Michael W. Saunders was born in Michigan in 1958. His church life didn't begin until they moved down the street from a Free Methodist Church. It was a smaller church with about 200 people showing up each week for worship services. This church had an outreach program for their Sunday school service, using a bus pickup program to gather up children for their classes. His parents started putting him and his three siblings on the bus, and they went to the classes there. He now lives with his wife of twentynine years in Brighton, Michigan. They have raised two sons and a daughter.