On behalf of your board of trustees, I’m writing to encourage your participation in the formal celebration at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 3, 2022, of the covenantal relationship between our new senior minister, Reverend Nathan Ryan and the Unitarian Church of Baton Rouge, which has called him.

According to the UUA ORDINATION and INSTALLATION HANDBOOK, (updated in 2020 by Rev. Erica Hewitt), the installation service generally occurs within the first year of a settlement between a minister and the congregation to which they are called. The service will mark our successful completion of the ministerial search process—the weeks and months of self-examination and self-promotion as we searched for someone qualified to be, and desirous of being, our new senior minister. The November, 2020 congregational vote to call Rev. Ryan, who previously served as our hired assistant minister and associate minister, was the act that leads us to this installation. We will be celebrating the joy felt by the members of the congregation and by Rev. Ryan for our having chosen one another, and our agreement to enter into a covenant of shared ministry.

The installation is not something UCBR does for our new senior minister; rather, it honors and celebrates the promises we are making to one another as we bind ourselves into shared ministry. As a result, the Service of Installation is centered around a spoken ritual that lifts up our covenant of shared ministry. It is a worship service that offers an invitation to individual and communal transformation, as well as an opportunity to live our faith in the world.

Please join us as we conduct this installation — only the fifth one in the history of UCBR, and our first in twenty-five years — and as we bond with our new senior minister, Rev. Nathan Ryan. The service will be followed by a reception planned by the Congregational Care Team.  We look forward to seeing you there!

With love in our bond,

Donna V. Yelverton