May 2026 COMma: Ecumenical Reference Checks

          A minister comes to your Conference staff seeking to apply for a position. They state that they were ordained in the Episcopal Church and have been working in chaplaincy for many years but now want to work in a parish setting and a specific UCC church seems like it would be a good fit. When asked whether they are currently ordained, they share that in the Episcopal Church, ordination is for life.

          A minister comes to your COM seeking Privilege of Call. They tell you that they were ordained in the United Methodist Church but were stripped of standing when they came out as gay and eventually found their way to a UCC congregation where they have been welcomed as a member.

          An ELCA minister is called to a UCC church. Two months later, concerns about their conduct in a previous setting comes to your Conference, and you realize that no one had ever actually reached out to their bishop because the minister had told you there was a transition happening in that office and they didn’t know who to point you to.

          Ecumenically ordained ministers frequently seek a call in the United Church of Christ, and in nearly all situations the process is quite smooth. The UCC has documents that govern how to work with ministers from certain denominations. This includes the Formula of Agreement between the UCC, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the Reformed Church in America; and the Ordained Ministerial Partner Standing processes for ministers from the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) or the United Church of Canada. For ministers from all other denominations, the Dual Standing or Privilege of Call processes are available, depending on whether the minister seeks temporary or permanent standing respectively.

          There is one key step necessary to all of these processes, and it is best done as soon as possible: a judicatory reference check. This is a verification between the Conference Minister or Associate Conference Minister in your Conference and the relevant bishop, regional minister, or other regional or national leader to confirm that the ecumenically ordained minister is presently in good standing in their denomination of origin, or as in the second case study above, a judicatory reference check is also required to confirm the circumstances around which their standing was terminated.

          Such a reference check should be done as early in the process as possible, ideally prior to the circulation of candidacy materials to a search committee. In cases where a minister contacts a local church directly, they should be directed to the Conference staff immediately; but if not, the Conference staff should do a reference check as soon as possible after learning that an ecumenically ordained minister is under consideration at a church. The Committee on Ministry can encourage this reference check to take place as early as possible and insist upon documentation attesting to the good standing of the minister as a part of the standing process.

Waiting to do a reference check until after the candidate has already impressed a search committee, has been named the candidate by the church, or has already begun their call in a UCC church, causes significantly more issues than doing such a reference check earlier in the process, particularly if the candidate has been less-than-scrupulous or forthcoming about their ministerial history. There may be an isolated situation in which delaying this makes sense; in such cases it will be important to gather as much other information as possible to get a full representation of the candidate’s history.  

          While it is true that our local churches have the autonomy to call whomever they wish to serve as their pastor, it is also true that Committees on Ministry are not required to grant standing to everyone who is called to pastor a church in the UCC. While some have argued that granting some form of ministerial standing is preferable to not granting any standing, questions of covenant, connection, and oversight need to be considered carefully by a Committee on Ministry in cases where an ecumenically ordained minister resists the appropriate oversight of the UCC.

          Happily, given the UCC’s long history as a United and Uniting denomination who partners well with ecumenical siblings, most ecumenically ordained ministers find an affirming welcome in the UCC, and our ministries are greatly enriched by their faithful ministries. Engaging in the process of a reference check helps to ensure that their ministry in the UCC is done with care, integrity, and covenant.

          Questions for reflection:

1. What sorts of ecumenical reference checks do your Conference or Association staff engage in, and when? What questions would you have as a COM for the candidates in the case studies listed above?
2. How familiar is your COM with the processes for Dual Standing and Privilege of Call, and with the Formula of Agreement and the Ordained Ministerial Partner Standing processes? (Please note: you can find information on all of this in the 2018 Manual on Ministry, Section 2:2 on Ordained Ministers from Ecumenical Bodies.)
3. Why do you think such emphasis is made on ecumenically ordained ministers? What provisions do you think apply to lay ministers from other traditions seeking to serve in the UCC? What information about their standing would you need to learn more about?