Gospel needs to change,” Paul said.

Dixie understands the dysfunction and hurt that can consume people in their daily lives, hindering their ability to function. That’s something she said can happen to anyone at some point. The lesson is to get back up and be better because of it, she said.

“There’ll come a time in everybody’s life, everybody’s going to have storms of life,” Dixie said. “Heartache will come to everyone. You just have to be grounded and have your feet on the rock.”