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A weekly (usually) service from Auckland Unitarian church. We are a group of free thinkers who are committed to supporting each other in our individual spiritual journeys in a generous, kind and compassionate community of progressive Christians, humanists, atheists, neo-pagans, and seekers, with the occasional Muslim and Hindu joining us. We respect all faith perspectives that concur with our seven principles.
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Annie Jane Schnackenberg (nee Allen) New Zealand fighter for women’s rights
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Viv Allen says:- About a year ago an email dropped into my inbox from my cousin Hamish who I only catch up with at family funerals. Attached to that email was a 93 page thesis on my great, great Aunt, Annie Jane Schnakenberg neeAllen, who I knew little about except that she’d fought for women’s suffrage in NZ and was a fluent speaker of Maori, so I…
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Speaker:- Peter Lineham Worship Leader:- Ruby Johnson Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 28th April 2024 Ralph Waldo Emerson knew how to upset Unitarians, for he had been one of them. Emerson was from a Unitarian family, trained at Harvard College, and his brother William was educated at Gottingen and was a minister. Waldo became minister of Seco…
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with Karn Cleary Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 21 April 2024 I titled today’s service “Remembering Anzac Day”, purposely. It disturbs me to see or hear references to “celebrating” Anzac Day, when I believe it should always be a day of mourning for all those who died so futilely at Gallipoli, and all the others whether they returned or not, w…
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With Rachel Mackintosh & Betsy Marshall Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 14 April 2024 Unitarians are a mixed metaphor. Roots from flora, wings from fauna. There is no exact Greek mythical creature to represent this idea but perhaps we can think of a dryad or tree-nymph, maybe combined with a phoenix, the bird who rises. We are a mixed metaphor…
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Speaker:- John Maindonald Worship Leader:- Shirin Caldwell Recorded 7 April 2024 @ Auckland Unitarian Church From the time when he returned from his five year journey around the world, Darwin thought long and hard, not just about the relationships between living things, but also about life and living. He moved from relatively orthodox Anglican to a…
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The empty tomb: holding lament in one hand and joy in the other
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Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh Recorded 31 March 2024 @ Auckland Unitarian Church I preached in this church last year on Easter Sunday. My theme was resurrection — I spoke about the power of love over hate. In the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Knowing that when life is gone, love is left for shining.” Since then, as most of yo…
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Breathing the Spirit of Life – what does it mean and why does it matter?
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Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rev. Sally Mabelle of Taupo Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 24 March 2024. During my 12 years as a member and lay worship leader at Auckland Unitarian church, we sang that ‘Spirit of Life’ song hundreds of times, to begin nearly every Sunday service. Today, I’d like to draw our atten…
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Part of Nature, or separate from Nature? Charles Darwin and Evolutionary Biology.
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Speaker:- John Maindonald Worship Leader:- Shirin Caldwell Recorded 17 March 2024 @ Auckland Unitarian Church Charles Darwin, who lived through the middle years of the 1800s, is familiar to most of us as the man who laid the foundations of the modern theory of evolution. His ideas have had dramatic continuing effects on our view of ourselves and of…
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Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh Recorded 10 March 2024 @ Auckland Unitarian Church I have recently watched all three seasons of Ted Lasso. I had been aware of the show for some time but had been put off by the moustache, and the fact that it seemed to be about sport. Though I admire physical grace, I really don’t care about all the win…
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The liberal church finding its mission: It’s not all about you
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With Karn Cleary Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 3 March 2024 Our speaker planned for today had to drop out at the last moment due to illness. Karn Cleary has thankfully stepped up to fill in and is going to lead our service with a reading, with a few minor changes, of “The liberal church finding its mission: It’s not all about you”, an articl…
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Speaker & Worship Leader:- Viv Allen Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 25 February 2024 I had intended to read one of Clay’s talks entitled, Why should we learn another language? From Sept 2020 in its entirety but after I read it I realised that a lot of it was about Clay’s personal journey. I have experience with my own journey regarding this t…
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Speaker:- Laurie Ross & Worship Leader:- Shirin Caldwell Laurie Ross © 18 February 2024 A Call to the people of New Zealand, as a Nuclear Free Peacemaker nation, to withdraw from Militarisation and Warfare. It is time for Humanity to end the barbaric practice of war to work for Peace and Justice. ‘Love’ is the foundation of Unitarian fellowship and…
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Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel MackintoshRecorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church, 11 February 2024 Why do we repeat this ritual every year? It isn’t just to brag about our travels. When we share our water in the common bowl, it reminds us that while we are separate people, we are also part of an interdependent community. You probably know about the…
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Speaker & Worship Leader:- John DiLeo Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 4th February 2024 At the end of October, I travelled to Washington, DC, to present training at and attend the OWASP Global AppSec Conference. On the Sunday before the conference, I had the opportunity to attend the first ThreatModCon, a one-day mini-conference focused on th…
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With Rachel MackintoshRecorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 21 January 2024 Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things be…
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With Alix GeardRecorded by Auckland Unitarian Church 31 December 2023Good morning, community of Auckland Unitarians. Kia ora koutou! As we gather on this last Sunday of the year, New Year’s Eve, we find ourselves between times, standing on the bridge that connects the past and the future. Today, our theme is “Reflections and Resolutions” – a time t…
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Speaker:- Jonathan MasonWorship Leader:- Phebe MasonRecorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 17 December 2023Each year, as we celebrate Christmas, I have wondered what really happened in Bethlehem. The Nativity Scene is embedded in our seasonable culture. In our Unitarian hymn book, we have about 25 hymns that refer to Bethlehem, the Star, and the man…
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Speaker:- Paul Tonson Worship Leader:- Alix Geard Recorded 10 December 2023 @ Auckland Unitarian Church From my earliest years I’ve known about Jesus of Nazareth and in my youth I was especially drawn to him as a charismatic individual. Later I loved the idea of him as a sign of contradiction, a life-long challenge to my easy preconceptions and nat…
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Speaker & Worship Leader:- Betsy Marshall Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 3rd December 2023 Today we gather to celebrate the opening of this building on 4 December 1901 – exactly 122 years ago tomorrow. As Clay Nelson said in his service for new members in 2015, the anniversary of the building is a time to be reminded that “we didn’t get here …
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Speaker:- Paul Tonson Worship Leader:- Ted Zorn Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 26 November 2023 The path ahead of us JESUS WITHOUT CHRIST is a possible title for a book that has been germinating in my mind recently. In preparing for today with Ted, I was delighted to find that numbers of this congregation may share the questions that give ris…
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Welcome to Limbo. Please leave your certainties at the door
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Speaker:- Rachel Mackintosh Worship Leaders:- Ted Zorn, Kate Lewis Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 5th November 2023 Our recently retired minister, Clay Nelson, died on Thursday (2 November 2023). Those of us who have known Clay are grieving. So, we’ve changed this service to reflect on coming together in grief and the wonder of life. Rachel …
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Speaker & Worship Leader:- Kate Lewis. Recorded 19th November 2023 @ Auckland Unitarian Church. I’m very aware that this is the first service since Clay died that we’re not using one of his talks. I’ve been on the calendar for months, and Ted and I decided that this would be an alright topic for today since we’re hurting and I hope that some of the…
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Curiosity may be harmful to cats, but how about to Unitarians?
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Speaker & Worship Leader:- Viv Allen Viv Allen led a service centred around a reading of a Clay Nelson sermon from February 2020 For more information see:- https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/curiosity-may-be-harmful-to-cats-but-how-about-to-unitarians-2/
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Speaker:- Mary Ellen Warren Worship Leader:- Ruby Johnson Recorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 29 October 2023For more information see https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/world-polio-day/
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Speaker:- Grant Williams of Maritime Union of New Zealand Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh. For more information see:- https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/a-wharfies-story/
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with Karn ClearyRecorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 15 October 2023For more information see https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/flower-communion-4/
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Speaker:- John Maindonald Worship Leader:- Shirin Caldwell Recorded 8 October 2023 @ Auckland Unitarian Church John Donne (1572-1631), who wrote the words that I want to ponder today, lived in England in troubled times. He was born to a staunchly Roman Catholic family at a time when it was illegal to be a practicing Catholic. For more information s…
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Speaker:- Peter Lineham Worship Leader:- Ruby Johnson I was very struck by an article in the Washington Post on 21 August of this year by Perry Bacon jnr.... Recorded 1 October 2023 by Auckland Unitarian Church For more information see:- https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/finding-your-home-in-the-church-community/…
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Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 24 September 2023 Speakers & Worship Leaders:- Rachel Mackintosh & Betsy Marshall In early 2014, our Unitarian community was coming to terms with the fact that after only eight months, due to visa issues, we’d lost the American minister we’d contracted for two years. Fortunately the Ministerial Search Committee …
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Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rev. Clay Nelson Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church 17 September 2023 Here is a factoid about your minister I hope to have kept from you for nine years. In secondary school, I was a band nerd. I wasn’t the cool one playing the sexy alto sax like I wanted. Instead, I was consigned over my objections to playing the tuba. …
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Speaker:- Paul Watson of Essentially Men Worship Leader:- Ted Zorn Kia ora everyone, and a heartfelt thanks to Ted for that beautiful introduction. When I first met you Ted around 20 months ago I instantly liked you, and I think one of the reasons is because as you presented last week ‘You’ve always had a thing for language’. I think our brains con…
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with Ted ZornRecorded at Auckland Unitarian Church 27 August 2023 I’ve always had a thing for language. I think I inherited this from my dad. Dad wasn’t highly educated, nor widely read – the only magazines he ever subscribed to were Reader’s Digest and TV Guide, and I never knew him to read a novel — but he loved to play with language. He often us…
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With John DiLeo Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church, 20th August 2023 As we were driving home from last Sunday’s service, I was thinking on what I should talk about this week. During that service, we celebrated Clay’s years with this church as our paid minister, and we acknowledged that phase of our community’s life was coming to a close. During t…
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Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rev. Clay Nelson Recorded @ Auckland Unitarian Church, 13th August 2023 As has been mentioned once or twice recently, and to my great sadness, I am retiring at the end of the month. Because I have loved all forty-one years of my ordained ministry in two denominations and my nine years with you, I want to scream, “Nah, thi…
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Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh. Recorded 6th August 2023 at Auckland Unitarian Church. I met Clay 10 years ago at a residential training for community organising. The basis of the training was storytelling. At the opening of the training, all participants were asked to tell stories about a time we had spoken truth to power. Clay’s sto…
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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 boo…
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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 GeneralAssembly in Boston. It was at the height of the Black empowermentmovement in America. For that reason, many Black UUs attended instead of the token few who usually came. White UUs were shoc…
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Coming to a Sense of Belonging: Matariki in our Time and Place
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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 w…
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Samoa’s Nonviolent Struggle for Independence from New Zealand Colonial Rule
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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 i…
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Are you living the life you chose, or are you living the life that chose you?
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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 inp…
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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. T…
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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 …
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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 r…
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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 a…
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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 backgrou…
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Will Unitarian Universalism remain a living tradition?
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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 revisi…
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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…
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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 …
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with Rachel MackintoshRecorded 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. (…
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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 desc…
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