ordination

Online ordination sparks
interest in ministry

April 20, 2004

DES MOINES, Iowa -- In 2001, Des Moines resident Joe Asmus was told by a co-worker if he wanted to become an ordained minister, all he had to do was sign up on the Internet.

"He said he was an ordained minister, and I didn't believe him," Asmus said. "He gave me the Web address, and I went there. I just looked at the site, read everything over and found out that it was non-denominational and non-religion specific, so I just went ahead and signed up."

Asmus, 23, was visiting the Web site of the Universal Life Church in California. After typing in his name and address, Asmus was able to print out a document declaring him an ordained minister. Asmus also printed out a document which declared him absolved of all sins. The Universal Life Church is not the only site on the Web which offers quick and easy ordination. The Universal Life Church is not affiliated with any specific religion, but there are many sites which offer ordination as a Christian minister. One such site is World Christianship Ministries.

One problem with having the process of ordination available to anybody with a computer is the number of people who will sign up as a novelty, Asmus said.

"I believe on the Web site they say that they understand that there is going to be people that aren't going to take it seriously, but they're basically willing to accept that chance just so they can get people that are serious about it," Asmus said. "I know a lot of people who did it just to do it, and I think at the time that's why I did it, you know, just for fun. But the more I started thinking about it, I am a very spiritual person, so I take the title very seriously even though it doesn't apply to any certain denomination."

Asmus will put his ordination to use for the first time on May 22. He has been asked to marry his friends, Nick Stone, 23 and Jenny Hamand, 26.

Stone, who also signed up to become a minister on the site, although not seriously, is very happy that his friend is going to marry him.

"I'd rather get married by somebody I know," Stone said. "I don't want to sit in some guy's office and tell him why I want to get married."

Hamand agreed that having Asmus marry her will make her wedding much more personal.

"I think it's a really logical choice," Hamand said. "I have tried multiple religions and never found one to completely suit me. There's not a priest or a minister or anybody off the top of my head that I would want."

Hamand said the traditional ways of being married either don't suit her religious beliefs or seem unromantic.

"There's really only two choices when you want to get married," Hamand said. "There's either the minister at your church, which I don't have, or there's a judge, which is pretty impersonal. The same person that's sentencing people to life in prison coming to marry me, that's not very romantic. At least this way it's somebody we know and it's a lot more personal."

In order to marry Stone and Hamand, Asmus had to send $15 to the Universal Life Church for a wedding certificate and a badge showing he is ordained by the church. He gave Stone and Hamand a book of wedding vows, so they can choose how he performs the ceremony.

Andrea Charlow, professor of law at Drake University, said that it is legal for a couple to be married by an Internet-ordained minister.

"The statute says a judge or 'a person ordained or designated as a leader of the person's religious faith' may perform the marriage ceremony," Charlow said. "I suppose if your religion said you could get ordained online, that would meet the statutory requirements."

Gary Hoyt is a pastor at Jordan Creek Methodist Church in West Des Moines. He was ordained in the usual manner. He said he was farming when he felt the call to be a minister of God.

"I then became an exploring candidate for ministry," Hoyt said. "Then there's a whole process called the candidacy process. In that process I began to meet with a district board of ordained ministry and then began to work with a conference-wide board."

Hoyt chose to go to seminary and got a master's degree in divinity. He is still required to keep in touch with the board. He presided over his first church in 1990.

Hoyt said he is troubled by the idea of people signing up for ordination over the Internet.

"I think it's important for anybody who is and ordained minister to be connected," Hoyt said. "To go on the Internet and to find a way to be ordained as a local church pastor seems to be to create a problem in that area. If I don't have a connection than I don't have accountability."

Hoyt said he is troubled by the fact that these people can use the title to affect people's lives without the proper training a minister should have.

"It bothers me that someone else out there is going to think that this person who has been ordained in this way, with no accountability, with no standards being set, with no common understanding of the expectations of what this person has to offer me, that they can go out there and affect someone else's life, or a group of people's lives just because they're ordained," Hoyt said.