At first glance, Lauren Lyon’s double career sounds strange: product manager and priest. Lyon concedes there might be a disconnect “if the product were widgets.” Instead, her secular full-time job is with the American Business Women’s Association where her “product” is professional training and networking opportunities. Lyon calls her bread-and-butter work “oriented toward supporting women’s relationships”—much as her priestly duties at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Kansas City, Mo., help support a congregation.

Lyon knows the value of career encouragement for women. She had wanted to become a priest as early as age 8 or 9, she says, but there was precious little backing for the idea in San Diego after graduation. And without diocesan support, there would be no ordination. In terms of red tape, says Lyon, “The Episcopal Church is probably as convoluted as any I know.”

So for five years she put her psychology degree to use at UCSD and clinics in the area doing lab work and administering psychological tests. Eventually, she found a sympathetic priest in her native Kansas City who was willing to sponsor her. She received her M.Div. from Yale Divinity School in 1994 and worked in a handful of other parishes in the Diocese of West Missouri before joining St. Matthew’s as priest associate.

Lyon specializes in teaching young children. She says her most rewarding experience was the summer she spent as spiritual director of a diocesan camp for children. Adults can be more difficult, Lyon observes. Too many people today are not active enough creators of their own spiritual lives but rather delegate that responsibility to their priest as “a manager.”

Lyon says the difficulty of explaining to people why they should take that responsibility motivated her to stop earning her salary from the church.

“ Lauren does not fear to speak when she is on solid ground nor does she hesitate to proclaim truth when others might not agree,” says the Rev. Robert M. Hutcherson, St. Matthew’s rector. “She is a person of dedication and courage.”

And persuasive powers, it seems. “It has been a real joy for me to work with a feminist, too,” admits Hutcherson, “not something I anticipated in the years I opposed the ordination of women in the Episcopal Church.”

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