Auckland Unitarians

Worship Leader: John DiLeo Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 30th October 2022 When I signed up to lead today’s service, I figured it would be easy to come up with things to say. I mean, after all, there’s no shortage of writings and opinions around the Church’s appropriation and subjugation of non-Christian customs and occasions. I also figured it would be really easy to find information on w...

Worship Leader: Rachel Mackintosh Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 23rd October 2022 Ki te kahore he whakakitenga ka ngaro te iwi “Without foresight or vision the people will be lost.” This past week a colleague of mine who lives in Taranaki mentioned the town of Patea, which he described as being “nothing since the freezing works closed”. For 100 years from 1883, the local freezing works had...

Worship Leader: David Hines Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 16th October 2022 A couple of days ago I heard about a friend who was 80 years old and said he had aged more in the past year than the previous 10 years. He had a heart attack and prostate problem in the same year. I had a similar experience this month. I went to my GP for my routine checkup, but I took a longer than usual list of q...

Worship Leader: David Hines Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 9th October 2022 After two years of waiting, I’m excited that a government proposal for religious education in state schools is about to be revealed. But I’m also concerned, because very important questions have still not been answered. Includes contributions from:- Sara Passmore, NZ Humanists Penny Ehrhardt, Secular Education Netwo...

Worship Leader: John DiLeo Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 2nd October 2022 As I’ve mentioned a few times in the past, the themes and musings present in the services I lead tend to reflect things that are on my mind at the moment. In this case, it happens to be birthdays. Mine is this coming Tuesday. It also happens to be one of those “milestone” birthdays – I’ll be turning 55. For more info...

Worship Leader: Nina Khouri. Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 25th September 2022 So, the government has now lifted basically all remaining COVID restrictions. We don’t have a traffic light system anymore, we have very few mask requirements, government vaccine mandates are ending and you don’t even have to isolate if a household member tests positive, so long as you monitor yourself for sympt...

with Ted Zorn & Kate Lewis Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 18th September 2022 I’ve titled my random musings today “FOMO, Imagined Lives and Reclaiming Joy”. FOMO is an acronym for “Fear of Missing Out”. I’ll start with a confession. I chose this topic because I suffer from FOMO and it has had a profoundly negative impact on the quality of my life and in some cases, the lives of people I...

with Rev. Max Moss Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 11th September 2022 Today's talk was a reading of " A Dead Soldier Looks at the War " by Rev. David Rankin For more information see   https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/a-dead-soldier-looks-at-the-war/

with John DiLeo Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 4th September 2022 Today's talk was a reading of “ The Answer I Wish I'd Given " By Erika A. Hewitt For more information see   https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/because-we-can/

with Rachel Mackintosh Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 21st August 2022 Burning Down the House was part of the soundtrack of my adolescence. The song came out two years after the 1981 Springbok tour of New Zealand that had united a nationwide protest movement from across the political and socio-economic spectrum, where tens of thousands of us had marched together periodically in the year lea...

with John DiLeo  Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 14th August 2022  I grew up in a rural part of Connecticut, in the northeastern United States. My home town, Plainfield, was small, the population was almost entirely white Europeans, and – as far as those in authority in my life were concerned – everybody was cisgendered and straight. As was the social norm of the time, when someone...

with Nina Khouri Recorded by Auckland Unitarian Church 7th August 2022 For more information see:- https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/that-i-might-know-my-mind/

with Derek Handley  Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 31st July 2022  The songs and first reading discussed in this podcast are not included in this audio, links to them can be found on the webpage below. For more information see https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/i-am-the-first-and-the-last/

with Rev. Clay Nelson Recorded by Auckland Unitarian Church 24th July 2022 Think back two and half years ago to the day before you heard of Coronavirus breaking out in Wuhan, China. Whatever that was like for you, that was normal. For me, I was a newlywed. I had not even learned what that new normal meant for me yet. I certainly hadn’t anticipated that we would spend most of two and a half years s...

with Rev. Clay Nelson  Recorded by Auckland Unitarian Church 17th July 2022  I would like to give you a peek behind the curtain to see one of the blessings, or possibly curses, of being in my line of work. If you have been doing it as long as I have, it is nearly impossible not to see the world continuously through theological lenses. It is not a conscious decision anymore. It is just my...

with David Hines  Worship Leader:- Nina Khouri  Song Leader:- Sally Mabelle  Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 3rd July 2022  For more information see   https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/christian-karakia-do-you-think-they-are-appropriate-for-state-schools/

with Rev. Clay Nelson Recorded by Auckland Unitarian Church 26th June 2022 Welcome this morning to history. This is the first public celebration of an indigenous peoples’ holiday in the world. Matariki, sometimes referred to as the Maori New Year, has become a celebration for all New Zealanders. It centres on a cluster of stars that in the west were known as The Pleiades or Seven Sisters. They are...

with members of the Auckland UU Climate Team – Brenda Bendall, Shirin Caldwell, Jonathan Mason. Please accept our apologies for the poor sound quality on this episode - recorded directly off zoom. Links to the various resources referred to in this episode can be found on the page for this service on our website:- https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/climate-change-issues-and-challenges/

with Rev. Clay Nelson Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 12th June 2022 A quick perusal of the internet tells me I should wait for one of the equinoxes, when day and night are equal, to muse on balance and absolutely not when the winter solstice is approaching, but where is the fun in that? When reality is in balance in perfect alignment with my life, where is the challenge? My experience says...

with Rev. Clay Nelson Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 5th June 2022 Forty years ago, this past week, my seminary released me into the world to begin my ordained ministry. In all those years, an Annual General Meeting has never provoked me to preach a musing on one of the discussions held. It was the discussion/debate about approving a remit for the congregation to endorse the Fairer Futures...

with Rev. Clay Nelson  Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 29th May 2022 No one was more surprised than I when moving to New Zealand that I would put my Anglican collar back on after eight years with the American Unitarian Universalists. I did impose one condition on myself before doing so –– I would no longer dance around my progressive religious views in the pulpit. Traditionalists and co...

with Rev. Clay Nelson Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 22nd May 2022 I was never a big fan of magicians because I don’t enjoy feeling conned or suspending my disbelief. Then I encountered Penn and Teller. Who couldn’t love magicians with a TV show called Bullshit ? They are scientific sceptics and atheists who love making mince out of sacred cows. I particularly enjoyed their trick of making...

with Rev. Clay Nelson  Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 15th May 2022  If we go far enough in the future, historians may label the present time as the Age of Anxiety. There is certainly enough anxiety floating about for everyone to build a raft. The possible outcomes in Ukraine weigh on us all. Climate change is occurring faster than projected as sea levels and sea water temperature...

with Rev. Clay Nelson  Recorded by Auckland Unitarian Church 8th May 2022  Some have called “This Land Is Your Land” an alternative national anthem in America. It was written and first sung by Woody Guthrie. Growing up in small-town Oklahoma, Guthrie heard church hymns, outlaw ballads, blues, fiddle tunes and popular music. The Guthries had been fairly prosperous — Woody’s father wa...

with Rev. Clay Nelson  Recorded by Auckland Unitarian Church 1st May 2022  Ralph Waldo Emerson once observed that “It is a happy talent to know how to play.” But I have found it a difficult talent to utilise over the past couple of years. The last time I can remember being immersed in play was doing the chicken dance at Rachel’s and my wedding. It was also the first day someone entered t...