Meet Our Staff
Our minister is 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. Rev. Nathan is available to officiate rites of passage, including child blessings/dedications, weddings, or memorial services.
Rev. Nathan Detering (he/him)
Senior Minister
Rev. Nathan is our Senior Minister. He began serving UUAC in 2003, and his portfolio includes preaching, teaching, pastoral care, public ministry/witness, and staff supervision.
Nathan grew up in the midwest, the first of three children. His undergraduate degree is from Beloit College, where he concentrated in sociology and psychology. His experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in the West Indies gave him his first real opportunity to hear his call to the ministry. Upon his return from the Peace Corps in 1997 he applied to seminary, choosing the program at Boston University’s School of Theology, from which he graduated Cum Laude in May 2001. Nathan and his wife, Karen, live nearby with their two children.
Rev. Nathan can be reached at .
Louise Smith-Erb (they/them)
Ministerial Intern
Louise is excited to be UUAC’s 2026-27 ministerial intern. Shaped by a childhood of board games and forest adventures, their ministry is grounded in honoring the experience of being human together. They first wanted to become a minister after reading Tell the Wolves I’m Home (Carol Rifka Brunt) in high school and realizing that life is about our relationships, not our achievements. From there, they completed a religious studies major at Colby College and a Master of Divinity at Boston University. Experienced in community organizing, religious education, and chaplaincy, they love how Unitarian Universalism challenges us to be accountable to the promises we make each other.
With English, German, Irish, and Danish ancestry, Louise is curious about how our roots shape us and remains connected to their Christian upbringing. They still love the woods and board game nights, as well as dancing in queer clubs, watching campy horror movies, and spicing up New England food. Above all, they are grateful for family in Maine and queer community in Boston who love them even when they are a sore loser at the aforementioned games.
Deborah Weiner
Transitional Consulting Director of Faith Formation
Deborah Weiner is a Unitarian Universalist transitional ministries consultant and leader who has worked with congregations throughout the US and Canada. She is a lifelong UU and credentialed interim religious educator focused on helping congregations in transition bring health and vitality to their ministries and congregational systems. She has served in leadership roles for both the continental and New England Liberal Religious Educators Association (LREDA) and the Association for Unitarian Universalist Music Ministries (AUUMM) as well as the Association of Unitarian Universalist Transitions Professionals (AUUTP). For more than twenty years Deb was on the staff of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Deb lives in Lexington with her spouse, Ben Soule (also a lifelong UU); together they are parents to two daughters.
Sarah Deveau (she/her)
Music Director
Sarah is a conductor and singer originally from the Boston area. She has recently returned to Massachusetts after ten years in Denver, Colorado, where she served as Music Director for First Unitarian Society of Denver and Artistic Director of the Arvada Chorale, and completed work toward a Doctorate of Musical Arts in choral conducting. Sarah received her MM in choral conducting from Boston University and studied voice at Longy School of Music with Jayne West. She lives nearby with her wife, Rachael, and their two rambunctious young children.
For more information about our music program, joining the choir, including your child in the children’s choir, or sharing your musical talent during a worship service, contact Sarah at .
J. Kathleen Castellanos
Accompanist
Kathleen fills the role of Accompanist at First Parish in Sherborn. Originally from New Jersey, Kathleen has performed and coached throughout the US as well as Germany and Austria. Currently Boston based, she works and teaches throughout the New England area, including Emerson College, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and UMass Boston. Kathleen is also on the voice and piano faculty at NEMPAC (North End Performing Arts Center) in Boston. She earned her BA from Rutgers, her MM from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and her GDP from Longy School of Bard College.
Erin Collier (she/her)
Community Coordinator
Erin has been a member of UUAC since 2013 and has enjoyed many volunteer roles here, from teaching OWL to serving as a Worship Associate. After having raised three daughters to the point of adulthood, and growing through a long career in hospice and palliative nursing, Erin is stepping into a new work life grounded in her passions and values. She now finds herself happily working on an organic farm, and supporting her beloved UU community. Erin delights in all things outdoors, growing several gardens, keeping bees and maintaining a steady appreciation of all living beings outside and in.
You can reach Erin at erin@uuac.org.
Andy Meeker (he/him)
Youth Ministry Coordinator
Andy first attended UUAC as a part of Coming of Age from 2016-17, and stayed as a member of Senior Youth Group through high school. After earning his BA in history and French at Fordham University, he returned to Massachusetts to pursue a career in education. Currently, he promotes playful learning among children ages ten and under at Boston Children’s Museum, so he is excited to bring some of that whimsy to older youth at UUAC. In his free time, Andy loves going on runs and reading historical fiction books — especially if they’re queer!
If you or your child are interested in joining SYG, please contact Andy at youth@uuac.org.
Heather Walker (she/her)
Church Administrator
Heather Walker has been the Church Administrator at UUAC since 2016. A native of Cleveland, Heather came to Boston to attend college and earned both her B.A. in English and Women’s Studies and her M.A. in Children’s Literature from Simmons University. After raising 4 children, she pivoted her career, earning her Master’s in Library & Informational
Science and Archival Management from Simmons. (For those keeping count, that would be a hat trick of Simmons degrees, which Heather believes should earn her some sort of plaque or award.) In addition to serving as the Church Administrator, Heather is the Archivist at Wellesley
Historical Society. She’s a casual but prolific baker, mystery book enthusiast, unrepentant TV-watcher, huge Star Trek nerd, and fan of the Oxford comma. Also, her coffee game is strong.
Contact information is or 508-653-1422.
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.
Your minister maintains 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’s minister 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 minister, 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 Minister or Pastoral Care Associates
You can email Reverend Nathan Detering at . You can reach our Pastoral Care Associates by contacting Rev. Nathan.