The congregation and the community celebrated the ordination of Jan Hutslar on Saturday, May 5.
Here are just a few images of the wonderful day, captured by our friend and photographer Tara Freeman.
A long-time member of our congregation and beloved former DRE, Jan completed seminary in California last spring and passed the Ministerial Fellowship Committee with flying colors in December. It is her wish that the UU Church of Canton ordain her.
As our minister, the Reverend James Galasinski explains, “Only a local congregation can officially set someone apart as a minister. The UUA provides a rigorous formation process for a candidate but they cannot do this. In Unitarian Universalist ministry we call one of us, one of our own to rise up, to lead. We should be proud; we raised up a minister! I have no doubt Jan will go on to serve a congregation and our movement with wisdom and love. The ordination ceremony will be a grand celebration – for our congregation, for our community, and for our movement.”
Jan shares these thoughts about her journey:
I first came to the UU Church of Canton in 1998 when I moved to the area. That first week I immediately felt at home and welcome.
In 2002, when I took the job as Director of Religious Education here, I did not know how much it would change my life. In my years here, I fell in love with Unitarian Universalism and the power, strength, and quiet resilience of congregational life. Our ministers and the congregation encouraged my leadership and taught me how to be a minister.
Our church community sent Jan off to seminary in style!
For many years, I had felt a yearning, a whisper from within me for something I could not name. It had to do with the work of my deepest soul and it took time, life experiences, and the movement of spirit for me to understand it as a call to ministry. It unfolded slowly, revealing itself in small glimpses, as a singing heart; as a deepest knowing; as call.
I resisted.
I did not want to leave my life here. I was home here. And the call was leading me somewhere else. I resisted for several years, trying to ignore it, until somehow, I came to realize that it wasn’t going to go away and that it was stronger and bigger than my love for this home, this place, this congregation and this community. With the love and support of the people here, I followed my call to seminary at Starr King School for the Ministry.
I graduated in May, was granted fellowship as a UU minister in December, and am now in search for a church. Unitarian Universalist ministers are ordained not by the denomination, but by a congregation. This congregation, the UU Church of Canton, has encouraged me and loved me and grown me into ministry, I am incredibly honored that you are ordaining me as the Reverend Jan Hutslar.
Everyone is welcome to the ordination service and a potluck immediately following the service. Former ministers of the congregation, the Revs. Anne Marsh, Wade Wheelock, and Joel Miller, will participate in the ordination service. The Rev. Dr. Dorsey Blake will preach during the ordination and also at the next day’s Sunday service. Rev. Blake was a professor of Jan’s at Starr King, and she says “he taught me much about being a minister of love, by his example, his open heart, and his life of integrity.
Jan is currently in search for a settled ministry. Visit her candidate website.