Senior Spotlight: Philip Reynolds

Get to know some of Regent’s seniors before they’re gone.

Welcome to The Daily Runner’s first-ever “Senior Spotlight” series. Graduating college is a significant milestone in life and The Daily Runner wants to honor a few of the members of the Class of 2017. We have selected eight different seniors – four young women and four young men – for you to get to know before they graduate in May. The first soon-to-be graduate we would like to honor is our very own editor, Philip Reynolds.

Born and raised in Brandon, FL, Reynolds chose to make Regent University his home for the last four years, majoring in communications (with an emphasis in public culture and rhetoric) and minoring in English. Reynolds quickly became a familiar face around the Regent campus. Soon after arriving at Regent, he became heavily involved in campus life, committing to roles ranging from resident assistant (RA) in the Regent Commons, to serving as a significant member of the Regent Worship Team.

Do everything with excellence

I sat down with Reynolds at a local coffee shop to ask him some questions about his time at Regent as well as some fun things about himself. Reynolds has become a close friend of mine and I always enjoy our conversations. He is a man of wisdom, integrity and wit. These three attributes will take him far in life. In fact, they will prove invaluable in his post-grad plans. When asked about his plans after graduation, Reynolds explained how he has been given the opportunity to move to Maryland to work on a political campaign as well as intern with a publishing company.

As far as his “ultimate dream” is concerned, Reynolds doesn’t shy away from sharing what he is most passionate about: “I want to be an author and I want to do social justice work in the prolife and [anti] human trafficking movements… if I could be someone who is able to use my writing [for] influence and awareness, that would be huge.”

This passion drives him to do everything with excellence – something he has credited as a lesson learned from his time at Regent. “Regent has taught me to do everything I do with excellence. Whether that’s from working on a presentation, to researching sources for papers, to handling conflicts in relationships. Everything you do should be done as best as possible, and not to do it for yourself, but to bring glory to God.”

When Reynolds isn’t doing things with excellence, he has been known to worry about which numerical character is good or evil. I asked Reynolds to reveal a fun fact about himself and he quickly explained how when he was younger he thought even numbers were good guys and odd numbers were bad guys. He expounds on this childhood theory by explaining, “Unless they [even or odd numbers] were single digits than they were just like innocent children of this narrative of a war I created.” Thankfully this childish narrative of a war never translated into Reynolds’ college experience.

Striving for truth

As most already know Regent University’s motto is: Christian Leadership to Change the World. Reynolds credits Regent with effectively teaching and demonstrating what it means to live this motto in a practical, day-to-day way. For him, being a Christian leader means showing the love of Christ to others by simply living out the Gospel. Reynolds further explains, “I also want to be able to challenge the culture around me…challenge the things that people may think are normal or okay, but if you look at from a biblical perspective or worldview, [realize] they really are not good and normal. I want to be able have the courage and bravery to raise my voice and say something about it and maybe start to see change occur.” These words reflect the very heart of who Reynolds strives to be – a man unafraid to do the hard things and unashamed to stand up for the truth. These two qualities – unafraid and unashamed – are two surefire ingredients for effecting change. I have no doubt we’ll be seeing Reynolds send waves of change throughout our culture.

It’s students like Reynolds that make Regent University such an incredible community. While most of the seniors like Reynolds don’t entirely forsee what the future may hold for them, I can tell you that I have no doubt they will be Christian leaders to change the world. In fact, Philip Reynolds’ future is so bright I may be wearing sunglasses while I write.

Madeline Ferrante is a staff writer for The Daily Runner.