Introducing Madison Colquette, Ministerial Intern, and Chris Taylor, Aspirant for Ministry
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Rev. Diana Smith, Madison Colquette, Chris Taylor
This year, UUS will be working with two folks who are in the ministerial formation process: Madison Colquette, who will be our ministerial intern for 2025 – 2026, and Chris Taylor, an aspirant for ministry who UUS’s Board of Trustees recently voted to sponsor. You can read more about Chris and Madison below.
But first, I wanted to share a bit more information about how people become Unitarian Universalist ministers. To become a fellowshipped and ordained UU minister, folks are required to:
- Receive a Masters of Divinity degree
- Pass a career/psychological assessment
- Complete a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (a chaplaincy internship)
- Complete a ministerial internship
- Complete a UU-specific reading list and competencies, and
- Pass an interview with the Ministerial Fellowship Committee to ascertain that they meet requirements for fellowship.
After a minister is granted preliminary fellowship, which usually takes 3 – 10 years, the minister has 3 – 7 more years to complete requirements for full fellowship.
Along the way, folks apply for various statuses: applicant, aspirant, candidate, preliminary, and full. As an aspirant for ministry, Chris is currently working on his Master of Divinity degree and is active as a member of a UU congregation. UUS sponsoring him means that he remains a member (not staff and not an intern) of UUS. Sponsorship is a way of saying that he is a member of our congregation and we want to support him in his discernment of and during his work on the path to ministry.
As a candidate for ministry doing her ministerial internship, Madison has completed more of her ministerial formation process. As a ministerial intern, she is a staff member who is in the process of developing the skills and attributes of ministry. UUS is supporting her on her learning and growing journey.
I hope you’ll enjoy reading more about Madison and Chris, as well as supporting them in their ministerial formation process!
Rev. Diana Smith
Madison Colquette, Ministerial Intern
Greetings to you, UUS!
I am enthusiastic to join you as your ministerial intern in August. I am back in Iowa after serving as the ministerial intern with the UU Congregation at Shelter Rock on New York’s Long Island. Before my first internship, I worked at University of Iowa Health Care as an interfaith chaplain and as part of the COPE team, an interdisciplinary group providing emotional and spiritual support to staff following challenging events.
I am a seminarian at Meadville Lombard Theological School pursuing fellowship as a Unitarian Universalist minister and chaplain. Prior to seminary, I worked as a dramaturg at Indiana University’s Department of Theatre and Dance. I worked with playwrights developing new work and taught dramaturgy and the role of theatre and performance in communities. I received my MFA in Dramaturgy from the University of Iowa where I studied with the marvelous Art Borreca.
At UUS, I hope to minister and learn in ways that reflect compassion, mutual care, curiosity, and creativity. I am very happy to be back in Iowa and to work and learn alongside Rev Diana Smith and all of you. And I will try to catch every Iowa Women’s Basketball game I can!
In Faith and Service,
Madison Colquette
Chris Taylor, Aspirant for Ministry
I have been a member of UUS for almost twenty years. In that time, I’ve done everything from webmaster to Board member, but I’ve never been a ministerial aspirant. Until now! Questions of faith, meaning, and purpose have long informed not only my intellectual pursuits but also my engagement with our world. I’ve tried to dedicate my life to service in the name of community, including a decade in local government, and I’m thrilled to take this next step with you all on my journey toward parish ministry.
Receiving this endorsement from UUS is an important requirement for aspirant status with the UUA and a reassuring vote of confidence from this congregation that I love. I have two years left in the MDiv program at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, and I’ll begin exploring options for clinical pastoral education soon. That will be followed by an internship with another congregation, as Bridget just completed with us. I’m grateful to the Board, to Reverend Diana and the UUS staff, and to all of you for your continuing support, guidance, and faith.
