Our Intensives
Five focused days to do the deep work your marriage has been waiting for.
What Is a Week-Long Intensive?
A Different Kind of Care
A week-long intensive is not a retreat in the conventional sense. It is not a conference, a seminar, or a curriculum-based program. It is five intentional days of focused pastoral care, designed entirely around what you and your spouse bring.
Rich and Sandy Malone walk with you through that week as pastors, counselors, and fellow travelers who understand the unique weight that ministry life places on a marriage. They listen carefully, follow the Holy Spirit’s leading, and draw on a range of proven tools to address the real issues beneath the surface.
There is no rush. There is no checklist. There is space to go where you most need to go.
What to Expect
Your week begins with a conversation before you arrive, helping Rich and Sandy understand your situation and determine together whether an intensive is the right fit. If so, you will come to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where you will stay in a warm, welcoming host home that provides meals and a peaceful setting for rest and reflection between sessions.
Each day, you will meet with Rich and Sandy in their counseling space for a focused four to five hour session, with breaks woven in as needed. The pace is attentive, not exhausting. Most afternoons and evenings will include a homework assignment, something to reflect on, sit with, or work through together as a couple, designed to extend and deepen what surfaced during the day. Beyond that, the time is yours to rest, pray, process, and simply be together.
Sessions are tailored entirely to your marriage. You may work through relational wounds, communication patterns, spiritual disconnection, grief, burnout, or any number of themes that surface in the course of honest conversation. Rich and Sandy come prepared with tools for the issues that commonly arise in ministry marriages, and they will meet you exactly where you are.
Who This Is For?
Is This for Us?
Our intensives are designed for couples and individuals whose capacity to love and serve others is connected to their own health and wholeness. We work with people in all kinds of ministry contexts, from vocational ministers, church staff, and missionaries to educators, business leaders, community workers, and others who see their daily lives as a form of kingdom service. If you understand yourself to be part of the body of Christ and you are carrying something that needs care, you are welcome here.
The issues people bring to an intensive are as varied as the people themselves. Some come because their marriage is strained and they know something needs to change. Others are working through burnout, church hurt, grief, spiritual exhaustion, or a crisis of calling. Many find that these things are tangled together in ways they have not been able to sort out on their own. Whatever you are carrying, we are not afraid of it.
We also welcome couples and individuals who have had to step back from active ministry because they simply need care. Sometimes the most faithful thing you can do is tend to your own soul and your own relationships so you can eventually return to serving from a healthier, more sustainable place.
If you are not sure whether this describes you, reach out. We are glad to have that conversation.
Fees and Financial Access
We operate on a sliding scale fee structure. We never want cost to be the reason a couple does not receive the care they need. After we have connected and discerned together that an intensive is a good fit, we will share our fee schedule and work with you to find an arrangement that is realistic for your situation.
Immanuel Care is made possible in part by the generosity of donors who give specifically to support ministry couples in receiving care. If financial need is a concern, please do not let it keep you from reaching out.