Our History

The Church Intensive began January 2017. For the first several years of Church Intensive’s existence, the primary focus was on walking with pastors and leaders through a process of “rethinking the church” in San Francisco for 4 days.

Eventually, as we saw so many churches started all over the world, we saw the deeper need for ongoing relationship, support, networking, etc. Many leaders were going out to start small, simple, reproducible churches with great zeal and conviction, only to encounter unforeseen challenges and discouragement in this difficult work of church planting and relational discipleship. The need to give our time more to relational networking was becoming clear.

We still offer and love our Church Intensive training online. At the same time, our primary focus has become supporting and equipping leaders after they have already gone through the CI training and are pursuing the vision in their local context. Much of this effort happens within the Church Intensive Fellowship, which has a lot of resources, training, coaching, connections, and various other things that we hope are helpful for people as they live out these Biblical convictions wherever they are.

Our Team

  • Rob Zabala

    Rob and his wife Sarah have five kids and live in California. He has been a Co-Director of the Church Intensive with Crazy Love Ministries and an elder in We Are Church for six years.

  • Sean Brakey

    Sean and his wife Vanessa have six kids and live in San Francisco, CA. Sean has been serving in church leadership for 16 years in various roles. He has been Co-Director of the Church Intensive with Crazy Love Ministries since January 2017 and has been an elder with We Are Church since 2018.

  • Melissa Vance

    Melissa lives in East Palo Alto, CA. She has been a part of Crazy Love Ministries since 2020 serving in various roles and has been on the Church Intensive team since 2022. She is also a part of women’s leadership within We Are Church.

  • Ryan Mullins

    Ryan and his wife Anne have three kids and reside in Memphis, TN. He has been in ministry since a young age and has been leading a house church in the Memphis area since 2018. He has been on the Church Intensive team since February 2023.

  • Tim Hsu

    Tim Hsu spent 3 years serving with We Are Church and Crazy Love Ministries in San Francisco. He now lives in the Washington DC area, where he serves remotely with the Church Intensive team.

  • Tim Mezera

    Tim and his wife Ashley have five kids and live in St. Clair Shores, just outside of Detroit, MI. He has been serving in church leadership for over a decade and has been leading a group of house churches since 2020. Tim has been on the Church Intensive team since December 2023.