Intentional Family Ministries
Our Story.
Why we exist and
who we are.
Three decades of marriage. Two very different backgrounds. One conviction: that an intentional marriage doesn't happen by accident, it happens by decision. We built Intentional Family Ministries out of what we've lived, what we've learned, and what we believe God is still building; in our home, and in yours.
Why We Exist
Strong Marriages & Families Don't Happen by Accident. They Are Built Intentionally.
Nobody stands at the altar hoping for an average marriage. Nobody holds their newborn thinking, "I hope this child grows up and just lives an ordinary life."
Almost every couple wants the same thing: a marriage that lasts, a home full of faith, and children who carry their values into the next generation. The desire is nearly universal. The path to get there is where most people get lost.
Most couples are building without one. They're working with what they were handed, reacting to whatever the week demands, and quietly hoping that good intentions add up to something that lasts. They usually don't. Not without a plan.
That's where Intentional Family Ministries comes in.
We exist for the couple who wants more than a good-enough marriage. For the parent who senses that raising children and discipling children are not the same thing.
For the family that wants to leave something behind, not just a name, but a faith. Not just a bunch of memories, but a legacy. That's who we built this for, and that is why we do what we do.
Marriage was never meant to be just a legal arrangement. Family was never meant to be just a household. God designed both for something bigger, and we exist to help you build toward that. On purpose. On biblical grounds. With the kind of intentionality that goes far beyond you.
Most couples are building without a blueprint — doing their best with what they were handed, hoping the good intentions somehow add up to the legacy they're picturing.
Darin & Duana Sargent
Are you DRIFTING?
You love your spouse but can't remember the last time you felt like you were actually growing together.
You're doing everything for your kids, and still sensing you're missing something that matters more.
You want to leave a legacy, but most days you're just trying to survive the week.
What We Believe
Your ceiling becomes their floor.
The marriage you build becomes the picture of God your children carry for the rest of their lives.
We've sat with couples who didn't have a crisis, they had something harder. A slow drift. Two people still under the same roof, still sharing a last name, but somewhere along the way they stopped reaching for each other. Until the distance felt normal.
And we've watched what happens when they stop drifting and start deciding. It doesn't happen all at once. It happens in moments: a conversation, a declaration, a decision to choose each other again. And then the quiet faithfulness of making the same decision tomorrow and the day after that!
We Help Couples & Families Build Three Things
Every resource, every workshop, every conversation comes back to these.
A Marriage Worth Modeling
We believe the most powerful thing you can give your children is a marriage worth watching. Not a perfect one, but an intentional one. Grounded in covenant. Built on purpose. Worth replicating.
A Home That Disciples
Raising children and discipling them are not the same thing. The greatest threat to the next generation isn't the culture around your children — it's the forgetfulness inside your home. We help families close the gap between the home they have and the home they're called to build — until discipleship feels less like a program and more like a life.
A Legacy Worth Inheriting
Legacy isn't something you leave when you die. It's something you build, or neglect, while you live. We help you close the gap between the legacy you desire and the one you're actually building right now.
About
Darin &
Duana
Sargent
Speakers & Ministry Leaders
Founders, Intentional Family Ministries
Married 30+ Years
Parents of Carson, Ashton & Averie
Grandparents of Westley
Their Story
Darin and Duana Sargent have been doing life together for over three decades — and they'll be the first to tell you it hasn't always been easy. That honesty is exactly what makes them worth listening to.
They came from completely different worlds. Darin grew up in a strong home where faith was lived out loud and marriage was modeled well. Duana grew up in dysfunction — a home marked by alcoholism, infidelity, and the kind of pain that leaves a mark on a child's understanding of what love is supposed to look like. When they married, they didn't just bring two people together. They brought two entirely different sets of expectations, wounds, and hopes into the same house — and had to figure out what to build from there.
What they built is the foundation of everything they now teach.
"We didn't show up to teach you something we figured out. We showed up to share what we're still living — and to believe with you that God is building something in your marriage worth protecting."
Together, Darin and Duana have spent years speaking to couples and families across the nation — in churches, conferences, marriage events, and ministry weekends — helping people name what they brought into their relationships and discover what God designed those relationships to become. Their message is warm without being soft, biblical without being preachy, and honest in a way that makes couples feel seen rather than lectured.
Darin was born with one hand. It is not the most important thing about him — but it is part of his story. He has spent a lifetime refusing to let what he was given define what he could do. That perspective runs through everything he and Duana teach: that God doesn't wait for ideal circumstances before He begins building something extraordinary. He starts with what you have.
Their family is not a marketing tool. It is the living proof of what they believe — that a marriage built on covenant, and a home built on intention, produces something that outlasts the people who built it.
Meet Them Individually
Darin Sargent
Author · Speaker · Ministry Leader
Darin Sargent has spent decades helping people discover that what they've been given is exactly enough to build something extraordinary.
Born with one hand, Darin knows firsthand what it means to live with limitation — and to refuse to let it write the final word. That refusal isn't just his personal story. It is the lens through which he sees every couple, every family, and every person who shows up to one of his events carrying something they've decided might disqualify them.
As an author, speaker, and ministry leader, Darin brings a rare combination of honesty, humor, and biblical depth to every room he enters. He leads Ministry Central at the UPCI and co-leads Intentional Family Ministries alongside his wife Duana. His message has remained consistent: God builds legacies out of ordinary people who make intentional decisions.
Darin is the author of Parenting with Purpose: Five Foundations for Shaping the Next Generation (Word Aflame Press). He doesn't speak from a distance. He speaks from a life that has been tested, stretched, and — by the grace of God — held together.
"God doesn't wait for ideal circumstances before He begins building something extraordinary. He starts with what you have."
Duana Sargent
Speaker · Ministry Leader · Co-Founder, IFM
Duana Sargent did not grow up with a picture of what a healthy marriage looked like. What she had instead was a front-row seat to what happens when a home is held together by obligation instead of love — and a quiet, determined belief that her story did not have to end where it began.
That belief has become her message.
For over three decades, Duana has built a marriage and a family that look nothing like what she inherited. She brings to her work something no curriculum can replicate: the authority of someone who has actually done the hard thing. She has chosen covenant on days when it cost her something. She has led her home with intention when it would have been easier to drift. And she has watched that faithfulness compound into a family she is genuinely proud of.
Duana is a communicator who connects quickly and goes deep without warning. She is warm, disarmingly honest, and has a gift for saying the thing that women in the room have been thinking but didn't know how to put into words.
"No woman has to repeat the home she came from. And it is never too late to build something different."
Bring Them to Your Church
Ready to bring Darin & Duana
to your congregation?
Let's talk.
Darin and Duana are available for marriage weekends, family conferences, leadership events, and church engagements. If you're a pastor or event coordinator, reach out and let's build something together — the families in your church are worth it.
What We Believe
God starts building
with what you have.
Darin and Duana didn't start with a picture-perfect story. They came from two completely different backgrounds — one shaped by a strong home, the other by uncertainties and challenges. What they have built over thirty-plus years has become the foundation of everything they now teach. They didn't accidentally figure this out. They built it on purpose — and that's what makes them worth listening to.
God doesn't wait for ideal circumstances.
He has never once needed ideal circumstances before He began building something extraordinary. He starts with what you have, and He always has.
Most couples aren't failing — they're building without a plan.
What isn't built on purpose rarely grows stronger on its own. Strong marriages take a decision, a framework, and someone willing to walk alongside you long enough to help you build something real.
Children don't need perfect parents.
They need present ones — parents who are honest about where they've been, intentional about where they're going, and courageous enough to lead their home toward something bigger than just surviving the week.
The home and the church must work together.
The church and the home were never meant to function separately. God designed them to work together — the church equipping believers, and the home building the next generation of disciples.