How Is the ULC Ordination Certificate Made?
The Universal Life Church offers a beautiful, well-designed ordination certificate that is professionally-printed by a print shop near our headquarters in Seattle, WA. Individual names and ordination dates are printed on every minister credential in our office, and the official ULC dove seal is placed onto them afterwards. The result is an aesthetically-appealing, high-quality document that will surely impress others -- even county clerks!
What Does an Ordination Certificate Allow ULC Ministers To Do?
The only service provided by ULC ministers that is regulated by the federal or state governments is the solemnization of marriages, and thus the ULC ordination certificate is generally used to prove our ministers' ordination status to county clerks when the former attempt to file marriage licenses with the latter. These credentials are used to a lesser extent to demonstrate ministerial status when a minister applies for the right to serve as a hospital or prison chaplain or when they perform a baptism of funeral.
Please note that the standard ordination credential is frequently not all that is required of our ministers when they want to file for a marriage license after performing a wedding. Please read the last section of this post to learn more about what types of ministerial documentation you may need.
Why Must I Use the ULC Ordination Certificate?
In the past, the ULC Monastery and other branches of the ULC allowed its ministers to print their ordination certificates from home. This is now no longer the case because county clerks frequently raised concerns about the legitimacy of our ministers' shoddily home-printed credentials when this policy was in place.
If you were a county clerk and someone brought in a poorly-printed, supposedly "official" ordination certificate on regular 8.5 x 11" piece of printer paper, would you believe that the document was in fact official and that the person bearing the document was in fact a legally-ordained minister? County clerks frequently did not accept these ordinations in such situations, and the ULC Monastery was thus forced to exclusively offer professionally-printed credentials on its website.
How Do I Get My Own Ordination Certificate?
The first step to getting a minister license is to become an ordained minister online, if you have not already done so. Fortunately for the un-ordained, the process of online ordination is both extraordinarily easy, free, and takes only minutes to complete. Simply visit our ordination page and fill out the form with your full legal name, email address, and a password. Once finished, click "Submit Ordination Request" and we will process your ordination. You should receive a confirmation email shortly thereafter.
You will be able to purchase the ordination certificate now that you are ordained. To begin, we advise that you log in if you have not done so already. This can be accomplished by entering the email address and password you provided during the ordination process. Once you have logged in, visit the "Ministry Supplies" section where you will find a range of products, including the ordination credential. The "Name on Credential" field and ordination date should be filled out with your information if you have logged in. If you need to make a change, enter the appropriate name and ordination date there. Next, click the yellow "Add to Cart" button. If you do not need any additional ministerial documentation from the Ministry Supplies section, hit the "Proceed to Checkout" button.
As previously mentioned, the ordination certificate might be only one of a number of documents required to perform a wedding. Note that wedding officiants looking to perform weddings in states such as Nevada, New York, and Hawai'i will need additional forms of paperwork. For more information about individual states, make sure to check out our State Marriage Laws page. Finally, remember to contact the county clerk where the wedding will take place to ask what documentation they require from ULC ministers!
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