ABOUT

Phil is a man driven by vision, compelled to fulfill God’s calling on his life. His passion is not only to see individuals come to know and grow in a relationship with Jesus, but to see social transformation that includes addressing systems and structures that affect the everyday lives of people, especially those typically pushed to the margins because of oppression, injustices, and inequities grounded in race, gender, sexuality, ability, age, and any part of their being that does not fit the dominant group membership.

As an All-American high school basketball player, Phil attended North Carolina A&T University to play basketball and study architectural engineering. Upon his call to ministry years later, he went on to receive his Bachelors in Theological Studies, with an emphasis in Christian Ministries from The King’s University. While working as a full-time lead pastor of Own Your Faith Ministries (Santa Clarita, CA), Phil completed a Master of Arts in Theology degree from Fuller Theological Seminary, studying Christian Ethics. As a current PhD candidate in Christian Ethics, with a minor in Theology and Culture, his research involves race theory, theology, ethics, culture, and the theology and ethics of Martin Luther King, Jr.

He is founder of the non-profit organization Racial Solidarity Project based in Los Angeles, CA. His passion for dialogue, resistance, and solutions to the problem of systemic racism was fostered by his family and personal life experiences as well as his educational journey. Phil was recently named a Pannell Center for Black Church Studies Fellow at Fuller Theological Seminary. As a fellow his research on Black Church theology, liturgy, and ethics further undergirds his own ethics of justice, healing racial trauma, and racial solidarity. He has taught undergraduate classes on biblical ethics toward racial solidarity. His fields of interest include Christian ethics, Black Church studies, race theory, pneumatology, theology of justice and theology of play and sport.

When he isn’t pastoring, studying, or writing, Phil enjoys running, bowling, basketball, and just watching his favorite television shows. As an all-around creative, he is an author, a teacher, pastor, filmmaker (see his documentary Open Wounds), but first a poet. His diverse experiences and interests have gifted him with the ability to relate to and inspire just about anyone he meets. 

He is the author of two books, Open Wounds: A Story of Racial Tragedy, Trauma, and Redemption (Fortress Press, 2021) and The Prophetic Lens: The Camera and Black Moral Agency From MLK to Darnella Frazier (Fortress Press, 2022).