Our Ministers
Rev. Nathan Detering (he/him) is our Senior Minister. Rev. Nathan began serving UUAC in 2003, and his portfolio includes preaching, teaching, pastoral care, public ministry/witness, and staff supervision. Rev. Nathan can be reached at RevNathan@uuac.org.
Rev. Joanna Lubkin (she/her) is our Acting Minister of Faith Formation and Congregational Life. Rev. Jo began serving at UUAC in 2023, and her portfolio includes children’s programming, lifespan faith formation, preaching, worship leading, and congregational engagement. Rev. Jo can be reached at RevJo@uuac.org.
Both of our ministers are available to meet with you for pastoral care, to answer questions, share concerns or joys, or to help you explore how you might connect more to the life of the church. Both Rev. Jo and Rev. Nathan are available to officiate rites of passage, including child blessings/dedications, weddings, or memorial services.
ABOUT PASTORAL CARE
Your ministers sincerely want to know how you are doing. We hope that as a member of our congregation, you will reach out to us for pastoral care when you are in the hospital, when you are going through a difficult time or experiencing challenging life circumstances, when you are wrestling with questions about your faith or spirituality, when you have concerns about your community, when you are feeling alone and want to be reminded of the support you have, or when you simply want to talk.
As your ministers, we maintain confidentiality around what is shared with us. However, in order to offer our members the best care we can, there are some limits to the privacy of your communications with us. We consider our confidentiality to be held by our pastoral roles, so this means that when you share something with one minister, we may share that pastoral information between us or with appropriate staff in order to better care for our members and the congregation as a whole.
Additionally, UUAC ministers and staff are mandated reporters under Massachusetts law, which means that although we maintain the confidentiality of information shared with us, we may be obligated to report information we learn that may indicate that a child under the age of 18 is subject to abuse or neglect to appropriate state agencies. Under certain circumstances, we may also report incidents of abuse and neglect against elders or other vulnerable populations. We will always try to inform you if we are obligated to report a concern.
In addition to our ministers, we also have a team of lay Pastoral Care Associates who assist the ministers in fulfilling their pastoral responsibilities to the congregation. Pastoral Care Associates are supervised by the ministers and consult or may share information with one another and with the ministers, but hold confidentiality within the group. Pastoral care services, whether provided by our ministers or by our Pastoral Care Associates, are not intended to replace professional medical, clinical, social, or protective services or interventions.
HOW TO REACH YOUR MINISTERS OR PASTORAL CARE ASSOCIATES:
You can email Rev. Nathan Detering at RevNathan@uuac.org, or Rev. Joanna Lubkin at RevJo@uuac.org. You can reach our Pastoral Care Associates by contacting Rev Nathan.