Let me introduce myself
Hey, I’m EJ. I’ve been married to my amazing wife, Darcie, for 16 years. We do life and full-time vocational ministry together while raising a tribe of kids—four boys and two girls, all adventure.
Darcie and I met while attending a small Bible college in Rhode Island. We had big dreams to share the Gospel, help people experience God, and meet practical needs in our community.
Fast-forward to today: we’re pastoring a great church in the Midwest, and our kids are spread out between our local high school, middle school, intermediate school, and kindergarten. But there’s a lot that happened in between all of that. It’s been a journey, and I wanted to share some of it with you!
Walk, Then Run
When I arrived on campus, I had no idea what life or ministry was going to look like. All I knew was that I paying this school a lot of money to teach me how to study and interpret the Bible, teach it, and minister to people. But I was still just a 19-year-old still figuring out who he was. So, those next 4 years became much more of a learning curve than I could have ever anticipated.
I quickly realized I loved to study the historical context of the Bible. I also learned that even though I was an introvert, I was pretty good at preaching and teaching, which was one part exciting, and one part terrifying. But, I worked hard and developed both my communication and biblical interpretation skills.
Another thing that surprised me during college was that I really enjoyed loving and serving people and finding creative ways to do so. God placed a lot of vision inside of me in those early years, and Darcie and I both dreamed of being missionaries, running a non-profit outreach center, or para-church ministries. Pastoring was never on my radar.
Until it was.
Full Sprint
When I graduated with my BA in biblical studies, Darice and I were married and found ourselves serving as youth pastors. I just honestly wanted to provide for my wife and future kids, and youth ministry seemed like a good place to start in ministry. I was excited but also naive; passionate but too quick to overcommit myself; ready to serve my church, leadership, and community, but entirely unprepared for the toll it would take on us.
No one taught us about boundaries, a healthy pace of life for our souls, or even how to handle and process stress, conflict, and deep wounds caused by others. And over time, we felt the strain of that lack of knowledge and experience. We were fresh out of bible college. We didn’t know any different and couldn’t feel the effects right away. As soon as we learned to take a few steps, we took off running and never stopped.
We served in youth ministry for the next 7 years between two different churches. During that time, we had four boys who were all boy, if you know what I mean–real rough-and-tough, tackle-you-when-you-get-home, sword-fighting, adventuring kind of boys. We had our little tribe and loved it! Our family was growing, and so were our ministry experience and skills. I continued to grow as a preacher and found a deep passion for theology. I became an avid reader of any book I could get my hands on to help me better understand the Bible and the way of Jesus. If there’s anything I want to do well, it’s teaching and modeling for people how to live the way of Jesus.
At the end of those seven years, we revisited some of our original dreams. We tried to get on the mission field to serve the local church in Ireland with our family. Although we were initially approved and started raising funds quickly and experiencing God’s favor on what we were doing, we found out we were pregnant with baby number five (our first girl!). But the excitement of that also came with the pain of having to bow out of the mission process because of an unspoken rule our fellowship had about child limits when first starting as missionaries. They stopped our process, canceled our status, and we were left on our own to figure out what was next.
As painful as that was, God was so faithful and led us to what we wanted to do as missionaries–raise a local church of believers who would be passionate about following Jesus and serving their community. But instead of doing this in Ireland, it would be in New York, where we served as pastors for the next 4 years. We had two more kids in New York (both girls) and developed our leadership, teaching, and ministry skills even more. God taught us a lot about how to love and serve our neighborhood and community. But New York also became the training grounds for a completely different kind of lesson.
Gassed Out
We saw a lot of growth in that small church. On our first Sunday as pastors, there were 42 people in the building, including our (at the time) family of 7. Within 2 years, we were averaging around 100 people. We were also getting really involved in our community, and they were beginning to know that we loved them, but more importantly, God loved them. I was also working on my master’s degree in theology. And everything just seemed to be trending up and to the right.
Then the pandemic happened.
I should probably fill you in on a few details leading up to the coronavirus outbreak. At this point in 2020, we had been in full-time vocational ministry for 11 years. And while we saw powerful moves of God, tons of students committed to following Jesus, healings, miracles, spiritual gifts coming to life in us, and all kinds of other amazing things, those years were also filled with incredible amounts of pain.
We experienced betrayal from different people who were close to us. We served in church cultures that allowed the lead pastor to make six figures while we were trying to survive paycheck to paycheck and living off of SNAP benefits. We had experienced all the ugliness of gossip and gaslighting and were even accused of things proven to be factually untrue because, as it turned out, others had lied to cover their own mistakes. I had people accuse me of having a demon, proclaim curses over my life and my family through email, and tell my wife to “drop dead” on her birthday. I’ve had people demonize me to my boss and try to take my job for themselves right in front of me. I have had people try to split our church, create a church within a church, and cause such division and pain within the church–all while accusing me of being unchristlike (ironic, I know). And the list goes on and on.
For 11 years, we experienced an incredible amount of abuse, manipulation, betrayal, and trauma, mixed in with a lot of fun, growth, and joy. The problem was that we thought, like many Christians and pastors, that if we just kept focusing on the good moments and pushed through the painful moments, we would get through the hurt, the wounds would heal on their own, and we could keep moving forward without missing a beat.
But that’s not how pain and trauma works. Your body keeps a record of your pain, whether you want to deal with it or not. And unless you put in the work to face your pain, sit with it, work through it, and give it to Jesus, you never find healing. At best, you find a way to self-medicate your pain. But you don’t heal.
And honestly, we weren’t taught anything different.
Back to 2020.
I was the only staff member at our church in New York. And I had 11 years of built-up trauma in my life that I had, up to that point, done a near-perfect job of burying and keeping buried and out of my work and ministry.
But then everything started to unravel. The pandemic came with its lockdown, and I spent every waking moment for a month producing creative online content and meetings to keep our church connected. Then, my dad died unexpectedly. And then all of the anxiety, anger, and unhealthy behavior that was oozing out of every corner of our country found its way into our church, demanding even more of my time and attention while also causing new wounds to add to my list.
And then it happened. I started having anxiety attacks. They came out of nowhere! I’m pretty even-keeled emotionally, and it takes a lot to really affect me. But during that year, it seemed like just about anything could trigger an anxiety attack. I felt like my world was unraveling around me, and I didn’t know what to do. And before all of this, I felt like I was already drowning, then God handed us another baby (our 6th and another girl)…and now this?!
Something had to change.
So I got help. I turned first to Jesus and spent time with him. Sometimes, it was a lot of yelling and anger on my end. Other times, I just showed him my brokenness through tears. There were times I didn’t even have words and just sat in silence. I leaned heavily into spiritual practices like silence and solitude, prayer, and sabbath. I got counseling. I spent many hours on the phone with spiritual fathers in my life. I learned to accept my limitations and the importance of healthy boundaries. I faced all of my wounds, wrestled with them, and Jesus healed them. And he’s still healing them.
I learned a lot about myself in that season. The pandemic was like a pressure cooker for our personal growth in life and leadership. I learned to work with the Holy Spirit and care for my soul. And I saw that no matter how difficult or painful it got, God was the faithful Father Jesus had always told us he was.
I finished my master’s degree with a 4.0. God gave us prophetic dreams and an incredible download of wisdom and discernment about how to effectively handle the unhealthy leader and his small group of grumblers in the church. The pandemic ended, the church became even more spiritually healthy than it had been, and we began to grow again.
And then we sensed God was moving us to Indiana to pastor an incredible church. We’ve planted our roots as a family (something that we had longed to do) and have seen even more kinds of growth, blessing, and favor in our lives as God continues to show us his goodness and faithfulness!
Finding Our Footing
16 years into this journey as a family, we have learned that God doesn’t control every event, action, and decision made in this world. People choose who they’ll marry. They choose to have kids, they choose their career, and choose where they’ll live. People choose to be Christlike, but they also fail and make mistakes. Some even choose to allow their pain, pride, or selfishness to twist them into something unloving, cruel, and judgmental, causing them to harm everyone around them. But God doesn’t make any of that happen to us. It’s just part of life!
One of the most helpful things we can learn is that God is sovereign. He is king over all the earth. And he has the power and authority to use all things together “for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28, NIV). That means that even though he knows that everything will eventually turn out alright and ultimately for your good, God will still sit with you in your pain and weep with you.
Don’t get me wrong! It’s not all been a horror story. If my love for the Bible, theology, and ministry has taught me anything, it’s that pain is just a part of every story. And I’ve learned to trust God to be the author of my story because it’s better than any narrative I could create by myself.
Our kids are thriving in school, sports, and life. They have their own stories of seeing God provide miraculously. They have seen God be so faithful to us and are learning to trust him in their own lives. And God has used all the garbage that Darcie and I went through to model for our kids how to live-out the way of Jesus that we preach every week.
I discovered a deep love for writing and have published 4 books, with many more on the way. And now I am bringing all of what I have been through and learned (and what I am continuing to learn) about God, the way of Jesus, and life to all of you! I want to help you to follow Jesus, find freedom and healing in him, and to see God rightly.
Maybe even for the very first time!
So I’m calling out to all of you–to those living like spiritual orphans who don’t know their good Father; to those who’ve been hurt by the Church and walked away; to those in the midst of feeling the sharp sting of ministry pain; to those who are trying to hold it together but feel the cracks deepening in your soul; to those who feel numb in their relationship with God and are drowning in doubt…
Join me on this journey!
Follow me as we learn to follow Jesus together and find the life we were created to live. We can ask the hard questions about life and faith without fear. Nothing is off of the table! Let’s make this a safe and sacred space where we can be honest, transparent, and raw about life, ministry, and faith.
In the end, we’ll see God more clearly, feel his love more deeply, and learn to follow Jesus more closely.
Well, I am sure proud of my nephew, EJ! You have learned so much and grown so much over these years. Life can be hard, people can be cruel, times can be very tough - but you reached out for help when you needed it! Im excited to see all you have to share. I know your dad is proud if you too. 💞