It's a picture-perfect Sunday morning.
The white steeple of Clarkston United Methodist Church pierces a clear, blue sky. Inside the sanctuary, the blue walls echo nature's serenity and cocoon 140 or so churchgoers.
Summer casual substitutes for Sunday best, and even the ministers shed their robes in the summertime heat.
The Rev. Amy Mayo-Moyle, the church's associate pastor, reads the Lord's Prayer and makes announcements, highlighting the congregation's upcoming "Fun Car" event. She draws chuckles from the congregation when she shares that her daughter wanted to know if there would be clown cars, too. Allison Mayo-Moyle, 8, sitting in a nearby pew, covers her face, chagrined.
It's a moment -- parent embarrassing offspring -- often shared with family and friends. But Mayo-Moyle's husband, the father of their two children, isn't in the pews, or anywhere near. That's because the Rev. Michael Mayo-Moyle is presiding over his own service at First United Methodist Church of Byron, about 45 minutes away.
The only time these two married ministers are at the same service is during their cherished summer trip to a Methodist clergy family camp, held in August in northern Michigan.
"That's the one time we sit together as family," says Amy Mayo-Moyle, 36. "And we're just parents dealing with squirrely kids." Clergy camp, she says, fosters a "feeling like we're going to be OK. Our marriage is going be OK. Our kids are gong to be OK. Our congregations are going to be OK."
As more women enter the ministry, the phenomenon of the clergy couple grows.
In some mainline denominations that ordain women -- United Methodist, Evangelical Lutheran, Presbyterian Church USA and Episcopalian -- the number of clergy couples swelled about 15 years ago, said Scott Thumma of the Hartford Seminary, Hartford Institute for Religious Research in Connecticut.
But in some evangelical, African-American and nondenominational churches, clergy couples are more common and the number is growing, said Thumma.
The Salvation Army has long placed husband-wife couples in ministry together. In July, two husband-wife teams were named to top positions for the Salvation Army's Eastern Michigan Division.
In the Presbyterian Church USA, an estimated 16% to 22% of married ministers are married to another minister, according to Deborah Bruce, a church researcher. About 35% of 13,264 ministers are women.
Margaret Harms, an executive assistant for the Southeast Michigan Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, identified seven clergy couples working locally.
One husband-wife team is at St. John Evangelical Lutheran in Farmington Hills: The Revs. William and Lauren Kirsh-Carr are co-pastors over a vibrant congregation. They don't announce ahead of time who is preaching at which service -- to discourage parishioners from favoring one over the other -- and pick dates out of a hat for the preaching schedule.
Congregants say the clergy couple and their three kids have contributed to a more visible family dynamic.
At House of Prayer and Praise in northwest Detroit, the co-pastors' names are visible on the front of the building. The Revs. Steven and Valorie Bennett married 34 years ago and became Pentecostal ministers later, building a family and a congregation along the way.
To glean from others how to grow a healthy family in the fishbowl of church life, Amy Mayo-Moyle helped start a clergy family camp.
As associate pastor of the Clarkston church, she and her family live in a nearby church-owned home. Her husband's pastorship comes with a residence, but the church is renting it out.
When their two children, Allison, 8, and Ben, 4, were younger, the couple hired a baby-sitter to accompany the kids to church, switching weekends between each parents' church. Now that the kids are older, they often go to the same Sunday school service twice on Sundays while Mom ministers in the sanctuary -- "the lesson is really reinforced."
Amy Mayo-Moyle strives to make sure her kids "aren't an accessory to my career."
Michael Mayo-Moyle, 37, who was a hard-rock DJ before entering the seminary, says clergy couples have to make sure there are boundaries.
"You've got to make time for each other, so it's not just about church," he says.
She can quickly identify their different styles: "I'm a big extrovert. He's a big introvert. I'm more of the administrator. He's more the teacher and the scholar," she says.
They don't practice their sermons in front of each other, but they'll sometimes borrow themes, openings or closings from each other, especially in a pinch. She remembers hearing her husband preach recently and being thrilled by how good he was, and wishing she could hear him more often.
Together, they've officiated at the wedding of three brothers, buried two grandmothers and a grandfather.
While the Mayo-Moyles juggle the challenges of serving distinct and distant congregations, another clergy couple is navigating a 24/7 routine of coleading one church.
Lauren Kirsh-Carr, 40, and William Kirsh-Carr, 45, have been co-pastors of St. John Lutheran for two years.
In their matching pink T-shirts in front of a tropical cardboard hut erected in the sanctuary for Vacation Bible School last week, they look like camp counselors. They've been ordained Lutheran ministers for most of their marriage. They met at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, where he was a teaching assistant in her medieval church history class.
"It's a good ministry. A good congregation and a good fit for us as a family," says William Kirsh-Carr.
She is known for being more animated and less traditional. She really rocks a version of "Pharaah, Pharaoh," sung to the tune of the Kingsmen's "Louie, Louie," on her guitar.
Parishioners say the couple has fostered a very family-friendly atmosphere.
"If you need to talk to somebody, as a woman, I thought it was easier to talk to Pastor Lauren," says parishioner Dawn Christina of Farmington, the mother of a 4-year-old Vacation Bible-schooler. "It's a nice combo."
Says Debbie Stanek, 41, of Farmington, "You feel more comfortable when your kids are not sitting still. You know they understand that. It makes coming to church more comfortable. When you go to functions, they're watching their kids, too. They're not just supervising us. They're one of us."
Still, they ask their congregants and each other to refer to them by their proper titles. And they try to refer to each other as "Pastor Bill" and "Pastor Lauren."
In the early years of their ministries, they vowed they'd never work together because of their very different styles. But by the time they had a third child -- their kids are Dylan, 9, Caroline, 6, and Nicholas, 3 -- they figured the best way to balance it all was by working together.
"We truly feel this is a movement of God in our lives," he says. "Our hunch has been confirmed -- that we're compatible."
Bishop Steven Bennett Sr., 55, and the Rev. Valorie Bennett, 53, of the House of Prayer and Praise, met while working as store clerks. They have been married nearly 34 years and have been ministers for more than two decades. They organized the House of Prayer and Praise 22 years ago.
When her children were younger, Valorie Bennett says that taking care of the family consumed much of her time. She helped out on Sundays with schooling and the nursery.
"I didn't minister a lot until recently, as they've grown up," she says.
Now, she's the administrative pastor, taking care of behind-the-scenes work involving church finances, teen programs and other operations.
At Sunday services, they're both in front of the congregation, sitting next to each other. He handles most of the Sunday preaching duties, but she finds herself as an in-demand speaker outside the congregation at Pentecostal events.
"It's a big difference between being a pastor's wife and an ordained minister," she says. "Part of ministering is taking engagements and preparing to speak out. As a minister's wife, many of the ladies might just attend and support their husbands."
Her husband says their relationship and their church is better because she's a minister.
"It gave balance because she became that leading lady and the mother to the congregation," says Steven Bennett. "She's everything I'm not. She's more of the analytical. I'm like an otter. I like to have fun."
The glue that holds it together, the Bennetts say, is love of each other and their work.
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As published in the Detroit Free Press on Aug. 6, 2011
