Leading From Where You've Actually Been
Bob Hyatt
February 21, 2011

by Eric Phillips

“The true Christian leader is one who walks with others, leading them to a place where he himself has already been.”

This is an idea that recently has been on the forefront of my mind. Recently I have wrestled with the fact that there seems to be so little power in my ministry, very little true and lasting transformation within our church, and that there seems to be more and more information available yet with such little evidence of the transformative power of the Holy Spirit.

These questions that have passed through my mind for years have become more of a pressing reality, or crisis as you will, as I seek to establish East End Ecclesia. On a daily basis I encounter individuals wrestling with crack addiction, beat down by the cycle of poverty and violence, people who are at the edge of suicide. I face individuals that have been abused and called a F*&% up since they were children, unable to believe that God loves and accepts them. Worst of all I face arrogant young hipsters that in their “self justification through relevance and selective justice”, have no interest in a just God unless His justice remains confined within their superior moral definition.

So in other words I have found myself trying to convey information while realizing that information alone could never free an addict from addiction, convince an abused child that they are loved, or convince a self righteous hipster of their need for forgiveness from a righteous and just God. Within this personal struggle I’ve been continually reminded of passages that I so regularly dance around, passages concerning the our dependence upon the power of the Holy Spirit, passages in calling us to not seek to build the church by words alone, but by the power of God. I have spent much time wrestling with the fact that no matter how great my ability to convey information might be, man cannot be saved by information alone.

Yet in the midst of my intellectual wrestling God has opened my eyes to a reality that I have so greatly neglected. I have been studying many of the great men of faith from times past, some of authentic moves of God that brought true transformation within the society at large, and the first great move of God through the church which was recorded within the book of Acts.

The thing that I found in common within all that I have studied is that God has worked in mighty ways through men and women who have been consumed with a deep, passionate, obsessive, pursuit of true communion with their God. God seems to mightily use those who proclaim not what they have heard about but what they have encountered, lived, and experienced. I’m so challenged as I read what was stated concerning Peter and John as they were before the Jewish leaders “they were common uneducated men, but it was apparent that these men had been with Jesus.”

I believe this is important for us today; it is not our superior education, our relevance, our charisma, or anything else that will have the greatest impact on those around us. It is the intangible reality that the outside world may not be able to pinpoint. It is the man or woman who had clearly “been with Jesus”.

So, closing up the thought I began with: The true Christian leader leads others to a place he himself has already been.

As communicators we are to speak to the church that which we have first heard from our God, as shepherds we disciple as ones who have walked with Christ, and as evangelists we proclaim a loving, powerful, awesome God that we have not just heard about but deeply know. For too long the role of the pastor has been as one giving directions from a map to a location he has not yet been, instead of acting as a guide to a mountain top that he himself has frequently visited.

But on a very real and personal level, I have for too long been consumed with a desire to learn about God, teach about God, and be on mission for Him without first and foremost being one obsessed with spending time with my God, Hearing from my God, and allowing my God to first do within me that which He desires to do within my world.

Eric Phillips is the lead pastor at East End Ecclesia in Pittsburgh, PA.

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An Ethical Response to Violence

By By Jim Pace • September 15, 2025
In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s shooting, social media has been filled with perspectives, as is typically the case. I am reluctant to add mine as there seems to be no lack one way or the other. To be clear, this is not just about Charlie Kirk, this is about violence across the board. I did not feel led to write this because it was Charlie Kirk specifically, but rather another in a long and winding line of acts of violence, that my ministering at Va. Tech gives me a bit of personal experience with. But as I have just finished teaching two classes on Christian Ethics, and as I was encountering again the spread of responses from my Christian sisters and brothers, I felt led to look at this event through that lens. Ethics, at its base, seeks to answer the question, “What is better or worse? Good or bad?” As a follower of Jesus, this is what seems right to me… 1. We never celebrate harm. Whatever our disagreements, rejoicing at a shooting violates the bedrock claim that every person bears the imago Dei (Gen 1:27). Scripture is explicit: “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls” (Prov 24:17); “Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44); “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21). I don’t love blasting verses like this, but you cannot get away from them if you are reading the scriptures. 2. Moral responsibility sits with the shooter—full stop . Saying “his rhetoric got him shot” smuggles in a just-world logic that excuses violence. As a contextual theologian, I have an enormous amount of respect for the impact our various narratives have in shaping our understandings of the world around us. They are inescapable. But that is not what I am talking about here. Ideas can be wrong, harmful, or worth opposing vigorously, but vigilante ‘payback’ is never a Christian category. My primary gig is that of a consultant for churches and non-profits. Today, in my meetings and among friends, I have heard some variation of “He got what he deserved,” and “I vote for some very public justice for the shooter.” Both of these views speak of revenge; the follower of Jesus is called to lay these down as our Messiah did. Not asked to, told to. 3. Grief and outrage about gun violence are legitimate; schadenfreude is not . Channel the pain toward nonviolent, concrete action (policy advocacy, community intervention, survivor support), not dehumanization. Here are four thinkers who have had a profound impact on the Christian ethic I try to work out in this world. As I share them, three things are worthy of mention. One, I certainly do not claim to follow their guidance perfectly, and at times I do not even do it well, but they have all given me what seems like a Jesus-centered and faith-filled direction to move in. Second, I do not claim to speak for them in this particular matter; I am merely showing how my ethical lens has been formed. Third, clearly I am not dealing with all the components of our response to these types of violence, this is not a comprehensive treatment, merely the reflections in the moment. Stanley Hauerwas : “Christian nonviolence is not a strategy to rid the world of violence.” It’s part of following Jesus, not a tactic we drop when it’s inconvenient. Stanley Hauerwas, Walking with God in a Fragile World, by James Langford, editor, Leroy S. Rouner, editor N. T. Wright : “The call of the gospel is for the church to implement the victory of God in the world through suffering love.” Simply Good News: Why the Gospel Is News and What Makes It Good. In other words, we answer evil without mirroring it. David Fitch : Our culture runs on an “enemy-making” dynamic; even “the political rally… depends on the making of an enemy. Don’t let that train your soul.” The Church of Us vs. Them. Sarah Coakley : Contemplation forms resistance, not passivity. For Coakley, sustained prayer trains perception and courage so Christians can resist abuse and give voice against violence (it’s not quietism). “Contemplation, if it is working aright, is precisely that which gives courage to resist abuse, to give voice against violence.” Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality, and the Self. Coakley would say that far too often we react before we reflect. This is the problem that Fitch is getting at in much of his writing, that our culture actually runs on antagonisms, the conflict between us. We need to find a better way.