On that afternoon five years ago, Randy and Jill Keel arranged to meet on familiar and neutral ground. The setting was the coffee bar in a cavernous bookstore here, a place they had used other times in the two years since they had separated. Oddly anonymous in such a public place, they could speak bluntly, and angrily if necessary, outside the earshot of their four children.

“I’m gay,” he told his wife. Ms. Keel, for her part, felt less shock than relief, for something inexplicable about their breakup had just been explained.

After the tears and the hugs came the task of informing their children, who ranged in age from 9 to 16. And beyond that difficult disclosure, another question loomed: what about church?

While raising their children, they had helped found a congregation in a Raleigh suburb. Mr. Keel taught Sunday school and served as a deacon, and with Ms. Keel took adult Bible-study classes.

They had felt a chill from their pastor and congregation just for being separated