At a brief congregational meeting on Zoom after the June 13 service, UUSS members will vote on ordaining Sangye Hawke to the ministry. The upcoming Weekly Message email from UUSS will have more information about Sangye and a few answers to questions about the meaning of ordination, but here is what I posted in the Weekly Message on Friday, June 4.

To ordain a person is an honor for us but also a responsibility. Ordination is a lifelong designation. We will be affirming our confidence in Sangye’s gifts, commitment, and reliability as a minister—as well as our enthusiasm for her path forward. Sometimes a minister asks their internship congregation to ordain them, and Sangye has asked the UU Fellowship of Santa Cruz County to co-ordain her with us. Often a person asks their “home church” to ordain them, and Sangye has said UUSS has come to feel like home since she began attending here and then serving as a student minister at UUSS. Often a minister asks the congregation that is calling or hiring them to do the ordination after they arrive. At present, Sangye has no plans to leave the Sacramento area. Rev. Lucy and I are grateful for Sangye’s collegiality and ministerial presence, glad she’s a part of UUSS, and excited about this possibility.

But before we have the ceremony of ordination, we need an affirmative majority vote of our members to authorize this ordination. As our UUA denomination’s website says, “Ordination is the congregational act of bestowing formal recognition of a minister’s authority.” In some traditions it is denominations or bishops who ordain. In our congregational tradition, however, only a local congregation has the authority to ordain a person to the UU ministry, making them “Rev. Sangye,” for example. Related but not the same thing is that the UUA credentials a clergyperson as having denominational standing by granting ministerial fellowship through a long and involved process. Sangye recently received the highest ranking of preliminary fellowship from the UUA. She also has earned a Master of Divinity from Starr King School for the Ministry.

UUSS members have not ordained a new minister for nearly two decades, though the UU Community Church held a beautiful ceremony at UUSS in 2013 to ordain Rev. Lucy. The ceremonies are sources of inspiration and commitment for all who are present. Lucy and I have participated in online ceremonies and found them also to be powerful experiences, so we look forward to co-hosting this one (in a hybrid format with some participants in person and most folks on Zoom) in the coming months. If you have any questions about the meaning of ordination, contact Rev. Lucy or me. If you want to get to know Sangye better, feel free to reach out to her. See you June 13!

–Rev. Dr. Roger Jones