Phillips Family: Four Generations of Generosity

Woven through four generations, generosity has become a central focus for members of the Phillips family. Together, they have established a family mission and created a rather unique acronym to describe the causes they support. Their legacy of caring for others flows from a generosity that is second nature to their being. Watch the video above to learn how impactful displaying generosity can be for children, and how just one family can play a part in a beautiful mission to share God’s love with others.

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TRANSCRIPT

[KEITH] As I got closer to Jesus, I could see how much generosity meant and how He wanted me to take my clenched hands and open them up. My dad shared this with me many years ago, but it’s stuck with me, as he’s always said, that people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. And I think that that’s stuck with me.

[AL] You had a nickel, and you took it to Sunday school, and you always put the money in the when they passed the plate. We always were able to put the nickel in the plate. Of course, that increase to a dime as you got older and increased to a quarter when you kept getting older. This was kind of a way of God’s kingdom that we could even as a small child could contribute.

[JERE] I think it goes more by example than it does by what you do.

[KEITH] My mom and dad were a great example they gave to the church, but they also gave to charities and inner city. The thing that’s really amazed me, though, is the stories that I’ve heard. There’s a good friend of mine at church that his dad passed away and he told me about my father coming over to their house because they didn’t have any money and he gave them an envelope full of cash to help them out during that time. And I was just like… you know, and my dad had never told me that story.

[AL] And you didn’t have to have a written, given script to say, oh, I’m going to do this. And y’all come back and tell me how great I am. That’s something that she didn’t want, and I didn’t want either. We all felt like and we felt I think we certainly set an example for our children.

[NANCY] And we just want to be able to pass that on to our kids. And we want to model what we can. And this is always… this is a process… we’re still working towards this. But this is what our motivation is to try to be an example to our kids.

[LIBBY] A lot of it had to do with my parents and grandparents setting the stage for that. I mean, early on, I can remember like my dad or my grandparents going to church together growing up, and they would give me a dollar every day to put in the collection plate when I was you know, four or five, just to kind of get me in that habit of like, this is important. Remember to do this regularly and frequently.

[ANDREW] My parents are always very committed to things and they’re very supportive, whether it’s me playing football or soccer or sports or me trying to be around my friends. I always also noticed that with service opportunities they would support, my sister and I and often go with us on service trips. Whether that was going to service projects or just feeding people that were in need.

[CARRE] They’re super committed to the church and seeing the church grow and just seeing people come to know the Lord. And that is really cool to be a part of and very much in line with who I am and how I was raised.

[TYLER] We pass it down to our son Will and again, and just thinking about our backgrounds and how that foundation was laid in their situations where, you know, giving and generosity are able to be taught that we’re doing that. Certainly, that starts that at church, some of that is just learning how to share, and there’s other things that come along with just being a kid.

PART 2

[LIBBY] So, we as a family have tried to narrow that down and focus and figure out what we want our focus to be. Being able to put some structure around our giving has been really helpful to make sure we’re not just giving haphazardly, but really giving in a structured way that we’ve really thought and contemplated and prayed about. And so, on our family’s end we have… my dad has very lovingly put together the acronym… we all came up with it together… with the acronym

[KEITH] P.E.E. which stands for Giving to the Poor Christian Education and Evangelism. So, my wife doesn’t necessarily like the acronym, but we can easily remember. And so those are the those are the major areas that that we really focus our giving on.

PART 3

[LIBBY] We look at about once a month, and probably once a year we take a really hard look and really go through everything and make sure, okay, what do we like? What do we not like? What are we… You know, just really take a harder look back at what we’ve given to.

[KEITH] Andrew and Libby have their own mowing business. And we have supported a nonprofit called Community Care Fellowship that helps people out of homelessness. And several of those people have worked for their company. And she had shared yesterday that about 75% of their employees have been either incarcerated, homeless, or under addiction, and that they have been able to put 11 people in permanent housing now, which is pretty awesome.

PART 4

[KEITH] It’s just all very, very simple. It’s very easy. And now that my wife knows what our password is, it makes it really easy for her to just go in there and do stuff. It gives, especially for our children and our children’s children, it gives a digital footprint, which is really awesome. Because we can look back and see what we’ve done last week, last month, last year. We can look at totals, we can look at different groups that we’ve given to. [NANCY] But the fact that you are giving alongside so many other people through The Signatry…

[AL] We are that small a piece, but I feel very not only encouraged, but kind of like, hey, I’m part of this.

[KEITH] They started a habit of being generous. And I just think it’s important to instill that. We have two grandchildren and one on the way, and we just want them to… We just hope that that every day that they’re alive, that they have a relationship with Jesus Christ. I think it’s really important.

[TYLER] The Signatry has offered a great way of looking at the impact your dollars can have beyond just your lifetime. And something that’s helped motivate me want to instill that within my son and the generations that follow.