our ministry
2remain1 Ministries consists of us, the husband and wife team of Kimball and Elizabeth Parker. We’ll celebrate our 25th anniversary this year, and not only do we love marriage, we love helping others with their marriages. In addition to earning our Masters degrees in biblical counseling from Westminster Theological Seminary and Christian Counseling Education Foundation (CCEF), we are Certified Biblical Counselors with ACBC and IABC and have worked with over a 100 different couples in finding the beauty and majesty in their own marriage covenants. We don’t live in some fantasy world that marriage should be perfect or always happy, but we do love what God does for us and through us in this amazing relationship called marriage.
2remain1 Ministries was created to help couples find joy and hope in the midst of relationships struggles. While God has never promised us that all our difficulties will be eliminated before He returns, we do have His guarantee that He is with us in the midst of our struggles and He will never abandon us. It’s easy for us to focus on this crazy, frustrating, mixed-up life that we find ourselves in, but God’s Word is calling us to a much larger and glorious story within His beautiful plan of redemption.
The name 2remain1 comes from the description within Scripture for what happens between a husband and wife when they enter into the marriage covenant with God. As God designed the marriage covenant, the husband and wife are no longer operating through life as separate individuals, but as a united team representing how a gracious God extends mercy and forgiveness to His people. Genesis 2:24 give us this description even before sin entered the world. Jesus continues to uphold this original instruction going to so far as to say that man should not separate what God has joined together in Matthew 19:6.
We have front-row seats to see God at work! Yes, we believe we have some of the most effective biblical teaching on relationships on the planet, but ultimately it is based on God’s Word that He has graciously and generously given us all as a gift. Secular psychology’s best thinking on relationships today is different than it was 10 years ago, and different again 10 and 20 years before that. So the one thing we can be confident about today’s psychology is that it will be different again 10 years into the future. God, and His Word, are unchanging. What was true 2000 years ago in Scripture is still true today. The One who creatively designed the marriage covenant is the same One who has given us every good thing we need for a thriving marriage.
While most of us default to seeing marriage on a continuum between a consumer and a contractual relationship, God has designed marriage to be a covenant relationship and we help you to reorient your posture toward your spouse through this understanding. You may have heard that marriage is to make you holy, not happy. Sounds disheartening, doesn’t it? Until you consider that God wants to give you the desires of your heart. He does that, miraculously, by changing the desires of your heart. When you step back and consider the disappointments, frustrations, and struggles of marriage, they all originate in an expectation being crushed. So when the expectations and desires of your heart are aligned with the expectations and desires of the heart of God, magnificent and majestic things begin to happen.
We often start working with couples with this picture. The wife is headed out into life in one direction, and the husband has set his own course out in a different direction. Time has simply given you each the opportunity to move further and further away from each other based on the trajectory of where your desires started you in marriage. As we begin to walk with you in this season, we find ways to pull you up to a much higher elevation (picture flying at 30,000 feet) where you can survey the entire landscape and find where God’s mission, purpose, and His desires for your marriage covenant are found. Once that discovery is made, we simply help you gain momentum in that new direction for your marriage covenant.
If you consider the massive investment that is required to master a musical instrument, or to graduate college, or to become a professional athlete, is it any wonder that our marriage requires significant work? Our flesh wants to think that great relationships come “easy,” but that’s simply not the way life works. Instead, 2remain1 Ministries helps you extrapolate your good desires that have become idols, and rebuild the foundation of your relationship around the biblical principles as God has given them to us through His design for the marriage covenant.
Because it is the 21st Century, and we are overwhelmed with books, videos, blogs, and tools, it is often hard to filter out quality teaching from the noise of media, promotion, and false teaching. A simple search for marriage books on Amazon yields over 200,000 results. Filter down to Christian marriage, and you are still at over 20,000 choices. At the same time, I’m confident that I could pick out six outstanding, God-fearing, Jesus-loving, Gospel-centered books on marriage that if you followed all the principles and implemented all the ideas you would have a fantastic marriage. It’s possible that you are disciplined enough to do that, but we’re confident that we can get you there more efficiently and with better results.
As a husband and wife team, we are able to bring you farther and faster than a single counselor. Much of our counseling is done separately (Kimball working with the husband, Elizabeth with the wife). This gives us a much higher efficiency rate that other counseling and strengthens the relationship faster. And while we do have specific tools to help you with the basics of interpersonal relationships (empathetic communication, conflict resolution, building intimacy, etc.), we never stray from the Bible’s clear teaching that all of our words, thoughts, and actions come directly from the worship of our heart (Luke 6:45, Hebrews 4:12, Jeremiah 17:5-10). If God came into creation and lived the perfect life (which He did) and died a substitutionary life on our behalf (which He has), then shouldn’t that change every single thing about this life? It does!
our services
29-Day Marriage Boot Camp
The interactive, all-sensory approach to moving from contract to covenant…
We’re quite confident that you already have an excellent list in your head of what would drastically improve your marriage, but in our experience, you really need two things. One is full-on assault against the way you are currently thinking about marriage in order to realign what YOU are expecting from marriage to what GOD is expecting from your marriage. The second is a safe and like-minded community that will travel this uphill battle with you. Our 29-Day Boot Camp is a 12-hour workshop spread over three different weekends with daily reminders and resources to make the transformation of your marriage complete.
The idea of group therapy can cause huge bursts of anxiety in many clients, but our experience is that after the program ALL the participants would choose this format OVER Private Counseling. Why? Because God has designed us to be in community, shame exposed to light becomes redeemed, and encouragement comes from knowing you are not alone in your struggles. You can read a dozen books on marriage, attend multiple weekend conferences, and even go on an expensive cruise devoted to marriage enrichment, but we’re convinced that this program is the best investment in reorienting your marriage towards God’s design for your relationship!
3-Day Marriage Intensive
Condensed biblical counseling designed to breathe life into what is otherwise dead…
Statistics show that the average couple who seeks help for their marriage waits an average of six years to do so (according to the Gottman Institute). Let’s face it, a lot of wounds and scars can build up over months and years. When hope wears thin and options seem few, a three-day intensive can be a great choice. Three amazing things always happen during intensives: First, the pressures and circumstances of life are set aside to concentrate on rebuilding the marriage. Second, a commitment is made that demonstrates to your spouse that the relationship is a priority and it is worth fighting for.
And third, so much progress is made over the course of three full days of counseling that it actually feels like a new relationship has begun. Advocates are mandatory as part of this program, and we require you stay at a local hotel to focus on the marriage (see FAQ section). Other marriage retreat programs may give you the tools to “overcome” and “reconnect”, but we believe that long-term success is found in rebuilding the marriage foundation on God’s design for the two of you. The success of this program is God’s transforming grace to help put history in the past, evaluate the today’s desires of our hearts, and align our future with God’s hope and joy.
Private Marriage Counseling
Weekly 90-minute counseling sessions based in Gospel Truth, hope, and love…
If you are ready to make significant changes to your marriage, but prefer the privacy of individual appointments moving at your own speed, then our Private Counseling is your choice. But don’t think for a moment that there won’t be assignments between sessions. We know that God’s plan for you is to respond to His passionate pursuit of your heart through counseling, and that can happen just as much or more in the other six days of the week than in our 90 minutes together.
Our goal is not to counsel you until you have a great marriage, but to walk with you until you are on the trajectory to have a great marriage. We recommend (not required) that you bring advocates with you to continue to walk with and encourage you after we wrap up counseling. We average 8-10 sessions with couples to achieve results we are all pleased with. Please don’t settle for connecting emotionally, looking for stronger attachments, or avoiding four horsemen. God’s design for your marriage covenant is far more glorious and satisfying than all the methods of man combined. We’d love to show you how!
our thoughts
Brokenness Leading Brokenness
Applying the Gospel to everyday family life. This is one of those things in life that sounds easy. Even practical. Why, then, is it so [...]
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Absolutely, the problem is sin. What you choose to do with sin is the question.
How to turn the most crushing aspects of marriage into the stickiest, most permanent adhesive for the relationship. A client called me yesterday to explain [...]
our friends
“My experience of Kimball & Elizabeth’s marriage is up-front, close, and personal, and of many years duration. I have worked with them, for them, and around them, when they were fresh, and when they were tired. These are human people with human challenges. Their marriage is strong because Christ is the center of it, and missteps and wrongs are constantly redeemed–there is always forward movement, always the effort to move back to peace and connection. The longer I am around them, the more I admire and respect them. While I am not married, I have been the beneficiary of their counseling expertise over and over again.”
–Debra
“Kimball is a true entrepreneur at heart. He sees an opportunity for a need to be met, and then develops a solution to meet that need. He creatively thinks outside the box, yet uses available resources to create a realistic solution and plan. Kimball exhibits high-level discipline in meeting the goals that he sets in life, and the organizations that he participates in receive the direct benefit of his character and maturity.”
–Dave
“I have found Kimball to be highly reliable and responsible with both his personal and professional life. Despite his abilities, he is a humble leader that cares well for those working with him. He is a critical thinker who articulates his wisdom in constructive and encouraging ways.
–Tim
“Kimball is a true entrepreneur at heart. He sees an opportunity for a need to be met, and then develops a solution to meet that need. He creatively thinks outside the box, yet uses available resources to create a realistic solution and plan. Kimball exhibits high-level discipline in meeting the goals that he sets in life, and the organizations that he participates in receive the direct benefit of his character and maturity.”
–Johnny & Amanda
“Kimball has demonstrated the rare ability to take a group of strangers sitting in a room, ask a question or two, and move the group from being mere acquaintances to friends speaking the gospel into each others’ lives…he genuinely cares about the lives of those around him, and it seeps out in all his interactions.”
–Ruth
“Kimball created a smooth functioning system for Marriage Academy that made it easy to lead and very effective for its participants. Having many years of ministry experience myself, we remain very impressed by Kimball’s administrative and well thought out creative abilities and leadership skills.”
–Gene & Melissa
“Kimball has a great ability to formulate a long-term plan to achieve success, and then is diligent to carry out the steps required to achieve the goals. His life has modeled this character trait over multiple decades.”
–Bruce
“It is a well-organized and beneficial workshop/crash course.”
–Mike
“It is very helpful, and I would recommend [2remain1 Ministries] to anyone having problems in marriage – big or small.”
–Rafael
[2remain1 Ministries sessions] “provided a great foundation to understand who we are, where we are, and how God plays the biggest role in our lives and marriage.”–Shasta
“This type of workshop is not just for struggling marriages but for all marriages – the earlier the better. There is so much truth and wisdom to be gleaned. Whatever effort you put in is going to be reflected in the fruit.”
–Martha
“[2remain1 Ministries] is extremely helpful and life changing.”
–Jenny
[The best part about the experience was] “learning about myself, my spouse, God’s Word, my heart change and my spouse’s heart change.”–Laura
“If (people) truly want to have a better marriage are willing to fully commit to this process, they will see a change.”
–Kevin
“Elizabeth is so organized and inspiring: I love attending her workshops!”
–Jennifer
“I love how authentic Kimball and Elizabeth were during the lessons. It is great how they modeled dealing with conflict.”
–Brook
“The relationship between what I worship and how that plays out in my marriage and my life in general was eye-opening for me.”
–Kevin
[The impact 2remain1 Ministries had on me is that] “I now have a different perspective of God and marriage.”–Jason
“Kimball and Elizabeth were amazing – really appreciate their authenticity, their communication of gospel truth, their willingness to meet individually with couples, and their love for the Lord which filled us with so much grace.”
–Martha
[Most helpful for my marriage going forward would be] “to use the tools given to us in the workshop to overcome struggles.”–Rafael
[I liked] “seeing their love for marriage and how passionate they are within this ministry.”–Jenny
“I’m very thankful that I had the opportunity to learn from them, and can’t imagine where I would be without their coaching.”
–Jackie
our answers
Advocates are not required but HIGHLY encouraged. Advocates can provide a huge amount of encouragement between the sessions and we believe advocates can help share our struggles in a safe community which lightens the burden of those struggles. God’s design for us is to live in community, and positive change happens more efficiently when we are surrounded by those who believe Truth and will walk with us. More information about the selection of advocates and their role will be provided upon request.
Private appointments can be rescheduled up to 24 hours before the appointment. For any scheduling changes inside of 24 hours or missed appointments will be charged a $50 fee. The remaining payment can be applied to future counseling.
Yes, but it is designed to be a blessing to you and not a burden. For the Private Counseling program, we typically assign 2-4 hours of homework suited to the presenting issues that will need to be completed before the following session (usually two weeks later). We do realize that assigning more work than you can handle is not helpful. At the same time, we are firm believers that change takes place because of God’s grace and our response in faith and obedience.
We offer individual counseling for married couples. Our rate for Private Counseling is $225 per 90-minute session. In most all cases, Kimball and Elizabeth will both be co-counseling for all the sessions, and we generally spend about half of the time working together as couples, and half the time working with each spouse individually (Elizabeth with the wife and Kimball with the husband in separate rooms). We encourage these individuals and couples to dedicate 15-30 minutes every day to actively working on their marriage through the homework that we will assign.
We invite you to set up an “Introductions Over Espresso” meeting with us. You can set that up at the bottom of this page by clicking here. Our phone number and email are also listed in that section.
The 3 Day Marriage Intensive is a minimum of 20 hours of counseling over the course of three days. We require that you stay in a secluded location (think nice hotel) to focus as much as possible on the marriage. Depending on the accommodations you choose, the cost of this program is $3,000 – $4000. All meals are included, but not transportation.
A full refund is available up to two weeks before the start date of the intensive. A partial refund (all but the $500 deposit) is available up to seven days before the start date. You may also change the start date of your intensive with an advance notice of at least seven days.
We will. Know that the Phoenix area is beautiful much of the year, and one of the goals of the intensive is to sequester you away from your normal life to concentrate on your marriage. So while having us come to you may sound convenient, there may be even more benefit to having you travel to the Phoenix Valley. So, seriously consider coming to Phoenix, and then let us know if you want to explore other options.
Absolutely. Just because the marriage is headed in a healthy, new direction, doesn’t mean that everything is a cake-walk going forward. We specialize in intentional, proactive tools that help couples build healthy marriages over the course of months and years. These programs are fun (imagine looking forward to working on your marriage!), efficient (they only take a few hours a month and cost less than $10/mth), and effective (no guarantees in life, but these programs really will build a great relationship).
There are several reasons! When we share our struggles in a safe community, the burden of those struggles becomes lighter. God’s design for us is to live in community, and positive change happens more efficiently when we are surrounded by those who believe Truth and will walk with us. The advocates also become an outstanding resource as you leave the intensive and walk in this new trajectory of God’s obedience and encouragement. More information about the selection of advocates and their role will be provided at registration.
Three reasons, really. First, for couples who have really lost hope in the relationship, it is incredibly difficult to gain any positive momentum by meeting for an hour or two once a week. Over 20 hours of counseling in three days creates a new trajectory through which hope is gained. Second, there is a huge benefit in being sequestered away for a few days to focus exclusively on the marriage, away from all the distractions of life. And third, even if six to nine months of counseling could accomplish the same thing, why wait when you could have those same positive changes now?
We’re excited that you’re excited! The first step is to set up an initial meeting with us. We call these Introductions Over Espresso. If you live in the greater Phoenix area, then choose one of the coffee shops that we will be at each month, and book an appointment with us for $10. When you arrive, you’ll get a $10 gift card from the coffee shop to buy a couple drinks. If you are not in the Phoenix area, you are invited to make a conference call appointment (also found in the Introductions Over Espresso section).
Our experience is that you will take some benefit away from the program, but it will come with either confusion, frustration, or both. All of our principles within 2remain1 Ministries tie back into the truth surrounding the Gospel, so much of the structure and benefit of the programs are depleted once the Gospel aspects are removed.
If we locked you in a room for an hour to come up with a comprehensive plan to improve your marriage I’m confident you would not come up with a good plan…you would come up with a GREAT plan because the problem is not that you haven’t any idea how to improve your relationship, but simply that you haven’t made it a priority and haven’t put any structure in place to implement such a plan. The Marriage Boot Camp gives you an easy, efficient, and effective way to intentionally work on building a great marriage. So while the resources being sent to you daily through email are available to the general public, it is the hours together in a teaching and community environment that provide the rich environment for Gospel-centered change at the heart level.
In all honesty, we’re not going to tell you NOT to do those things, but no, those are not part of the program or the homework. Let’s face it…if we locked you in a room for an hour with a pen and pad of paper, you could easily come up with a fantastic plan on how to improve your marriage…not because you are some relationship genius, but because no one knows your relationship and its needs better than you, and knowledge is simply not the problem. What every marriage needs is the correct orientation so you are both enthusiastically pursuing the same goals. That new orientation, along with a few tools to help you accomplish that mission, makes all the difference in the world.
We could, but then it really wouldn’t be the 29 Day Marriage Boot Camp. The beauty and benefit of the program (and where much of the success comes) is being with others who are both struggling and striving with you in this season. With that understanding, you might consider scheduling Private Counseling with us to address some of your individual struggles as a couple with the idea that you would likely then join the 29 Day Marriage Boot Camp in the future. We can discuss these options when we meet for Introductions Over Espresso.
The 29 Day Marriage Boot Camp is designed to be the most efficient and effective program by combining great teaching that you might find in a video program with the personalized aspects of professional engagement. You certainly could spend $50 on a video program, or $1000+ on private counseling, but the 29 Day Marriage Boot Camp combines these practices into a more efficient vehicle to accomplish the goal of a great marriage.
Weekend getaways (and city-wide date nights, and church retreats, and simulcast events) are fantastic when it comes to jolting a little enthusiasm back into the relationship. We love attending those and feeling the excitement of seeing many couples there to enrich their marriages. The challenge of these type of events is to transform the immediate rush of enthusiasm into long-term positive results. The 29 Day Marriage Boot Camp is different in that not only are we walking with you for a full month, but we also set you up for success in the months and years to come.
Based on the question, let’s assume that you are both in agreement that your marriage could use a little something, but you’re not in agreement as to what that little something should be. We would recommend that you each make a list of three possible options, and then spend some intentional time talking about the pros and cons of each option. If the 29 Day Marriage Boot Camp lands as one of your top two options, then let’s meet for the “Introductions over Espresso” first meeting and we’ll be glad to provide additional input for your decision.
Although we have seen that bringing complete strangers together into this type of program will build new friendships quickly, you are welcome to form your own group of five couples to enjoy the program together. At the end of every program, we encourage everyone to form their own small group by inviting 3 or 4 other couples that will focus on building great marriages…in this sense, bringing your own small group to the 29-day Boot Camp will give you a great start toward that long-term goal.
Theoretically, the program would make an excellent couples retreat, and we’re not opposed to discussing those options. You just have to keep in mind that a good portion of the benefits are lost when the program is not scheduled out over the course of 29 days as it was designed.
While it technically would be possible to jam all 10 hours of the program into one weekend, it defeats several of the greatest assets of the program. There are a number of tools that you will use to practice the Gospel-centered principles within the program, so having the time to practice and become proficient with these tools between the scheduled sessions is a huge benefit to spreading the program across 29 days. In addition, the 29 days of resource emails that you receive throughout the program help the tools become habits rather than just knowledge.
Notification less than 48 hours before the first session does not allow us for a refund. Any notification prior to 48 hours before the event allows you to reschedule your reservation for a future 29-Day Boot Camp. If you miss a session after the program has started, we will schedule a 30-minute call to give you an overview of what you missed.
Participating in all three scheduled sessions builds the foundation for how strong your relationship will be going forward. Because it isn’t possible to “make up” the group dynamics of a session, we would encourage you to pick another start date where you can confirm all three sessions work for you as a couple.
Yes, but it is designed to be a blessing to you and not a burden. Each day during the 29 days you will receive an email with educational resources to either listen to or watch.
We do realize that assigning more work than you can handle is not helpful. At the same time, we are firm believers that change takes place because of God’s grace and our response in faith and obedience. In the 29-day Marriage Boot Camp, you can expect to spend 20 to 90 minutes on these resources each day (a short lesson, an extended lesson, or you can choose to do both).
2remain1 Ministries is a non-profit organization. All donations to the ministry are put toward helping couples with the program fees. Scholarships are need-based and will be determined from the income reported on the previous two years’ tax returns. All couples are expected to pay some portion of the fees.
I’m guessing if I forced you to go spend $500 on anything you want in the next 24 hours, Marriage Advocates may not be your first choice! On the other hand, what would it be worth to you have a new orientation to your marriage? There are certainly less expensive alternatives (read a book, go to a seminar, rent a movie, etc.) and there are more expensive options (counseling at $$$/hour times ??? weeks), but we believe that the 10 hours of actual workshop program along with daily email resources for the entire month will provide a huge value to you and your marriage for years to come.
The 29-day marriage advocates program is a minimum of 10 hours of counseling in a small group format (4 – 5 couples). We will meet for four hours the first week, then 4 hours again exactly 2 weeks later, and then 2-3 hours another 2 weeks later. Each day between our meetings you will have assignments sent to you to help reorient your understanding of God, self, and marriage. You can spend between 20 minutes and 2 hours on daily basis for 29 days depending on your level of engagement with the materials. Participation in this program is $500 per couple.
Marriage Boot Camp is different in several ways. The biggest change is that you will be in a small group of couples rather than just with your spouse in the program. This format provides a sense of relief when you realize your own problems are not abnormal or unique. It also helps us to quickly see perspectives into relationships that are sometimes difficult to find when your own relationship is the only topic of discussion. Participating with other couples who have a vested interest in helping everyone succeed also supplies an underlying sense of encouragement, motivation, and accountability to the program. Marriage Advocates is also beneficial because of the focused intention of the program, both in the extended weekend meetings, and the 30 day set schedule.
Excellent question! Our interest is not so much in where you are currently at spiritually, but what interest you have in receiving counsel from the Bible going forward. Because we are biblical counselors, we believe firmly that the answers to our marriage struggles have been given to us by God because He designed the marriage relationship. If you are open to hearing what God has to say (from the Scriptures) about how to build a great marriage, then we are excited to meet you!
No doubt, a lot of the success of getting help for your marriage comes down to you having a high level of trust in us, and then the four of us working together to develop the right program to help with your relationship. We invite you to sit down for us (over coffee!) and spend an hour getting to know us. As we hear your story and learn more about what you are looking for in working on your marriage, we will make our best recommendation for you. Usually those are one of our three face-to-face programs, but we sometimes make recommendations that don’t cost any money or will refer you to other programs outside of the 2remain1 family.
There are endless options for how to “solve” your marriage struggles and all offer hope to what seems difficult, if not impossible. Curiously, what is “new and exciting” in the world of helping relationships and marriages today is quite different than what was offered 10 years ago, and it will be different again 10 years into the future. Yet there is one Book that has been used for 2000 years and we believe is still more helpful and relevant today than any other resource. The wisdom and understanding that Scripture provides is unchanging and supremely helpful. If you think the Bible is a dusty, old book of lost platitudes, we have a long list of client testimonies that will be glad to change your mind.
Beautiful? Yes. Easy? No. When we slow things down and take a look at how marriage is designed, we begin to realize that our expectations before we walked down the aisle were, well, shall we say different than what reality provided. This begs the question “should we abandon our expectations, or change something about the marriage itself?”. At 2remain1, we not only believe there is a reason the two of you are together, we are confident that there is a much larger purpose for your marriage even in the middle of life’s struggles…