Episode 37: Young, Married, and Clergy: The Revs. Carrie and Nik Combs

Our guests today are the Reverends Carrie and Nik Combs. Carrie is the full-time curate at Trinity in Newtown. Nik, who's originally from Idaho, is a part-time priest-in-charge at Trinity in Torrington and works part-time  at Class Cycles in Southbury. Carrie, who grew up in Cheshire, was ordained a priest in 2018 and Nik was ordained a priest in 2017. Carrie and Nik, who are married, met pursuing their Masters in Divinity at School of Theology at Sewanee. Carrie and Nik were married in 2016 at St. Peter’s in Cheshire, Carrie's home church. Carrie is 29 and Nik is 32, which matters as we are going to talk about what it is like for them as a young married clergy couple. 
 
We start our conversation talking about their time at Sewanee as a young engaged couple, and how they came to Connecticut. They moved to Connecticut without any jobs, they decided together to have Carrie find a full-time position in an established parish in a more traditional curate role. Carrie and Nik, although they work in two separate parishes, they have discussed the possibility of collaboration (something they have done for Christmas services) and what that would look like serving together in one parish, something other clergy couples have done. 

Karin asks how ministering to folks of various ages is for Nik and Carrie being young adults. Nik jumps right in stating that it is something he has thought about a lot, and that it isn’t so much ministering to different generations but rather ministering to people in different places of their life. Nik states that the pressure he has felt is that there is a stereotype that the voices of Millennials (he identifies as one), especially Millennials in leadership, are not heard. He also says that there is a major complication of disseminating communication across generations. 
 
Nik discusses how he tackles that challenge through a communications portal. Carrie talks about her experience as a curate and the difference between that and a priest-in-charge position. 

 Alli asks what it is like to manage this full-time curate position and a part-time priest-in-charge one, which is almost like a reversal of traditional church and gendered roles. Both Nik and Carrie said they are still drawing what a diagram of managing this lifestyle is like. Nik states that it is like looking into another world of other priest roles. 
 
Carrie and Nik talk about what their prayer life is like in their relationship, including sometimes reciting morning prayer together and singing together in their cupola. Collaboration is very much a part of their marriage and positions as priests in Connecticut. 

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In Christ and Coffee,
Karin & Alli