Father Phil Eberhart has served as the pastor of Resurrection Anglican Fellowship since its founding in 2001 in Greenwood Village, Colorado. For the past two years, he and his congregation have participated in The Fellowship’s annual Flags of Fellowship movement. As he shared, their support is rooted not only in faith, but also in a deep sense of community and friendship with their Jewish neighbors.
“When we first got into the church, we didn’t quite know how to approach being a good neighbor to Jewish people,” said Father Phil. “God just opened up the doors and ways and means for us.”
Resurrection Anglican Fellowship later purchased a new church in another part of town. Greenwood Village has a large Orthodox Jewish population, and Father Phil himself moved just three doors down from the nearest synagogue. What began as unfamiliarity gradually turned into meaningful connection, as Father Phil and his congregation took intentional steps to show their Jewish neighbors that they cared and were grateful to be part of the same community. Guided by faith and a desire to understand, they soon became active participants in a shared community of Christians and Jews.
Sabbath dinners, Sukkot celebrations, and other gatherings helped strengthen these relationships. Following the events of October 7, Resurrection Anglican Fellowship hosted survivors from the Nova Festival. Father Phil recalls a room filled with both Christians and Jews, listening to the powerful stories of trauma and survival shared by young Israelis. When Flags of Fellowship launched the following year, participating felt like a natural step.
“We’ve had so many people stop by—and even come into the church, downstairs to meetings we were having—and say, ‘Thank you for flying that flag, because it brings us a sense of peace, friendship, and recognition that we never had before,’” he said.
For Father Phil, the connection between Christians and Jews goes beyond neighborly relations—it reflects the shared roots of their faiths. He remembers attending one of many Shabbat dinners with his Jewish neighbors and noticing the wine and challah bread set before him. While Jewish families bless the bread and wine on Friday, Father Phil and his congregation bless the same elements on Sunday in Christian worship. Though they have different meanings, he sees a profound spiritual connection in the shared act of blessing.
“That’s one of the ways we come to unity—through understanding,” he said. “And this is an understanding on the Christian’s part: that our being grafted in is a serious thing. It’s not something to be glossed over or politicized. In our current climate, it’s easy for it to become politicized or pushed aside, because there’s a cost to identifying yourself as a friend of Israel these days. But the Lord has protected us.”
“Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker” (Psalm 95:6).
