March 30, 2025, at 4pm: Installation of the Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

All members and friends are invited to share in this celebration as the congregation officially installs the Rev. Susan as our Settled Minister.

A Unitarian Universalist Installation Service formally celebrates the covenantal relationship between a minister and the congregation that has called the minister. The Installation is a celebration of the joy that we all feel for having found one another, and our agreement to enter into a covenant of shared ministry. It marks our congregation’s successful completion of the ministerial search process, and follows our congregational vote to call Reverend Susan as our minister at the end of her candidating week in April 2025.

The Installation Service is centered around a spoken ritual that lifts up our covenant with one another. Our service will incorporate most of the usual elements of worship at UUCB, including special music. Specially invited guest ministers will offer the sermon, a Charge to the Congregation, and a Charge to the Minister. The service offers an invitation to individual and communal transformation, as well as an opportunity to live our faith in the world.

Rev. Katie Romano Griffin will be preaching. Her sermon is, "Healing Begins in the Heartland." She is the minister at All Souls Unitarian Church of Indianapolis, Indiana.

Rev. Sarah Stewart will be offering the charge to the Minister. She is minister at First Unitarian Church of Worcester, Massachusetts

Rev. Mary Ann Macklin and Rev. Bill Breeden will offer the charge to the congregation. They are former ministers of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Bloomington. 

Additional participants include:

Rev. Nic Cable, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbus, Indiana

Rev. Beth Johnson, minister of the Unitarian Church of Hinsdale, Illinois

and more!

View the video archive of this service here:

Act of Installation

President: After an enriching two-year search process, the unanimous selection of a candidate by the Search Committee, negotiations of the Board of Directors, the unanimous call of this congregation, and the first eight months of ministry, we will now proceed to officially install the Reverend Susan Frederick-Gray as the Lead Minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Bloomington.    

The right of the congregation and the minister to choose one another is central to the Unitarian Universalist tradition of democratic congregational polity. The relationship we are about to recognize is voluntary and lies wholly between the people of this congregation and the minister we have chosen. Our choice is rooted in our heritage and also in the vision and aspirations we hold for the future. It is therefore fitting that the act of installation be performed by the members of this congregation. In this way we honor and carry on our heritage of congregational polity.

Remembering with gratitude those who founded, nurtured, and sustained this congregation over its more than 75–year history, and dedicating ourselves anew to its vitality and mission, we gather today to publicly affirm the calling of the Reverend Susan Frederick-Gray as our settled minister. The Act of Installation symbolizes a pledge between a congregation and its minister, in a relationship based on mutual respect, trust, and love.

Susan, we have called you to dwell among us in love; to make our concerns your concerns; and to lead us, to the best of your ability, in living our faith and values, in growing in awareness and spiritual depth, and in building an enriching and transformative community.   

We acknowledge that your calling is both to us and to the wider Unitarian Universalist ministry as well as to the Spirit of Life in which we dwell.  Therefore, we ask that you speak the truth as you understand it, minister to us alike in our joys and sorrows, seek the holy in us and our children, challenge us to seek the best in ourselves, and model for us in both word and deed the principles of our shared faith. 

Are you prepared to accept this calling?

Minister: I am.

President: We offer you the resources and opportunities of this congregation, the authority of this office among us, and our warm embrace. We recognize that the ministry we have called you to will be fulfilled only through mutual trust, cooperation, and love. As we would ask you to be charitable toward our failures, so we will remember that you are human and will make mistakes. As we would have you preach to us of love and justice, witness to us the possibilities of authentic and generous living, and cherish the well-being of this congregation, so too do we pledge our best efforts and cooperation with you as our ministry unfolds. 

In formal recognition of our call of the Reverend Susan Frederick-Gray and her acceptance, I ask the members of the congregation to rise in body or in spirit as you are able and say with me the words of installation: 

Congregation: We, the members of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Bloomington, do hereby install the Reverend Susan Frederick-Gray as minister of this congregation.  Reverend Susan Frederick-Gray, we ask of you: religious leadership, spiritual guidance, and inspiration. We ask that you be a caring presence for the children, youth, and adults of this congregation.  There will be happy times and sad times, easy moments and difficult ones. Through them all, we promise to trust in the work we are doing together, and to know that we serve the same higher mission. We promise the cooperation of our hearts and hands; candor, charity, and encouragement in our expectations of you; and our resolute goodwill as we grow and change together. We pledge to grow with you as we share and live our faith and this ministry together.

Minister: It is with enormous gratitude, deep reverence, and humility that I accept the call to serve as your Lead Minister, and join you in this covenant of shared ministry. I will, to the best of my ability, fulfill the several offices of the ministry to which you have called me. Mindful of the privileges and responsibilities which are mine as minister of this congregation, I pledge to you my care and faithfulness to this covenant and to the mission and ministry we will nurture together. I promise to show up with integrity and honesty, to offer my best efforts, and to make room for us to be human and humane, vulnerable and courageous in our ministry. I pledge to grow with you in care as we live our faith and this ministry together. Above all, I will cherish and cultivate practices of love and justice among us and with all people. I pray that our years of ministry together will be mutually inspiring, and a blessing in our common life, in our community, and within the world.