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You are cordially invited to join the members of the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia
for the candlelit Service of Installation of the Reverend Nathan C. Walker
at 5:00 pm on Sunday, March 30, 2008
Clergy are invited to gather at 4:00 pm to robe and process
Please RSVP and find directions at www.philauu.org
or call the church office at 215-563-3980
 The First Unitarian Church is located in Center City Philadelphia. It is an intentionally diverse community with 191 certified members as of January 2007. Established in 1796 as the first formally proclaimed Unitarian church in the country. The founders of First Church were directed and encouraged
by the Unitarian minister Joseph Priestley, better known as the father
of modern chemistry for his discovery of oxygen. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper , the first
woman of African descent to have her writings published in the United
States, was a member of First Church from 1870 until her death in 1911.
When Martin Luther King Jr. was a seminary
student in nearby Chester, he attended a lecture about Gandhi that
inspired his later non-violent protests for civil rights. This lecture
is reputed to have taken place at First Church. Beginning in 1968, Rev. Victor H.
Carpenter led the congregation into social activism on issues such as
prison reform, civil rights, black empowerment, woman's liberation and
especially the peace movement.
Read the search committee's announcement of my ministerial candidacy:
04/03/07
"It’s been almost a year since we began our journey of finding a ministerial candidate. One of the first things we did was to take input from the congregational survey to create a list of qualities that we wanted in a minister. They are: • inspired worship and excellent preaching;
• intellectual and spiritual leadership;
• caring and connectedness;
• the ability to motivate our congregation to social action;
• and we wanted to find someone who is an able administrator.
We are thrilled to announce that we have unanimously and enthusiastically agreed to present the Reverend Nathan Walker as candidate for a permanent calling to our church. In Nate, we have found someone with all of the qualities we desired – and then some. Our entire committee fell in love with Nate, and the feeling is mutual, for Nate has also fallen in love with First Church.
In his ministerial record, Nate described the ministry he hoped for as this: “My goal is to find a long-term settled ministry in a progressive congregation that is open to explore the diversity of positions held by many religions and cultures. Specifically, I would be honored to serve a congregation that desires: - to treat one another with compassion by practicing deep listening and loving speech;
- to build community by reaching to one another’s deepest aspirations and by reaching beyond the walls of our congregation;
- to offer vibrant and inspired worship services – that means inspired!;
- to dialogue across religious and political differences; and
- to heal various social and ecological injustices”
Nate is currently the interim consulting minister for the Unitarian Church of Staten Island. Prior to entering Union Theological Seminary, he was interim director of religious education at Fourth Universalist Society in New York. He has a background in theater and is a doctor of education candidate at Columbia University. Almost 400 people attended Nate’s ordination ceremony in January! His other accomplishments are too numerous to mention here.
A brochure with more information about Nate along with a complete schedule of events planned for Candidating Week, April 29 through May 6, is forthcoming. In the mean time, feel free to contact me or any of us with your thoughts and questions."
Fran Poodry
Chair, Ministerial Search Committee
On behalf of Christine Carlson, Seth Carrier, Billie Penn Johnson, Marisa McClellan, Ken Olin, Val Sandburg, and Lora Thornburg
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