A Way Out of the Maze
Are you among the millions of parents worried about your children’s mental health, safety, education, the effects of social media on them, and, most importantly, their future?
Introducing Suzanne Phillips
Meet Suzanne Phillips—a parent, teacher, speaker, podcast host, and leadership coach. Like you, she has been deeply concerned about the current trends affecting our children and families.
And she has made it her mission to shine a beacon, showing parents a way out of the confounding maze.
Through speaking, teaching, and coaching, Suzanne has guided thousands of families across two generations, helping them to “parent with a purpose”.
Her focus? Spiritual formation, family vision, and educational options.
Suzanne is here to help you learn how to navigate the cultural chaos—and take back responsibility for your family’s future.
The InFormed Parent Podcast
A good place to start is the InFormed Parent podcast. Suzanne launched the podcast because she wanted to speak directly to parents about the current culture and its impact on the next generation.
The InFormed Parent is where tough conversations happen. In each episode, Suzanne and her knowledgeable guests tackle the critical cultural issues head-on: gender identity, child exploitation and trafficking, addiction, and the crisis in public education, to name a few.
But here’s what sets this podcast apart—it doesn’t just educate and warn. It equips parents with real solutions.
You can check out the podcast here
Two Schools and a National Ministry
Suzanne co-founded two hybrid schools and mentored students and parents for a decade.
She led Hearts and Homes—a national ministry for moms.
Beacon Parent
Suzanne founded Beacon Parent during the pandemic, and it’s grown into a non-profit that now reaches thousands.
The mission is urgent: Ignite a movement of awakened parents—parents who can educate, equip, and empower their families to live according to God’s design by shedding light on contemporary culture and viewing it through a biblical worldview.
The goal is clear: empower parents to lead with clarity, confidence, and consistency.
Partnerships
And there’s more. Suzanne partners with Thinq Media and several other ministries. She has been a contributor for Celebrate Kids Inc., the Counter Culture Mom, Ignite the Family, and Awaken Moms.
She is currently a consultant and advisor for the organization Freedom in Education, sits on the Board of Child and Parental Rights Campaign, and leads a weekly bible study for moms.
We wanted to know more about the woman behind the message.
Despite her busy schedule, Suzanne graciously made time to talk with us:
I’ve been following your work for a while and have especially enjoyed hearing you speak. How did you get involved in the arena of enlightening and helping parents? Was there a defining moment for you?
Through the years, there have been several pivotal moments – each one expanding my view and propelling me to further action.
For example, in 2009, I experienced one of these pivotal moments while leading a middle school girls’ Bible study. They had command of biblical knowledge but weren’t integrating those principles into their daily lives.
The disconnect between biblical texts and life experience prompted me to reflect more deeply on Christian education. This led me to question: Was our purpose simply to avoid public schools or to help students build a comprehensive worldview? I wondered,
“What is the fundamental purpose of education, and what outcomes should we be seeking?”
So when the opportunity came up to start a school in 2011, I jumped in.
The School
Five of us launched a non-traditional school using a hybrid learning model. I was the visionary behind the school and engaged with parents every week. I also taught bible school in high school for ten years. This background provided me with the opportunity to step in and disciple children and mentor parents on their role as a parent.
In 2014 we opened the second location.
The schools were a discipleship model of education. As Christians we say the most important thing in our life is Jesus – so the whole premise of the school was to help the students know Jesus and know themselves.
“Education should be about, How am I designed? and What do I have to offer?”
Education is About the Student
Education should center around a student’s sense of identity. We are not created like everyone else – that is why Common Core doesn’t work. It assumes that everyone is thinking the same thing at the same time. Every student has to hit the same markers in Common Core. Where else in life do we shoot for common? This is not what education is supposed to be about.
The subject of education should be the student. We can then use the academics to identify their strengths and weaknesses and focus on the strengths, rather than fixating on the weaknesses. If you grow the strength, then everything will grow.
As we all know no one can do all this alone, who and what resources did you seek?
We had the resources within our five-person partnership.
I had the vision. My husband was the financial guy. One parent knew about curriculum, and another ran the daily operations. Another parent owned a home school co-op.
We didn’t miss a beat with the hybrid schools because the parents were so involved with the children’s education.
Tell us about your path from the beginning to where you are now.
The background is this: I had been leading a Bible study for moms for over 20 years. Fast forward to 2011, when five of us launched the non-traditional school in the hybrid arena. That put me in front of moms and dads. I also taught Bible classes in the high school for 10 years.
In 2017, I inherited a national ministry for moms called Hearts and Homes. It was a conference ministry for mothers. I put on large conferences for 1500 to 2000 moms in Illinois.
Debrief in the Prayer Room
I met moms from all over and got a close look at what was happening with our culture. I debriefed in the prayer room every night, and the main request for prayers, even years ago, was about pornography. The next year, LGT was the main request.
During this time, I was still involved with the school.
This confluence of activities brought me to the epiphany that the same issues happening in Atlanta were happening all over the country.
In March 2020, I arrived home just before the pandemic, and unfortunately that ministry didn’t weather that storm.
The Pandemic
During the pandemic, I was called almost around the clock by parents who didn’t know what to do about what they were seeing on their children’s school Zoom calls. The calls originated at the grassroots level, coming from local neighborhoods and churches.
I realized that parents were worried about subjects that we had worked out ten years earlier in our school. We had already addressed these problems and had successfully worked with parents to create solutions.
I knew that I needed to keep speaking about the fate of children, and I had to do it within the context of the current culture. That is where the beacon comes in. A beacon signals danger and guides direction.
Beacon Parent
In 2020, our largest school merged with another small school, and I rolled off the board. This was about the time when Beacon Parent was ramping up. I started with social media posts that were mostly warnings. I did this on my own until January of 2025, when I hired a small team. Then we officially launched as an organization.
The Podcast
My podcast is a partnership with Thinq Media. This group has been around for about 25 years. They focus on helping Christian leaders in eight spheres of influence understand the culture and how to respond to it.
I started to attend their summits in 2014, and in 2017, I was asked to be a keynote speaker. In 2023, they asked me to partner with them. The audience is next-gen leaders and pastors. I bring the content, and they do the production.
“The goal is to educate parents about what is happening culturally and offer solutions”.
How old were your children when you began on this path? How did you speak to your own children about the really tough topics?
My three children were in high school, middle school, and grade school. I had the hard conversations with my kids by using the Bible as our manual. I believe the answers are in there. I would ask, “What does God say about this?” So, it wasn’t my opinion. I was entrusted with my children by God so, I told them I was going to see what he said. This takes away the fear of messing up. When you get to the heart of what is going on with a child, take the biblical worldview of the issue.
Have you had any particular mentos that inspired and influenced you?
A middle school principal at my children’s school really inspired me. Her name was Mary Hubbard.
She was foundational in shaping my worldview regarding parenting and education. She was the catalyst for my passion. The Charlotte Mason school philosophy is that the environment matters, play matters, worldview matters. It is all-encompassing, just not academic.
What have been some of your biggest challenges?
The biggest challenge is talking about God’s design for the family. Jesus was counterculture. If everyone is doing it, it probably isn’t Jesus. The hardest part of the journey is constantly being mis-understood. If you are truly following Jesus, your life is not going to look like your next-door neighbor’s. He has individual plans for us. When you step outside of the box it is hard to lead.
It can be a difficult journey, but it is worth it.
What do you consider your biggest victories?
There are so many stories of life changes that happened over the course of the decade we oversaw the schools. While stories of individual students are always powerful. I think the stories that move me the most are those of parents who, even years later, stop me to say this model of education changed the trajectory of our family’s life and will impact the future generations.
“We learned to think differently and our children benefited.”
Recently, I was at a conference in Nashville. Someone called my name, and it was the parent of a child who began with us in kindergarten. They were a very involved family, but eventually moved out of town. I had not seen them in years. When they realized it was me, the mama started crying. She told me that the educational model gave them the courage to know their children and their gifts, talents, and passions. They learned to pursue those and trust God with the rest.
They went on to say their oldest child was studying some type of high-level engineering in Duke’s program in China. With tears in their eyes, they said “This school and the people who poured into us and our children changed our lives forever!” It was powerful! They thanked me for our team’s obedience to follow the vision God gave us and reminded me that they would forever be grateful!
My other big victory is my children – they have a relationship with the Lord.
“I truly understand the peace that comes with freedom”.
We are free to make our choices. When you have the freedom to follow Jesus, you have more personal freedom. I am at peace with what God is asking me to do. That is victory to me.
What do you feel are the biggest challenges that parents face?
Parents are faced with keeping their children safe from predators, sexualization, the trans movement, evil ideology and an attack on parental rights.
What advice can you give parents who don’t know how to have those tough discussions with their children?
These are hard conversations, but parenting itself is hard. It’s hard to have a conversation, but it’s more difficult to have a kid who is addicted rather than having talked to them in the first place.
Get on the front end of it, rather than keeping fingers crossed that nothing bad is going to happen.
What do you feel is the most important piece of advice you could give parents?
God entrusted his children to you. If he can entrust them to you, learn to trust yourself. We need to lead and not follow. One of the biggest dangers in our culture right now is that parents are being told they are not important, that they have no rights, that they don’t know how to raise their children, and that they don’t know enough about the world to raise their children. So, parents then abdicate. You have to look at who you are partnering with – what are their beliefs and values?
Be mindful of what your children are immersed in. Until your children are grounded in their own values, someone is disciplining them, and you have to know who that is.
“You can’t run away from the culture. You have to be immersed in it to know about it”.
It’s important that parents find your information. How and where can people find you and engage with your content?
Social media:
@beacon_parent
@suzannephillips_
The Informed Parent Podcast
https://youtu.be/5lq_x78Diwk?si=d94DWo1PWDrGSwbo
Thank You Suzanne!
