Q&A with ej & Chelsea Oruche

Q: How did you both get involved in Renew in the first place?

Chelsea: In 2016, I moved back to Culver City and needed to find a church. So I Googled churches and found Renew, which was new at the time. I started going, and around the same time, E.J. and I started dating, he was going to a different church. He was going to Oasis in Central L.A., and was pretty faithful in attending there. But after four or five months of dating, we were getting more serious. I said, "sometimes I'll go to Oasis and sometimes you come to Renew." But our relationship was getting more serious, like, we were talking about marriage and stuff. 

So I proposed that we go to the same church. And he said, "I think it should be Renew." Renew had around two hundred people at the time. We started going full time and immediately we both were serving, so I joined the coffee bar hospitality team and was on that until 2020, and on sound team for the same. So [I spent] about four years of service on those teams. 

EJ: What sold it for me was one of the times I came to Renew, it felt different. I grew up Catholic, and my church was really small. 

But it wasn't until I went to Renew and felt the intimacy of it, that I was like, "oh, I like this better." It reminded me of my church growing up in that sense of the intimacy and the smallness, and it still does today. I was like, "this feels like a place I can root down in."

Q: Renew definitely has the intimacy and the smallness, but also like the really deep connection community. If you don't mind me asking, how did you end up dating? Was that just meeting through church and then kind of hitting it off from there?

Chelsea: No, we had a mutual friend.

EJ: Yeah, [through] one of my best friends. When they tried to get us together, we were both like "no, thank you." But that's when we started having conversations. But the short of it is: she kind of friend zoned me for a while. Then I wasn't living here. I moved back to L.A., and we started dating around that time, a few months afterwards we both started going to Renew. So it was very shortly after we started officially dating.

Q: Something really unique about Renew is the inner healing ministry. How did you first hear about that and what drew you to participating in it?

EJ:  We heard about inner healing here and there, and we first started going through Renew when we got married in 2017. 

Chelsea: We did marriage prep. Pastor Dihan married us. We did marriage prep and back then Pastor Dihan led it in his garage. Part of the marriage prep curriculum is the genogram, where you unpack your family history.

[Pastor Dihan] said "you're either going to deal with it on the front end or you're going to deal with it on the back end." His advice was to unpack as much as you can together before you get married.

And I think that really cracked open a conversation more about our backgrounds and what we've been through, and what informed who we were. During that there was some marketing for the [inner] healing ministry. And the church was small. So, you know, you interacted with Janet all the time. 

We both realized, through marriage prep and all of that, "hey, we probably have like a lot to unpack as an intercultural, interracial couple, not to mention our backgrounds."

We knew we each would individually benefit from the healing ministry. But I think we committed to doing it for our relationship, more so than anything. "Hey, we both need to kind of unpack this so that we better understand ourselves and start healing ourselves, so we can be better to each other and for each other going forward. 

EJ: And I remember early on, like we were like months into being married, and we needed it. It was in the same window as when we got baptized again. It was all in that same period. We were trying to build this foundation.

Renew played a central part in our journey together. And so it was just sort of like, "how do we create these next steps of intentionality to like, build this foundation?" So I think that's what drove a lot of it. We didn't fully know what we were going to get out of it, but we knew it was something we should probably do to further unpack more about ourselves, like Chelsea was saying.

Q: Before you dive into Inner Healing, EJ, you mentioned that you had grown up Catholic. Chelsea, what's your faith background, or what were your interactions with church growing up?

Chelsea: I've been a Christian my whole life. A neighbor took me to church when I was five and I pretty much went by myself most of my life, and my mom went periodically. I wasn't really a big part of church during college. That sounds so cliche, but it was because of church hurt. 

There was kind of a falling out at one the church I went to my senior year, so I took some time off [from going]. I needed a break from church, but it wasn't a crisis of faith or anything.

Q: And then for you EJ, when did you start going to more like a Protestant type church setting?

EJ: I grew up, Catholic, and went on to college. I didn't go to church too often, but I still said I was Catholic. I did Bible studies and things, so that was like my first exposure to something that wasn't Catholic. And then when I left college, I was kind of going to church, but not really. 

So when I moved to L.A., my roommate had become active in his faith back where he lived in Kentucky. And so when he moved here, Oasis [Church] was actually in our neighborhood because we lived in Koreatown. So he started going there. 

After a while, he's like, "come with me, come with me." I was like, "fine, I'll go." I was like "okay, this is kind of intense and different, like the worship and stuff." But at the same time, I was getting exposed to the word in a different way.

I went to Catholic schools growing up too. So it was Catholic for the whole gamut of things. But that's when there was a transition from a thing I just did and just believing in God, to being like, "oh, there's a relational aspect to this I thought, understood that I don't. So that's when the story broke open for me.  

Q: Going back to the inner healing ministry, can you take me back to a specific moment where you felt like you're really connected to each other or to God. Was there a certain breakthrough that happened?

EJ: I have a more specific one. We did [inner healing] separately, but we did it around the same time. For me, what stood out was there's like a part where they ask you to look into what Jesus is trying to show you and ask "where's Jesus in that moment?" I got taken back to seventh grade math. 

For context, I used to go to this one school for my whole life. And then I switched schools in 7th grade, and one of the things I didn't realize was how far my [old] school was behind in the curriculum. I was one of the smarter kids, but I was not exposed to information that I needed to be. I was essentially behind. 

The first time I found that out was doing this math placement test, and I didn't do well on it. And the teacher wasn't really nice about it. For me, I'm always going to go and do my best. That's culturally how my family is – my family's Nigerian. So that's the whole thing. 

And I'm like, "I'm going to get this done." I was very performance driven, and I worked really hard to overcome all that stuff in high school and stuff to go to engineering school. But in the context of inner healing, I got taken back to that moment. 

Where's Jesus in that moment?

He's in front of me, and he takes the placement test paper and just rips it up. It's still very visceral because this [inner healing experience] was five or six years ago, and I still remember that point. I think that's the most clear part of the whole session. I think my godly belief was "you know, God doesn't have me do this for performance, but for worship." 

What really clicked for me in my moment is like, I'm very performance driven in a lot of things. God's like, "it's not about what you do, it's about who you are to me."

And it's not as if I mastered that. I still struggle with that, but I can always go back to that godly belief. And I have notes around it when I was doing it and be like, "OK, this is the root that's happening, and I need to take it back to Him." I can map so many things now to that one thing. That was really insightful for me.

Q: How do you feel like that has built a stronger foundation for your life, or played out in your marriage?
EJ: I struggled with it early on. I work a lot, like in engineering school, you stay up late, you just do everything you've got to do. And so that became a way to knock stuff out. Whenever I need to do a lot of stuff, I just keep working at it, and I'm very good at doing that. And analyzing things in my head. 

But when we got together, the last five years have been rebalancing that and being like, "hey, I don't want the party to get mixed up here, and I don't want to get caught up in doing this."

It's mapping back to "I don't have to sit here for hours at this computer to show that I'm using God's blessings." I can step away and be with her or do whatever. Or, you know, being honest and saying, "I need to take a break or vacation"

It was [important] to know that about myself, submit that to God, and tell her," I'm struggling with this." It's not as if I got it right year one or year two, but now I work on my startup today in a pretty healthy way.

But that was all driven from the understanding of an ungodly belief, and the godly belief I do need to have, and what that means for our marriage. And that's helped her understand where I struggle so she can gently correct me. But then also it's important for me to ask for the right help, to look for the right things to map my mind to.

Q: When do you feel like that started to shift from making it to performance to making it about presence?

EJ: I think I've grown in levels. So first, it was just about doing less, but now, recently in this last year, it's been about just being. I feel like God knew that I probably couldn't get to the "just being" right away. At first it was doing less, and then being comfortable with doing less in a smaller amount of time. One thing we did when COVID started is Sabbath Day, and that was really hard because it was the one day I couldn't do anything anymore. We took that one day away and it was like, "OK, is this sustainable?" And then within that time you do have, are you doing the right things? And now it's just [about] being.

It's me waking up and knowing what I do is already enough, and that's why I'm working on right now – understanding my identity, understanding the value I present. It's not as if I fully have mastered it. But it's progressed in a meaningful way that I think has allowed for maturity. It's allowed for [Chelsea] to be patient enough for me to get there. 

It's right on time because now being a parent, that's probably caused some acceleration. Now there's two people to think about. I think God's just ordained a timeline of learning and growing in a way that's sustainable and sticks around for me.

Q: Chelsea, what was that breakthrough moment for you in the inner healing ministry?

Chelsea: In reference to inner healing, I had a lot of childhood and family trauma stuff I needed to unpack. When I looked at getting married, I didn't have any examples of a healthy marriage in my life. I definitely didn't have examples of marriages making it that had kids. So those two things were completely missing from my community growing up. 

I had a hope that it would help me redeem aspects of my childhood. That it would go forward into a future that was different, and where God could show me that the concept of inner healing is basically like if "I don't know where you were in all of that pain and trouble, then like, how can I possibly imagine you in the future and with my own kids, or in my own family?"

God gave me a really good confirmation that EJ was my person and I was so grateful for him. So we're going to do this together. But like, I had no model. I had no map for this. Any model I had was garbage.

One of the moments in my inner feeling was specifically speaking to my role as a child. I feel like God just really showed up and showed me that it didn't really matter that it didn't really have a good example of a parent on earth, or anyone in my life who was a protector or a provider, or any sort of safety. 

During inner healing, I really felt God strongly come alongside me as a little girl and say, "I'm your Father, I'm here. And then He called me "daughter," and I think that aspect of just redeeming that relationship and parental role helped me begin better orienting myself in what role I was supposed to play in my life as a child.

Going into inner healing, [I thought] I was responsible for things that happened in my childhood. That somehow, I could have done better if they were my responsibility. What I learned from God is that it wasn't my job. I was always the child. 

Taking that into my marriage was obviously really important, because it started to help me free up, like I didn't want EJ to be my parent. There are elements in our early marriage around dependency that really factored into this like control and dependance and interdependence. Like, I didn't have any idea what that meant, I just did my own thing. I was always in charge of my whole life. 

Inner healing helped me begin that path of what is independence, what is interdependence. 

How can I rely on somebody else? What's the appropriate role for us to play for each other? How can I be like a helper and not a parent? How can I be protected, but he's not my parent. That was just brand new for me.

It was new for EJ too, because he'd never been a husband before. But his family has really some really strong marriages and really good examples. Not to say that anyone's perfect.

I guess the moral of the story is unless I had healed my childhood, it was going to be really hard for me to consider having a child of my own. I do feel like inner healing played a part in me being open to having a child.

I did a series of other things, like a healing group that we had where I further unpacked the stuff that happened in my childhood and the relationship I had with my parents. I also did some counseling, et cetera, and I think without all that, like that domino effect, I don't think I'd be as good of a mom. And I don't think I would understand my role as well – not say I am an expert at it.

Now I really enjoy being a mom. I get to enjoy my child, and I have way less resentment than I think I would have had. When you become a parent, you realize all the things you didn't have. You're like, "oh, this is what a parent was supposed to do."

Once you step into the shoes of being a parent, you realize all the things you didn't have when you were a kid, like,  "oh, this is what a parent was supposed to do. I never thought this."

I'm still unraveling that thread – like when you tug on the string of a sweater and it just keeps unraveling. It's like something was knit for me that I don't wear and it doesn't fit anymore. I feel like inner healing was the beginning, and now God is re-knitting together something that fits better. Something that fits better for me and for my marriage and family."

Q: Thank you so much, first of all, for sharing that. I know it's not easy, so I appreciate you diving into that. After going through that, how has that helped your marriage now, knowing certain tendencies about yourself or your past, on a day-to-day level? It could be something as simple as the way you speak to each other.

Chelsea: This is [similar] to the framework Pastor Dihan gave us in marriage prep: we never expected to have everything figured out. We never expected that marriage prep was just going to be the only time we ever had to work on our marriage, and we never had this map for marriage that said it was going to be easy or without work or without difficulty. 

And I would say that's generally been true. What we've always thought about is, all of these things, we think of as tools to use. In the natural ebb and flow of life in our relationship we've had periods that have been really hard for us – to communicate felt just about impossible. 

When we're at our best, when we find our way out of that, it's usually using these frameworks and remembering what God showed us about each other and about ourselves. 

Without having gone through inner healing, I don't know if EJ would've ever unpacked that he had a performance issue and that I would have ever been able to help him with that.

I do think there are practical levels of accountability there. 

And [with my behavior] he's not just like, "oh this comes out of nowhere." He's like, "I have to remember, that this is where that comes from."

I think it allows us to not to be super perfect all the time, but in practical ways to really support each other differently.   

Like, I know he's working really hard this week. He has a lot on his plate like. [I recognize] this is going to be a different week, but that doesn't mean it's going to be forever. It's okay to support him in certain weeks that are heavier, but then also help him with the accountability. To rein it back in when it's not necessary to work like that anymore.

EJ: Yeah, you said both cases really well. We thought with inner healing "oh it's going to be good." It's like unlocking Pandora's box, but in a good way where you're opening the closet you throw all the crap in, but it takes time. You just don't want to put it back in. 

Reflecting on five years of marriage, it's been part of that journey I was talking about earlier where if I look at year over year, we grew from like this point A to point B. A lot of our successes, whether it was therapy or coaching or reading a book, it was like  "OK, I know we need to learn more about this for you, or this about me, and understand and like it's probably going to read more on that in the next cycle."

But we wouldn't even know where to begin had it not been for [inner healing]. You might be able to pinpoint superficial things you can't understand, but getting to those deep roots is really powerful.

It's helpful in a lot of ways because it gives you a lens into how you see the world. It's being able to learn more about maybe why Chelsea sees things [the way she does], and get more details and information.

It's getting good clarity and a picture and then asking "God, what do I need to do as a husband and try to like, fit into that," and vice versa, "What is [Chelsea] going to do as his wife to fit into that? And then also with your child, how do you create a space where he hopefully doesn't have to go through some of that.

There's so many practical things, but it's all like we know the right things to be practical about, I suppose. I said "I don't think there's anything you can't map back to the inner healing issues."

It could be the smallest thing. Yesterday, I came into the house because I was working in the garage. When I came inside, Chelsea was stressed out.

At the beginning of our marriage, if she was stressed out, I'd be like "why are you so stressed out? I'm trying to work." Because I was prioritizing performance over her.

But now it's realizing, "oh, you're about to go take a trip and it's going to be me, her, the baby, and her mother who lives with us." There's a lot that has to do with her pain that's coming from the inner healing about that moment. 

I now have a lot of understanding about why that is, and I don't obviously think about it that way. It's more innate now. Now I can operate on a higher level because I already understand so much about the situation. Just off the top. So now I can operate better in some way. She was saying to me this morning, "OK, I know I'm going out of town, so I'm going to go get our son ready for school and take him."

I didn't ask. I was planning for something else, but she knows I'm going much faster than normal. So she was like, "that's the performance trigger. He's going to go down into this place."

Now we're starting to do stuff, I won't say automatically, but more so than like the first year, because we understand that inherently about each other. This is the place where we're going to feel that challenge. 

Without inner healing, I don't know who would be doing that. That's just maybe one practical moment, for example, of how we may be getting good at it over time.

Something else we realized through inner healing is we both obviously have things where God's calling us to in our lives, like vision casting. And I think maybe because of those ungodly beliefs, we haven't looked at them in a pure way. We've either reduced them down or minimized them. To know each thing and the godly belief that it should be, that has helped us encourage one another to go after the God vision trust that God will fill the cup.

For me with my startup, Chelsea's been able to speak into that. Sometimes I'm really struggling. She's like, "remember this part about what God is doing for you."

With the things she's going through, it's like, you can do all these things like you don't just have to be a mom, there's a new definition. You don't have to fit into this mold. You can be these multiple people, and you're unique to God.

If not for inner healing and understanding where the enemy is trying to take our legs so to speak, and our vision as a marriage, we wouldn't be able to speak over and pray over to access the higher level where we can go to. 

Even at this point in our marriage, we're at these points because we were able to say those things to each other early and we're still saying those things to each other. We're able to allow God now to take us to those higher places. 

I never thought about it before until now, but I think inner healing we set a foundation with God without really realizing like what it was going to do.

It allowed space for God to like, say, "OK, cool, I've cleared these things. Or at least you guys are aware of it now. Now I can really mold you into these people who can do these things in the world." So yeah, that's been a really powerful part.

Q: What's it like to be like a married couple with kids at Renew? Like both pour into that community and be poured into you by them?

EJ: From the jump, we got involved. So the first four years we'd been serving. We had a home group that we started. We had that for like four or five years. 

We were doing a lot of pouring into the community at the start. We were also being poured into.  We were putting a lot of our effort into Renew. When the pandemic started, that's when she was pregnant. And so we weren't going to church, obviously. But since that time, we haven't really been serving. We haven't been going to church in person between COVID and all the switches in our lives. 

There was a fear that because we weren't who we were before, what does that mean for the future? And as we're struggling with that, people came alongside us. 

Like when we were talking to Paul [Dario], we said "we don't know if we can lead a home group right now." He was like, "that's fine, go be in a home group for now." And now we're doing that in our area.

Or talking to Janet, we're like  "hey, we're not sure we can make it to church. She's like "OK you're my home group. Start here, rebuild, and we can figure out what this will look like in your season. 

What's so cool about Renew is that [the community] has adjusted and grown with how we're growing. And I think that speaks to the family aspect. 

Wow, it's been, you know, six or so years now, and it still feels just as authentic and just as deep. And we have these roots that we started planting like a while ago. 

Chelsea: I think just adding to that, COVID presented a lot of challenges for a lot of people in a lot of different ways. There are a lot of people struggling and hurting across the board, and a lot of disconnection from church.

Yet I feel like we have built a really strong community, both at our home group and at church.

We can text people and email people, and people show up. Even though what we went through was really hard, like going through a pregnancy at the beginning of COVID, or having a really difficult labor and delivery and a child in the NICU and then having like a really extended postpartum trauma drama. 

I really think our Renew community showed up for us in so many ways, and we really leaned on them, like different people and different aspects. And in a big city like L.A., we don't have any family here, like not close family. I really don't know how we would have navigated all of that without having built that really strong foundation. 

And it did feel weird to be receiving from so many people after we were normally the givers. But it really felt like this was another thing God was teaching us. "You can also be cared for by your community."  

Renew feels like family in all of the ways that families feel like family. Not without conflict, not without disagreements. But there's a deep care and like an intentionality that we've always really appreciated.