Kerri and I have been a “clergy couple” since 1993 when we were ordained.  Prior to seminary we were both church professions in youth ministry and continued that through seminary.  We even met professionally.  We had a few friends and colleagues who were clergy couples at the time, but we are aware of so many more couples engaged in ministry today.

Yet I think we all mostly remain disconnected as a “network” of clergy couples.  We get lots of phone calls about how to “do” this co-pastor thing (Kerri and I are full-time co-pastors of a Presbyterian church in NE Ohio).  We have some experience to share (how to search as a couple, how to negotiate a call, how to move from 3/4-time to full-time, how to work with the board of pensions, etc.), but we are certainly not alone.  Many other couples have valuable experiences to share as well.

I am hoping that as we continue our conversations here we will begin to find new ways to connect with one another.  One poster here alerted me to a conference for clergy couples happening this October at Mo Ranch in Texas.  I wasn’t aware of the conference previously, but you can read about it here:

Mo-Ranch Couples in Ministry Conference

I invite you to continue introducing yourselves to each other, to share resources, and to make connections with each other.  I certainly value connecting with and learning from your experiences, and find comfort knowing that there are others engaging in this unique way of being in ministry!

Kerri and I are interested in expanding the list we have of clergy couples serving in the PC(USA).  We’re interested to know who else is involved in this adventure of ministry as a couple.  We’d like to know of folks who are serving together and those who are serving separately.  There are so many configurations of clergy couples in ministry.  If you are part of a clergy couple we’d love to know who you are and how you are each serving in ministry (or not).  It is not uncommon for PNCs or clergy couples to contact us to find out how this clergy couple thing works.  We’d love to be able to have an even broader network of couples to connect with, learn from, and share with.

The form below will give us your basic contact info — give us your name and email address, and in the comment box feel free to tell us more about yourselves, where you serve, etc.  We’ll contact you to fill in more details.  Of course this information will be treated carefully and used only for connecting related to clergy couples.  Who would we sell this information to anyway?  <grin>  Truly, what we’re interested in is building connections between clergy couples in the PC(USA).  Others are welcome, too!

The Co-Pastors are having that conversation again — what days off should we take?  It should be said that we are each working 3/4-time each.  Well, we’re getting paid for 3/4-time!  What that means pragmatically is that we get an extra day off during the week.  The system we’ve had until next week (when we return to work from our vacation week at home) is that we both take Fridays off together — that way we have a day with each other.  The “other day off” has been more fluid — one of us takes either Tuesday or Wednesday, the other takes the alternate day.  Whoever is preaching (if we’re not preaching together) gets to decide which day they want off.

It looks like the pattern is changing, though.  The introverted pastor is simply whooped on Monday.  Peopled-out.  So she is going to start taking Mondays as her “recovery day.”  That leaves Tue-Wed-Thu for me to decide, and it will mostly have to do with the week’s schedule, parenting needs, etc.  Typically I will be off Tuesday, I think.

So here is a difference in our personalities, our styles, our Myers-Briggs types…  I’d rather not be “off” on a “recovery day.”  Monday is a good day for me to do staff conversations, catch up on email and phone calls, etc.  It’s more administrative than programmatic, to be sure.  But I’d rather recover doing those less people-intensive things.  Not Kerri — she simply needs space for her “I-time” (Introvert time).

Of course my struggle here in the first year of this call is to be able to take even one day fully off each week.  I know, I know… and I am working on setting good patterns now.  But it’s difficult.  There are so many things that I want to get done…

So I’m interested how others configure their sabbath time, managing church obligations, marriage, family, etc.  How are people getting time together?  Time apart?

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Our first three years in Atlanta were spent at Columbia Theological Seminary where we both graduated with our MDiv.  We served at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Atlanta both during and after seminary, both being called as Associate Pastors.

After leaving Trinity, Jeff served for six years as the Executive Director of the Atlanta Interfaith AIDS Network.  During that time Kerri was youth ministry consultant for the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta, and then joined the staff of Pleasant Hill Presbyterian Church in Duluth, Georgia.  When Jeff left AIAN, he also joined the staff of Pleasant Hill as an Associate Pastor.  Yes, we were working together again!

At the end of 2006 we were called to be Co-Pastors of Pioneer Church in Solon.  So far it has been a fantastic call — we couldn’t ask for a more open congregation to having Co-Pastors.  Of course they weren’t looking for Co-Pastors, but somehow in the providence of God we each found each other and are embarking on this exciting journey together…

 More later…

“If you want to stay married, you’d better not even think about working together.”

These and other sinister warnings have been given to me and my spouse for years. As of this writing we’ve been married 18 years — including 3 years of seminary and 14 years of ordained ministry in the Presbyterian Church (USA). We have had shared ministry for most of this time, and have yet to end up on the steps of the divorce courts.

It’s our hope that this blog will be a forum for reflection and musings on the practice of ministry in partnership.

By “Clergy Couple” we mean spouses/partners who are both engaged in professional ministry as clergy. There is a growing number of clergy couples, and the institutions of our churches are ill-equiped to deal with this reality and to embrace new models of leadership that embody partnership, mutuality, and relatedness.

So let the conversation begin!