RUN TO GLORY

Nearly two decades before running and placing second in his age group at the 2024 Pumpkin Chase 5K in Lake Bluff, Phillip Howell—then Student Ministries Pastor of Calvary Bible Church in Bourbonnais—delivered his first sermon.

“Running the race,” he says, referring to the theme of his address that had nothing to do with passing other runners or summoning his finishing kick.

Howell, now the pastor at Embassy Church in Palatine, spoke of Hebrews 12: 1-2 to those congregants in 2006. Verse 2 reads, “And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”

“Preaching,” the 39-year-old father of five says, “is an art and a science. What I often aim to do when I preach is take deep, powerful content and present it in a way that’s simple for all.”

It’s early in Advent, a time of waiting and preparation for the celebration of Jesus’s birth at Christmas. Blessed with a calm countenance and sporting a good listener’s patience, Howell fields questions about the meaning of Christmas for an audience of one while sitting in the lobby at the First United Methodist Church, which is also home to Embassy Church’s 150-170 congregants.

“Followers of Christ are longing now and looking forward to the day we once again get to celebrate that God’s word became flesh,” says Howell, who, at a lean 6-foot- 4, could still pass for the forward he was for basketball teams at Olivet Nazarene in Bourbonnais. “It still excites me, it’s still mind-blowing to me, that the Son of God walked among humans and turned the world upside down.

“There’s the invisible spirituality of God and there’s the visible Jesus, who revealed all of what God wanted to say to people on Earth,” Howell continues. “Think about words, spoken or written. You can crush a person with them or you can make a person’s day with them. Words are extensions of one’s heart.”

Embassy Church first welcomed worshippers in early 2014, less than two years after Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. sent Howell to the Chicago area to partner with Edgewater Baptist Church and start it.

Embassy Church drew a diverse following of 24 people in year one.

“At Embassy,” he adds, “we glorify Christ by making disciples of all nations. Bringing nations together is an attractive element of our church. The word glory is a word of light, illuminating and shining. Jesus’s birth brought light to a dark world.

“We need to be reminded every Advent what we’ll celebrate on Christmas Day. Christ arrived, definitely. His existence proved there is a God and He is with us. ‘Immanuel’ means God is with us.”

A native of Southern Maryland, Howell attended Northern High School in Owings, where he met his future wife, Christine, and earned all-Calvert County and Player of the Year honors in basketball. Homecoming dance doubled as their first date.

Their second date?

“My birthday, on November 11th,” a smiling Howell says. “She made me apple pie.

“That’s when I knew I was in a serious relationship.”

Both attended Olivet Nazarene University and got married before graduation. Christine majored in Spanish, and Phillip started as a Physical Education major, hoping the degree would land him a teacher/basketball coach position at a high school in Maryland.

“My junior year (2005-2006) at Olivet Nazarene, everything was going so well in my life,” he recalls. “I was married, captain of the basketball team, and succeeding academically. My love for the Bible and its teachings exploded inside of me and turned into my calling. I couldn’t see myself doing anything other than spreading the word of Jesus.”

Howell ended up getting a General Studies degree, with an emphasis in sports ministry, after taking 36 credit hours of Bible classes. He then served, from 2006-2009, as Student Ministries Pastor of Calvary Bible Church in the Kankakee County village that’s home to ONU.

Howell earned his Masters of Divinity from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, worked on staff with Campus Outreach at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and participated in a pastoral internship at Capitol Hill Baptist Church.

In 2023, Howell completed his Ph.D. in Theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri.

Residents of Palatine since 2015, Phillip and Christine are parents to five children, ages 17, 15, 13, 9, and 4.

“It is a privilege and a joy, as well as humbling, to be an earthly father,” says Howell. “Sure, there might be a bad or hard moment here and there while raising a child, but for every one of those—remember, we’re all imperfect— there are a thousand sweet, beautiful moments that I will always cherish.”

He similarly enjoys as many moving moments at Embassy Church, too.

“We want to be an embassy of heaven,” Howell says. “The ethnic diversity of our church membership excites us all. Twenty to 24 of our members are from countries outside the United States. An Indian and Pakistani got married in our church recently. So did a South Korean-German and Romanian.

“Jesus,” he adds, “is for all people. Knowing Him anchors us and believing in Him lifts us.”

Embassy Church is located at 123 North Plum Grove Road in Palatine. For more information, visit embassychurch.net.