My friends would like me to perform their marriage ceremony. How can I become an ordained minister?
Studying at a seminary isn’t the only way to become an ordained minister. You can sign up on a web site and immediately be a minister. Not everyone finds the Web’s path legitimate from a spiritual perspective, but it’s usually legal in the United States. Perhaps the most popular instant-minister organization is the Universal Life Church (ULC). The ULC used to advertise in the back of magazines like Rolling Stone. All you had to do was mail in a self-addressed stamped envelope in order to become a minister. With the advent of the Internet, you’re only a few clicks away from holy orders. Founded by Kirby James Hensley in 1959 in Modesto, California, the ULC is about as non-denominational and non-dogmatic as a church can be. This group espouses no particular theology and simply requests that its ministers “do that which i
