Recalling the first time she noticed Vincent Samuel Brown, the Rev. Lisa Danielle Jenkins said, “it’s hard to miss him.” Mr. Brown stands at 6 foot 4. Plus, “he was very confident,” she added.

The year was 1993 and the two were at choir rehearsals at Grace Baptist Church in Mount Vernon, N.Y., ahead of a performance at the annual session of the National Baptist Convention in Manhattan.

Mr. Brown said Ms. Jenkins, who had done some modeling work, caught his eye, too: She had an “ethereal grace” that he found very attractive.

After the performance a few days later, the two exchanged phone numbers, and about a week later, Mr. Brown invited Ms. Jenkins out for dinner at Fratelli Italian Restaurant in the Bronx. Other meals followed. And they often got so lost in laughter and conversation that servers would interrupt to tell them the restaurant was shutting down. After about a month, the couple’s relationship became exclusive.

They connected spiritually as Christians, said Mr. Brown, an independent substance abuse and recovery counselor and life coach in Yonkers, N.Y., and over their mutual love of books like Malcolm X’s autobiography and “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” by Zora Neale Hurston.

Ms. Jenkins, who is now the senior pastor of St. Matthews Baptist Church of Harlem, as well an adjunct assistant professor in cultural diversity at York College of the City University of New York, added that they also had compatible political beliefs.

“I don’t mean Republican versus Democrat,” she said. “I mean making sure that communities that need help can get help. We were passionate, and are still passionate, about changing our world for the better.”

Over time, however, fissures developed in their relationship. Ms. Jenkins was moving toward the ministry; Mr. Brown had become a site coordinator for N.Y.U.’s Metropolitan Center for Urban Education (now called Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools). Both were engrossed in their careers, and the emotional distance between them grew from a crack into a chasm.

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They broke up in 2002 and moved on with their lives. Both became involved in other relationships and neither looked back, they said.

But in July 2020, Ms. Jenkins needed advice on how to counsel someone dealing with mental health issues. One day, while on Facebook, she noticed that Mr. Brown was a supervisor for a mental health company in Summerville, S.C. Despite her reluctance to contact him, she thought he would be able to offer her expert advice, she said.

Their talk turned out to be pleasant, and it went on for hours, during which both revealed that they had recently ended long-term relationships.

As the conversation continued, they were enveloped by a serene familiarity, Mr. Brown said. In October, after a steady series of reciprocal phone calls, she visited Mr. Brown in Walterboro, S.C., where he lived. She stayed at a Hampton Inn and a Home2 Suites as they spent time together and sorted through their feelings. Their friendship was renewed, and eventually their romance regained its spark.

“We’re both more mature. Lisa was in her late 20s and I was in my early 30s,” Mr. Brown, now 59, said. Ms. Jenkins is 57. “When you have fewer years in front of you than behind you, you’ve had time for introspection and time for clarity about what matters.”

On Sept. 10, the Rev. Victor T. Hall, a Baptist minister who ordained Ms. Jenkins in 2003, officiated the couple’s marriage. They were surrounded by 90 friends and relatives at the Penn Center on St. Helena Island, S.C., where one of the first schools for emancipated African Americans was founded. Both now reside in Yonkers.

“We knew in the 1990s and early 2000s that we wanted to marry each other — it was just that we each had the notion at different times,” Ms. Jenkins said. “But once we reconnected, we knew we were supposed to be together. We were in sync.”