THE BEGINNING

It was a Friday night in 1998. I was a senior in college and my friend Randy had just sunk a ball into a side pocket of our family’s pool table when it all started. We were midway through an ultra-competitive game, like we had done with every sport and outdoor activity since were kids. Yet the conversation tonight was not filled with friendly trash-talking. It was brimming with the urgency we both felt to evangelize. 

We had been volunteering as leaders with our parish youth group and had begun writing a simple but thought-provoking book for teens, line by line walking through the Gospel of Matthew. Now, we needed someone to publish our little book - that was currently just 40 pages on a yellow legal pad. One of us said, “Why don’t we publish it?”

​We had as much publishing experience as the apostles did at evangelizing when Jesus first called them to follow Him. With a blend of naïveté and real faith, we decided to self-publish the book, but still needed a name for our company. Randy and I had a blast together and our friendship was a true blend of faith and fun.

Some scenes from the early years of ministry.

"DUMB OX MINISTRIES" IS BORN

The signature "ox head" logo that identified Dumb Ox Ministries for years.

 The edgy side of our duo was fascinated as we recalled the nick-name of St. Thomas Aquinas, “The Dumb Ox.” However, Thomas was not stupid, but was large and silent — yet also very pure of heart and very faithful in following God’s call. We loved it, and took him as our patron saint, that night naming ourselves “Dumb Ox Productions.” It also provided a teachable moment when people would ask about our unique name. I loved answering the thousands of questions over the years about the unique Dumb Ox name. 

​As it turned out, we never finished that book, but we did get asked to give a lot of talks and retreats together, at parishes and small conferences all over the Gulf South… and soon enough traveling further across the country. Eventually, we began learning St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body (TOB) and started using it as content for our talks and retreats. In 2002, after we officially incorporated as a legal business, we started seeing the explosive results, with teens’ lives being changed far more profoundly than any other way I had presented the Gospel. 

​As time went on, the TOB became the main way we reached teens who were desperate for love, filled with questions about sexuality, and longing for a relationship with God that was more than a list of rules. In 2006, I went full-time with Dumb Ox and began doing a lot of ministry in the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux down in Southeast Louisiana. We began doing vocation formation for teens through ongoing small groups and seasonal retreats.

​After a few years these retreats and programs, momentum was building and our team started growing. Then, the spark that would light the fire of our future name was ignited.  

ECHO RETREATS TAKE OFF

​“We should do this for a WHOLE WEEK!” Ryan bellowed. It was Sunday afternoon and Ryan was 16-years old and on fire after the weekend retreat he had just attended with us. 

“Oh, yeah?" I countered with my logical, skeptical adult tone. 

Then, he stopped to lock his playful but serious eyes with me. “Yeah, I’m serious,” he quipped. He clearly was on a testosterone and adrenaline laced “all-for-Jesus-I-don’t-need-Red-Bull” retreat high. But, I saw that he meant it.  

“Okay, I’ll have to think about that," I replied with a sly grin. Ryan bounded off to join his friends and I started thinking. 

Awesome moment from ECHO in Ohio in 2014.

Maybe six months later, in 2009, I sat down across from Archbishop Gregory Aymond in his office, getting ready to ask permission to create a week-long Theology of the Body retreat for teens, at Camp Abbey — the local diocesan-run retreat center an hour north of New Orleans. Seconds before I opened by mouth, the Archbishop says, “Brian, I’ve been thinking. What if you were to do a week-long Theology of the Body retreat for teens? And you could start it at Camp Abbey, and then grow it from there.” ​

I was speechless. I knew the Holy Spirit was flowing and this was God’s idea, not just a good idea. In 2010, we offered our first ECHO retreat with 17 teens. Since then, ECHO, has grown and been offered in many formats. It has been experienced by teens, young adults, and other specialized audiences, impacting thousands along the way. 

Teens discovering their God-given dignity as beloved sons and daughters of God and ditching dead-end relationships. College students learning purposeful, pure dating and overcoming pornography. Married couples finding renewal, joy and unity in their Sacrament. Seminarians empowered to discern and prepare for priesthood. And so many people anchored in the truth and freedom of joyful, integrated friendship with Christ and other men and women pursuing chastity and authentic love.

ECHO in Abbeville, LA in Summer 2022.

Successful integration. These are two simple words the Church uses to describe chastity, a challenging virtue to live the gift of our sexuality as God intended from the beginning. It’s one thing to learn the objective details of God’s plan, but it is another thing to come alive, experiencing the life-giving nature of relationships lived from the “distant echo of original innocence.” (TOB 19:2) Original innocence was that purity of heart that allowed Adam and Eve to see each other and love each other as God intended, without distraction or blemish… before sin existed in the world. It is this echo in our hearts that spurred us to embrace the name given to us by so many when leaving our retreats, saying “I can’t wait to get back to this ECHO community." 

So, now it is official: the Dumb Ox is still one of our patrons, but we earnestly desire to let the echo from the beginning define a new way of living for us. 

We cannot go back to the garden of Eden [However, learn here about our powerful theatrical outreach, GARDEN!] Yet, by the grace of Christ, we can live from that "distant echo,” learn to see with purity, affirm what is good, and reject the temptations to use each other. We can be restored to live not in competition, but in true complementarity as men and women appreciating the gift of ourselves and the other that God has given. We can aspire to live pure, prayerful, sacramental, communal lives of service, making a gift of ourselves and asking for mercy when we fall. 

ECHO will never be perfect, but it is an incredible taste of what life can be like with God at the center. On the last day of each retreat, I still constantly hear teens, young adults, and adults say what Ryan was getting at. I want more of this. I want to live like this.

ECHO COMMUNITY JOURNEY'S FORWARD!

Now, we aspire to get back to our roots - lighting the sparks with a personal encounter with Christ on retreat, then inviting people to authentic communal discipleship and evangelization. We like to invite others into our kitchen and teach the recipes God has been cultivating with us for years. Recipes for freedom in virtue and relationships. 

Jesus invited those apostles to join him, journey closely with him, that He could make their joy complete, and that He could also teach them to go out and evangelize. The urgency that Randy and I first felt together was to share the Gospel through the heart of joyful relationship. That urgency, in its most refined form, comes from the heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ. His heart is urgent to love, to redeem, and to unite with us, that where He is we also may be.

You are not meant to journey from here to eternity alone! God wants to draw you into a community of believers who are radical in love, obedient in service, and joyful in discipleship. God wants to teach you the truth of your identity and set you free to build relationships upon His love, not on the shifting sand that can be a mix of exciting feelings and deep hurt. You are meant to live from the beginning and love to the end, empowered to do so with others, following Christ into a newness of life maybe you have never tasted before.

What are you waiting for? Come and see for yourself!

-Brian Butler
Executive Director and Co-Founder
Echo Community