Please join us as we formally install Rev. Rachael Hayes as the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst! The preacher at this service of installation will be the Rev. Kimberly Quinn Johnson. Special music will be provided by the UUSA Choir and Rebecca Stevens-Walter! The link will be the same as for that Sunday’s service: Join us a little before 4 p.m. by clicking on http://bit.ly/3h6Z6ij Meeting ID: 983 6372 0286 Passcode: 134608 or call in at +1 646 876 9923 and enter the Meeting ID: 983 6372 0286 when prompted.

An installation service formally celebrates the covenantal relationship between a minister and the congregation that has called the minister. Often, though not always, an Installation service occurs within the first year of a settlement between a minister and a congregation to which they are called. (The pandemic threw a wrench into that plan, so here we are now!)

It marks the congregation’s successful completion of the ministerial search process—the weeks and months of self-examination and self-promotion as they hope to attract someone who is qualified to be, and who wants to be, their new minister. The congregational vote to call the minister—often held months earlier, during the minister’s candidating week—is the act that leads to the installation, which is a celebration of the joy both parties feel for having found one another, and their agreement to enter into a covenant of shared ministry.

The Installation isn’t something the congregation does for the minister; rather, it honors and celebrates the promises you are making to one another as you knit yourselves into shared ministry. As a result, the Service of Installation is centered around a spoken ritual that lifts up your covenant of shared ministry. It’s a worship service that offers an invitation to individual and communal transformation as well as an opportunity to live our faith in the world. We hope you can come!