In February 2009, I had lost my Universal Life Church Minister Credential card so I decided to go on line and order another one. To my surprise, I was told that I wasn’t already added to their records as an ordained minister for their church! I knew that I was ordained back in March of 2003, but could not remember the actual day. So I immediately contacted the U.L.C. headquarters which is located in Modesto, CA regarding this issue. The very next day I received an e-mail response from Andre Hensley himself explaining that I AM indeed on record as one of their ordained ministers and that their official website is www.ulchq.com and that the only other ULC Headquarters authorized site is www.ulc.net operated by Pastor Kevin Andrews in Citrus Heights, CA. I have spoken to Pastor Andrews a couple of times before on the phone and he is a very nice gentleman who is always happy to assist in any way he can. Mr. Hensley confirmed my ordination information and informed me that I was officially ordained on March 18. 2003.
He explained to me that The ULC Seminary is a site that is operated by a minister of the church for her ministry. It is not an official ULC Headquarters site, but a known site. She offers to accept and forward ordination REQUESTS to the actual ULC Headquarters to be ordained by the ULC Church.
The former ulc.org site was started in 1995 by one of the ULC’s ministers, Brother Dan Zimmerman, for his congregation called Universal Life Church/ULC Monastery, Inc. in Tucson, AZ. He requested to be authorized to accept and forward to ULC Headquarters all ordination requests received on his site to be ordained by The Church. That authorization was granted. In 2005, Brother Dan Zimmerman asked one of his members to assist with operating part of the site from Seattle, WA. In 2006, they had an internal management dispute that will take court legal action to resolve. So Brother Dan did the responsible thing and closed the ulc.org site on August 1, 2006. At that time, the ULC Headquarters authorization to them was revoked. Since then, the part in Seattle, WA had done a “hostile takeover” of the ulc.org site and changed the name to themonastery.org and are calling themselves Universal Life Church Monastery Storehouse, Inc. “They ARE a separate organization that is NOT AFFILIATED WITH US,” said Andre Hensley. He further explained to me via his e-mail that the Monastery implies that they are affiliated with the original, real ULC in order to confuse people into ordering from them. They have only been in existence since September 2006 and they are back dating credentials to years before they even started. Plus, the ministers are receiving incorrect certificates from a church that they were not even ordained by!
Since then, the “real” ULC site has added a page to their Seminary site to let people know what is going on. If you were ordained after August 1, 2006, PLEASE, I seriously urge you to read this important announcement on the ULC site! Especially if you have been performing legal weddings, handfastings, etc. It is much better to be safe than sorry!!!! http://www.ulcseminary.org/changeofsite.php
Thank-you for putting this much needed information out there. There are now at least two other sites that are using a similar subterfuge, one of which outright claims to issue ULC Modesto ordinations, then sells people their own PDF versions and the ordinations are never recorded with the church!
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