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, who have gone off to war from New Zealand. The 24th April, the day before Anzac Day is the anniversary of the death of my father, Bror Muller, who died in 1967. This talk is really about my father’s experiences during the Second World War as an ..read more

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 an agnostic who never ceased to wonder at the world of nature and the place of humans in it. While he never identified as a Unitarian, he was exposed to multiple sources of Unitarian influence. For more information see:- https://aucklandunitarian.o ..read more

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 you know, I have become a widow. My husband and your minister Clay Nelson died last November. In preparing for this year’s Easter Sunday service, I have read all eight of the Easter sermons he preached here in this church. I have seen that he ta ..read more

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 attention directly to that same Spirit of Life, which is intimately with us in every moment – I’m talking about our very breath – literally our IN-spiration – and our EX-spiration…a free gift that we receive at birth and is our closest ..read more

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 the world of which we are part. The idea that living things shared a common evolutionary heritage was not new. What was new was the mechanism that Darwin, along with Alfred Wallace who came up with very similar ideas at the same time, proposed. Darw ..read more

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 winning and losing and fighting over a ball. I had been missing out. Ted Lasso is a gift. It is a gift that slowly unwraps. When one of the characters, Danny Rojas, says, “Football is life”, I like his joy but really don’t connect. Football isn’t&nb ..read more

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 article by Rev Peter Bullata in the US. Here’s his web page and blog, which is very interesting in itself: https://peterboullata.com/about-4/ For more information, see:- https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/the-liberal-church-finding-its-missio ..read more

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 topic so I’ve added some of my own thoughts and picked out parts of Clays’ speech that are relevant and added some from other sources, What has this topic got to do with any of our Unitarian principles? A lot. For more info, see https ..read more

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 the quest for ‘Truth’ leads to liberating our minds from warfare doctrines threatening destruction of Life on Earth. Humanity must end War before War ends Humanity. For more information see:- https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz ..read more

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh Recorded @ 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 water cycle.... For more information see:- https://aucklandunitarian.org.nz/water-communion-2024 ..read more