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Going Away to Get Close

There is a particular closeness that is cultivated when we retreat from our routines, away from the miles of taillights and reliable internet into the loose, unkempt earth and towering trees. Under a star-freckled sky, we can unhinge ourselves from the efficient, concentric circles that keep us in the everyday track, going around and around — when we are surrounded, but seldom connected.

Nature beckons us to come and invites us to slow down and marvel together at the vast, unrestrained beauty of God’s creation.

To recall where everything comes in its timing and all is provided exactly what it needs in its proper season.

Jesus says in the Gospel of Luke, “Walk into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They don’t fuss with their appearance—but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. If God gives such attention to the wildflowers, most of them never even seen, don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?”

But really, who has the time to walk into the fields to look at the wildflowers — especially when we have children?

When there is laundry that lays unfolded in the hamper and fragments of toys scattered about. When you’re trying to make vegetables taste great for your toddler who now has the appetite for ice cream, taking a moment to sit and breathe and reconnect with God and one another in nature is appealing, but seems unattainable.

As parents, most of us are all too familiar with the often overwhelming reality of raising a child:

the mysterious jam on our child’s shirt,

the undiagnosable cough that won’t go away,

the ever-bending schedules and milestones and classes,

of never being alone, but feeling disconnected,

and facing the rising challenges to be intentional with our partners, our children, our community.

There is rarely enough time or resources to be intentional or to reconnect with those in our lives. But as Pastor Bryan reminds us, “In order to say yes to the things that are important in your life, you have to intentionally say no to other things.” We have to make the time if we’re ever going to get away and engage as a family.

At Ekko, the parallel is often drawn of Sundays representing our family dinners—when everyone gathers to feast on the slow-cooked Word of God together, every week at the same time. But our camps and retreats are more representative of our family getaways: these trips facilitate the intimacy and intentionality of family outings as a body, the messy, yet the glorious nature of vacations. When you press in to make the time, to log the long hours in the car, to prepare, and frequent many gas station bathrooms until you reach your destination.

“Something special happens, a kind of bonding,” Pastor Bryan says in his talk with Pastor Isaac. “Even though it’s crazy or the kids complain, once we’re there, that’s where memories are made.”

“It takes a lot of work and preparation, but there is something about going away as a family that brings us closer together.”

Family Camp gives us the much-needed space to get away, realign our hearts with God, deepen our relationships with others on the journey and make memories with our kids. To slow down, step into the unpaved soil and make time to walk into the fields and look at the wildflowers with one another.

So we can remember that, like the lilies of the field, everything comes in His timing and He provides exactly what we need in season.

There will be tears, a thousand questions and spotty technology. But, once we get there, camp will provide the slow and unhurried pace to slow with one another and breathe in air filtered by pine and earth. Going away together is how we get close for the journey and make lifelong memories with our family and body. It guards the space that allows us to re-engage and to be present with those in our lives.

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Lowered and Raised

“I’m a little concerned… about your salvation and stuff…” he leans on the bathroom door. His eyes squint, “Why have you not been baptized?”

“Because I never got around to it, okay,” Steven quips, “I don’t know why you’re always judging me, because I only believe in science.” As Steven angrily crunches on a sliced cucumber, Ignacio quietly comes behind him and smashes his face into water, effectively “baptizing” him before their important duel in the ring as undercover luchadores. In his eyes, he’s securing his partner’s salvation and ensuring that God will be behind them, guiding them to a swift victory.

This scene in the comedic film, Nacho Libre, paints a satirical portrayal of baptism. A light-hearted demonstration of the fictitious notion that one’s salvation can be obtained by immersing someone in water. As if being baptized — whether intentionally or not — means that one is (or isn’t) saved. It’s viewed as a transaction or an obligation of sorts.

So, if this isn’t the case, why do we get baptized and what does it symbolize?

Baptism is a public, embodied symbol of an invisible work of God already being done in us by the power of the Holy Spirit through the blood of Jesus.

It’s a celebration of new life.

When we obey Jesus’ command to baptize and be baptized¹, we are proclaiming to our tribe, and to ourselves, that God has brought us out of our chaos, our sin, our old way of life, as we step into new creation life.

In his piece about baptism, Pastor Bryan, one of our founding pastors writes, “New life isn’t possible without a Savior. Baptism is the celebration of God’s intervention, God’s compassion, God’s wisdom.”

Baptism is our response to what God has done and is doing.

It is not in the act of baptism that makes us new, rather baptism is a testimony that we are already made new.²

Hillsong Church explains it this way: baptism is like wearing a wedding ring.

If you are unmarried, simply donning a wedding ring doesn’t make you married, and vice versa, if you are married, but don’t wear a wedding ring, it doesn’t alter your marital status. But if you are married and you choose to wear your wedding ring, you are publicly and symbolically showing your commitment and faithfulness to your covenant partner.

Like wearing a wedding ring, baptism is a powerful sign to all around us that we have chosen to love our God in covenant love. “Baptism is a statement to everyone who sees it that we have trusted in Christ for our salvation and we are committed to living for Him.”³

“When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we’re going in our new grace-sovereign country.”

— Romans 6:4-5 (MSG)

For us, baptism is also the opportunity to rehearse our salvation story visibly in the community of believers. Going under the water is the burial of your old life and coming out of it is a resurrection. 

As we take our first gulps of air after being immersed under the surface of the water, we take our first breaths like Jesus did as He broke the grip of death. 

Baptism is not a destination.

Baptism represents the beginning.

When we forget this truth, baptism can become routine. A religious obligation. The crashing of a face into a bowl of sink water.

But when we take time to remember, we celebrate the immense sacrifice our God made. We remember that because He rose again, we are reconciled with our Maker. Because He rose again, we can live as new creations without fear and shame.

Baptism Service invites us to remember the commitments that we have made to our Savior at the start. The public promise of faithfulness. And it brings to mind once more what God has done and is doing in our lives and communities so that we can live with hearts brimming with gratitude and joy.

As witnesses to our brothers and sisters that will be baptized this Baptism Sunday, may we celebrate their commitment with full hearts and take this opportunity to respond to God’s stunning display of mercy.

“Baptism is then a loud ‘thank you’ to God’s saving work and bold ‘yes’ to God’s invitation to a life proclaiming that Jesus, not Caesar, not Pharaoh, and not even we, are Lord,” Pastor Bryan writes, “And to this, we say, Amen.”

šMatthew 28: 19-20

²Millard J. Erickson writes in Christian Theology, “The act of baptism conveys no direct spiritual benefit or blessing. In particular, we are not regenerated through baptism, for baptism presupposes faith and the salvation to which faith leads. It is, then, a testimony that one has already been regenerated.”

³Hillsong Church, What is Baptism

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The Space Between

“I don’t even consider you my brother!” She throws her words at him. Heavy tears stream down past her jaw and onto her lap. The hurt surprises her and she can tell it aches him, but at this moment, she is unflinching. She feels it ringing deep in her bones, like hundreds of stress fractures threatening to break. His absence in these last six years. His silence when she needed him the most.

Growing up, they were close — even sweet with one another — and in a demanding and turbulent home life, they were each other’s safe place. But as time scraped by, each of them began to cope with the abuse in their own ways. In high school, her brother busied himself in relationships and work, while Debbie began to develop a dangerous eating disorder that left her weak and fragile. Both siblings reeled and grasped in their own attempts to regain a semblance of control over their lives, their bodies and their realities. Together, but separated by a crawling rift between them.  

Photographer: Michelle J. Kim

When she goes to college, her self-destructive tendencies begin to unravel her life, while the chasm between her and her brother widens. Her parents pull financial support from her due to her reckless lifestyle, and almost overnight, she is free falling. Broken and abandoned, she turns to her brother in a moment of raw desperation and vulnerability.

But, he isn’t there to catch her.

She internalizes this judgment over herself: No one is here to help me. Like eschar over a wound, it festers with the appearance of healing. “I often convince myself that things are not problems. I’d rather brush it away until I feel okay or stop thinking about it. When I was hurt by people, I never allowed myself to properly heal.” Early on, Debbie forms defenses around her in efforts to protect herself. In efforts to placate herself of the pain.

“No matter what I do, I’m not enough. This belief shaped me.” Her head lightly nods as she recounts her story. Her hand gracefully moves the hair away from her face. The wind brings it back again.  

Years later, when she returns to the west coast, Debbie cautiously attends Ekko. At the encouragement of friends, she enrolls in Ekko’s five-month-long introduction to discipleship known as Orthopraxis. And as she moves in the ways of Jesus, God invites her deeper into her life as a new creation.

To become someone who lives without walls, without calluses. He desires to heal her of the wounds she thought had long scabbed over. 

“…God starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of… You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

— C.S. Lewis

In Orthopraxis, as participants are taught how to be more like Jesus in specific and concrete ways — through an assignment coined The Jesus Move —Debbie hears the question: “Who do you need to forgive?” 

“Who is God revealing to you and how do you plan on apologizing to them and seeking reconciliation?” Pastor Isaac asks early on. No one comes to her mind. She blankly scribbles in her journal.

She has brushed the pain away so much, it is unrecognizable. But there is something in that question that starts to crack at the walls she has formed around her. 

The next week, Debbie and her brother erupt in a fight that rivals their worst. “You’re just absent!” she cries “You’re supposed to be my family, but you weren’t there!” As if she’s shouting across the ocean that has risen between them. For so long, she had held back and internalized any hurt she experienced, but now, she aches for connection and is startled by her own honest anger. But he doesn’t snap back at her. Instead, he apologizes. And he explains why he’s been absent all these years. Despite his gentle explanations, her pride threatens to keep her guard up. The second week passes, and the same challenge comes. “Who do you need to forgive?” She steels herself. Her heart remains tight.

But she hears God inviting her, nudging softly. Debbie, how do you plan on seeking reconciliation?

The same question comes the third week, but this time, the faintest whisper answers with her brother’s name.

Michael.

She feels God calling her to repair and rebuild this relationship. Grace wells in her spirit and tempers the hurt still fresh on her heart. The call to be more like Jesus stirs in her being. The call to active reconciliation. 

That weekend, Debbie teeters on the edge of the unknown. Years and years of self-preservation created a formidable defense of bitterness and resentment around her. This is how she learned to survive. How could God ask her to lower her walls completely? To be this vulnerable? In the car together, the sounds of rolling asphalt and small talk punctuate the silence between them.

His voice warms the air around them. “How do you know God is real?”

She feels her heart finally unfurling.

“God was really pushing me to open. As if He was giving me the chance to have these conversations I never had before. To tell my brother what happened in my past and my story with God,” Debbie says. For the first time, Debbie shares with her brother the testimony of how she came to God. Who He is in her life and how she knows He’s real. 

God was preparing her for this moment. To be able to be raw before her brother, whom she loves so much, and to share her story that she had hidden away from him for so long.

After years of distance, misunderstandings, fights and tension, Debbie and Michael bend toward one another, confessing their hurts and asking for forgiveness for the hurt they incurred upon each other. Without defenses.

The walls she had held up for so many years start to melt away.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

— 2 Corinthians 5:17-19

Debbie and her brother’s reconciliation began to unearth other issues that she had suppressed for much of her life. The healing that she experienced with her brother, became the first step in being candid with the other hurts she had unconsciously hidden away deep within her heart.

“I’ve started to get more honest with myself and where I’m at emotionally, mentally and spiritually. I’m allowing myself to go to those uncomfortable places because I know that this season is so necessary. I am starting to understand why I am the way I am and how certain traumatic moments in my past have influenced who I am… I think this season is really for me and my family to grow and repair.”  

In the journey of following Jesus’ way of life and following in His footsteps, Debbie finds herself steeped in the healing process and becoming whole – in ways she didn’t know she needed, nor thought was possible. Through reconciliation, she is realizing that in order to properly heal, she needs to go into the hard places she has avoided for much of her adult life. 

But through it all, she finds comfort in knowing she’s not alone and that God is orchestrating her steps. “I know that God is walking this journey right alongside me, and my brother has stepped in to really guide me and encourage me through this season.”

“The traumatic memories don’t go away and sometimes I feel like I might be stuck like this forever, but I’m really holding onto my faith and believing that God is able to change circumstances. And that even the most broken relationships can be healed.”

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Sinkhole Syndrome

“Men are starved for genuine relationships.”  

This is from Pastor TJ, our bivocational pastor, civil engineer, and father of three children. He is explaining the why behind designing a 6-month-long men’s group, also known as Men’s Koinonia at Ekko. According to a story done by The Boston Globe, the biggest health threat facing middle-aged men isn’t smoking, obesity or even cancer.

It’s loneliness.

Isolation.

Pastor TJ explains, “Our relationships get cut off as we pursue the American dream of career and family. We are too busy to invest time in relationships… As a result, we try to battle all our problems on our own.”

“It’s a setup for disaster—what can be termed the sinkhole syndrome.”

As a civil engineer by day, one of Pastor TJ’s responsibilities is recognizing the risk of actual, physical sinkholes and preventing them from swallowing buildings, people’s homes and streets. While we won’t get into the details of it—though, you can ask him more about how sinkholes form and what he does about them Mondays through Fridays—the sinkhole syndrome he is describing is something we often see in the headlines exposing scandals involving spiritual leaders and even with Biblical figures like King David and Bathsheba.

It is when someone appears externally stable, perhaps even successful and spiritually healthy, but internal temptation or disaster triggers a breakdown in character and a decimation of self, family, trust and faith.

Like in the natural world, spiritual sinkholes form when years of compounded neglect, compromise and isolation dissolve the foundation beneath the surface. And in a moment, it has the potential to destroy everything in sight.

“We have to prepare ourselves so that we can live full, abundant lives. Lives where we can have people that we trust and can count on. We have to become men strong enough to withstand the storms of life and resist temptation so that we can see through God’s vision for our lives.”

Eric, an Ekko member and youth department leader, tells us that the first isolating factor in his life happened during the transition from singlehood to marriage. He found himself growing detached from the group of friends he had established and was becoming disillusioned in regards to finances,  calling and vocation. This only led him deeper into isolation.

Though he was in seminary at the time, nothing was working out. The hopelessness of his situation started to settle in as he watched his peers advance and develop in their careers. All the while, his family was growing, and Eric started to feel the insurmountable pressure to provide.

The foundation beneath his life seemed to give way.

As a newlywed, Eric describes the “debilitating insecurity” he began to experience. “I had an immensely deep sense of shame and failure, to the point where I would continually short-circuit myself with bad decisions.” His misdirections began to affect what he did at church, his friendships, and most of all, his then-recent marriage.

In 2015, Eric started meeting with a group facilitated by Pastor TJ twice a month. The meetings began to form a ‘rhythm of grace’ to their lives in a structure that facilitated vulnerability, accountability and movement toward restoration. Slowly, they were able to invite one another as allies in the journey and editors for their stories. They began to empower one another to live with integrity and clarity, and their meetings became a safe place where they could share their successes, failures, struggles, hopes and dreams without fear or judgment.

“We were able to lay down all the false pretenses that we put up to make ourselves measure up to everyone else.”

When he reflects on those meetings, Eric explains that there weren’t any “big” or notable breakthroughs.

Instead, he describes it as “small, almost imperceptible movements where at the end of it, I found that I didn’t want to do self-destructive things, and I wanted to work on my marriage.”  

Since then, Eric has found his vocation as a teacher. He and his wife, Rachel, have a young daughter and a newborn son together. He has learned how to be a more honest and loving husband and a more faithful and obedient follower of Jesus. Though he still is not near where he’d like to be, he says, “I can honestly say these meetings helped set up my 30s with the consistency, purpose and joy that I am currently enjoying in life. Even if you haven’t arrived at the end of the six months, you have clarity that you are working toward a specific goal.”

At Ekko, Men’s Koinonia provides the space for the men in our house to build up relationships to journey through life together. So that when temptations or disaster or disillusionment come, our men will be empowered and embedded within healthy constellations of relationships, upon a strong foundation of trust, vulnerability and integrity.

Men’s Koinonia began in the spring. As a body, let’s pray for our brothers and fathers in the house as they meet intentionally over the next several months. Let’s pray that this helps create patterns honesty and grace in their lives.

When we allow men the space to grow with one another and with God, Pastor TJ writes, “We’ll have men that are secure in who they are because they will be in groups where they are accepted and loved. And that security will lead to freedom for the entire church.”

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Still Being Saved

“I don’t even know if I really like you or if the medication is making me like you,” Jenn said to Nuri through her tears. With the shifting of doses, the depression, the therapy, revisiting the trauma, the ground beneath her seemed to flip from under her. Circling around and around, it was as if she was drowning and unable to grasp at anything concrete.

Where did the trauma end and reality begin?

I need to take care of myself.

I am not accepted.

I am alone.

These thoughts fill her lungs like water.


Photography: Ariel Shim

Before Jenn came to Ekko, she couldn’t quite describe the heaviness she often embodied and the dark recesses she frequented. But as she got connected to the body, Pastor Bryan was the first to help name it. “Jenn, you’ve been through a lot,” he said to her, “All these years, you’ve been piggybacking this trauma and it has developed into chronic depression.” He encouraged her to seek help. It was the first time she realized she could ask for it.

“Pastor Bryan helped me realize that it’s not just about reading the Bible enough or praying enough,” she continues.

“Depression isn’t always just a spiritual issue. There are mental and physical components to it. Sometimes you need help, and that’s okay.”

Jenn carries the deep and resounding wounds of abuse, of divorce, of a parent’s death and of financial instability. It’s here in the layers upon layers of trauma that depression took root and built up a distrust and resentment toward God. Ever since she was a child, she felt alone. “I felt like I had to earn love and acceptance. No one was going to be there to help me,” she says. As a child, Jenn was crippled with anxiety and the fear of abandonment.

With help from therapists, she began to learn how to process the wounds from her childhood and how to grieve properly. “Before Ekko, I never realized the trauma that was so clearly in front of me. To revisit it is painful but weirdly refreshing. I have this space to explore and feel safe.”

As she tells her story on the couch in their apartment, Jenn and Nuri sit closely, side by side. The lamp behind them blankets their shoulders with a warm hue. Jenn looks at him as she explains her reluctance to try medication. “What if there was no other solution?” she worried. “What if nothing can help me?” In the first few years in her journey toward healing, therapy—supplemented with medication—began to lift the weight in her chest, but it took many months and trial doses to settle on the right prescription. Each shift in medication set off a chain reaction of doubt and confusion.

And after two years of dating, Jenn and Nuri eventually broke up.

It would turn out to be the turning point in both of their lives. 

When they first started dating, Jenn coped with all of the trauma and mental illness by avoiding her anger and emotions and focusing on their relationship. But stripped of her emotional crutch and coping mechanisms, Jenn was forced to come face to face with the God she felt so abandoned by. Up until that season in her life, she felt like she had to be put together—even as she was unraveling. But as she found herself alone, without Nuri to lean on, she was able to come to God angry, weak and naked. Messy and defenseless.

“I realized didn’t have to go to God as the strong girl I thought I had to be. I gave Him my raw emotions. And when I did that, I learned that I could really lean on Him with all my weight.”

“The break up was exactly what I needed to heal. God wanted to bring me home. To teach me that He is good and that He is faithful,” Jenn says. 

As Jenn was learning that she could trust in God as a Father, Nuri was learning that it wasn’t his job to save her. “I wanted to be her savior or say the right thing, but I learned that’s not what she needed, nor my responsibility,” he continues, “I needed to learn. I Googled a lot.” Jenn giggles as she remembers how she caught him searching, “How to Listen Better.” He lets out a laugh and adds, “I thought nodding was listening.”

Eventually, Jenn and Nuri got back together and eventually got married—though as very different people, their stories profoundly edited and rewritten by God. In June, they celebrate their two-year wedding anniversary. And though she still walks with a limp, Jenn continues to learn more about herself in regards to her story, her marriage and her career. “I’m still learning what it’s like to really be a child, where I can rest my head in His chest. To really trust God as a Father. Trust in His timing and that He’s got everything in His hand.”

“I am learning how to love myself in the present. Not someone I will be, or plan to be in the future, but letting God meet me here.”

Though depression is something that Jenn continues to grapple with and fight through, she says, “I can stand and testify that God saved me and is still saving me.”

We wrote about Mental Health Awareness and faith last month in our post, Lights and Shadows: “As the church, we offer hope and the healing power of God’s grace through wholeness in community. We are a place of refuge and guidance for those who are suffering.”

If you are struggling, here are some resources to help guide you. Please open up to someone you trust, or to one of our leaders or pastors. Reach out. There is hope. 

Mental Health Professional Referral List

Mental Health Awareness Sunday