Auckland Unitarians

Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church, 30th July 2023 Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rev. Clay Nelson My father loved words. The  Oxford English Dictionary  and books on etymology, the study of the origin of words and how their meanings have changed throughout history, were never far from his fingertips. If he couldn’t find just the right word for the book he was writing, he had no reluctance in ju...

With Rev. Clay Nelson Piano:- Frank Chen Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 23rd July 2023 You might remember me telling you the story of the 1969 UUA General Assembly in Boston. It was at the height of the Black empowerment movement in America. For that reason, many Black UUs attended instead of the token few who usually came. White UUs were shocked and wondered where they all came from. They...

With Kate Lewis Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 16th July 2023 Many of us have lost a sense of belonging in one place or another, having made a life around the world from where we were born and grew up. There is a longing for a beloved past and people, and despair when we realize that when we go back everything has changed and feel grief at what has been lost. For more information see:- http...

With Paul Henriques. Recorded 2nd July 2023 by Auckland Unitarian Church. As many of you know, with Auckland Unitarian Church support, I initiated a pilot programme to help dyslexic children in Samoa in a joint programme with their Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. While there I came across information on Samoa’s nonviolent struggle for independence from New Zealand. Back in New Zealand,...

with Rev. Clay Nelson Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 25th June 2023 Over a long life, I often think about the choices I’ve made or were made for me. How have they determined who I am now? How have they pointed me in a positive direction or made my life a personal hell? They have surely done both. Has my life followed a script with little input from me, or has it been totally of my own makin...

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rev. Clay Nelson Recorded 11th June 2023 @ Auckland Unitarian Church I keep getting enquiries about and objections to replacing principles with values (Here are links to the earlier talks on this topic:-  1 ,  2 ,  3  &  4 ). I thought I’d dealt with this issue but, apparently, not satisfactorily for some. So, let me try again. These changes did not come out of t...

with Alix Geard. Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 4th June 2023. I wanted to share something about what the future might look like: especially something new about what’s going on in the space around climate change and degrowth. I’ve been finding that quite depressing, though. I admit that I even asked ChatGPT for some examples of what I might say. The homilies it came up with were familiar, r...

Speaker:- Peter Lineham Worship Leader:- John DiLeo Recorded by Auckland Unitarian Church 28th May 2023. Perhaps the simplest way to introduce this Pentecost theme is to ask you to visualise this scene. The narrow streets of Jerusalem were in those days dominated by the huge temple on which King Herod the Great had lavished his attention, and was regarded as one of the greatest sites of the Roman...

Speaker:- Marlon Drake of  Te Ohu Whakawhanaunga , Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh. Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 14th May 2023. Marlon attended Western Springs College and then moved to Wellington where he was a student activist at Victoria University, serving as President of the students association, campaigning against sexual violence and in favour of mental health support for studen...

with Rev. Clay Nelson. Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 7th May 2023. This morning is the fourth in a series of musings about what it means to be a living tradition. (Here are links to talks  1 ,  2 , and  3 .) How have we changed? Who decides what it means to be a UU today? And who owns the congregation? When the eight members from diverse backgrounds were appointed to  review Article II Byl...

with Rev. Clay Nelson. Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 30th April 2023. I was intrigued by excerpts of  Diane Miller’s reflections on the proposed changes to the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) Bylaws  to be voted on in June at the General Assembly. Dianne was a young pregnant feminist invited to be on the committee charged with revising our purposes. Her son was born during the com...

with Rev. Clay Nelson. Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 23rd April 2023. Last week we explored the many challenges of being a living tradition, the biggest being finding a consensus when we don’t have a creed, holy book of revelation or ecclesiastical authority. This morning our focus is on the Seven Principles. How they came to be? Their role in our faith. Have they passed their use by date?...

With Rev. Clay Nelson. Recorded 16th April 2023 by Auckland Unitarian Church This morning I would like to focus on what it means to be a living tradition. As Unitarian Universalists we sing about it. We proudly proclaim it as what we are. But what does it mean? Most simply put our beliefs are etched in pencil and not carved in stone. But there are consequences. Like being green, being a living tra...

with Rachel Mackintosh Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 9th April 2023 At the risk of being grandiose, I begin this sermon a bit like the person who wrote the gospel of Mark. It’s more than 40 years since I read Madeleine L’Engle’s children’s book, A Wrinkle in Time. I have thought about it and talked about it since, but I haven’t relived it. (I didn’t watch the film because I didn’t want to...

Speaker:- Martin Lewis Worship Leader:- John DiLeo Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church, 2nd April 2023 Gratitude and its ability to uplift and enrich our lives is as extremely important and relevant today as it ever was. As we are constantly bombarded with negative news and dramatic spin; dire messages through various forms of media, we might descend into feelings of anxiety, depression, hopeless...

with John DiLeo Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 26th March 2023 For more information see https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/dealing-with-grief/ 'Spirit of Life' can be found at https://youtu.be/sdnr4fNuR74 The 'Time for All Ages' can be found at https://fliphtml5.com/cdscw/fmux/basic The TED talk can be found at https://www.ted.com/talks/lucy_kalanithi_what_makes_life_worth_liv...

Speaker:-  Dan Te Whenua Walker , Worship Leader:- Ted Zorn. Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 19th March 2023 For more information see:- https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/walking-together-in-relationship-a-personal-journey-of-integrating-te-tiriti-values/

 Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 12th March 2023 A father and son are in a horrible car crash that kills the father. The eight-year-old son is rushed to hospital in critical condition. ED staff prep him rapidly and take him to an operating theatre where the surgical team is waiting. Just as he’s about to go under the knife, the surgeon sa...

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Vivienne Allen Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 5th March 2023 have always been drawn to trees. Until I turned 10 I spent most of my spare time climbing trees on our farm. Back then I divided all trees into two categories; good and bad; the good ones were those great for climbing such as Pohutukawa, some Lawsons, oaks and others with wide low branches. The bad o...

With Ruby Johnson Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 26th February 2023 I think that a lot of people are attracted to Unitarianism because they were cast out by, or have left, other faith-based communities. The fourth principle of Unitarian Universalism is that we engage in “a free and responsible search for truth and meaning”. Those of us who have come to this church as cast-offs from other fa...

with Alix Geard Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 19th February 2023 Sometimes you choose a theme for a service and then life throws you complications. I had planned to take my text today from that most varied and human of sources, the microblogging site Tumblr. Every so often in my craft or philosophy groups some words turn up from the person known on Tumblr as higgsboshark: FROM < HTTPS:/...

with Jonathan Mason Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 12th February 2023 The question of whether there is life in the universe is one of the big questions of the 20th and 21st century. Movies such as ET, Contact, Arrival and Interstellar have explored these issues along with alien invasion movies such as Independence Day. I remember growing up watching the night sky with a sense of wonder, In...

with Tunisia Set Ārena,  Worship leader:- Nina Khouri Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 5th February 2023 For more information see   https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/decolonising-decolonisation/

with John DiLeo Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 29th January 2023 Todays sermon is a reading of “ Getting Through the Night ” By Mary Wellemeyer For more information see   https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/getting-through-the-night/

with David Hines  Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 22nd January 2023 My original subject for today was Gonna lay down my sword and shield, which was about concentration camps in World War 2, and how this appalling story was the background to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But it was such a complicated story I couldn’t get my head around it. And I was looking for a new topic. And then J...