Niki Harré talks about her year as a self-appointed secular priest. She undertook three vows – simplicity, hospitality and pause, offered weekly services and personal conversations, and attended a Christian church. While she experienced considerable resistance, she also learnt a great deal about humility, listening to and caring for the other, and an awareness of the world as it is, rather than as we wish it was.

Speaker:- Niki Harré
Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

Video to come

Audio to come

No text this week.

Meditation / Conversation starter

• Is there something missing in the secular world?
• What is it?

Discussion ‘rules’:

• Keep your comments brief
• Ensure everyone has a turn (or passes)
• Listen, but do not comment (you can affirm with a very brief comment during your own speaking time)
• You can add a further comment if everyone has had their turn to speak

In the recent service “Listening into the Difficult Places,” we explored the power—and limits—of communicating through differences. This follow-up asks how do we do that as a community?
How do we work through differences in deeply held values and beliefs?

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Ted Zorn

No recordings this week.

Read below, or download the PDF

Ted Zorn © 31 May 2026

Introduction

I suspect I’m not alone in this, but I often choose a topic for these talks because it intrigues me and not because I have a clear set of answers. That is certainly true today.

The reading I just read gives us a helpful way into today’s topic.

It reminds us that Unitarian Universalism is a covenantal faith, not a creedal one. Neither of those words — covenantal or creedal — was part of my vocabulary before joining this church. But the idea is simple enough: we are not held together by a shared doctrine about God, salvation, scripture, or the afterlife. We are held together by acovenant — promises about how we will seek truth together, how we will treat one another, how we will repair harm, and how we will hold one another accountable.

That sounds like what I signed up for.

But as Timothy Ellis points out, covenant can easily become something we talk about more than something we live. It can become a set of nice words, recited occasionally, but not truly integrated into the life of the congregation.

Higher Values for Ecological Economics

Speaker:- Laurie Ross
Worship Leader:- Shirin Caldwell

Read below, or download the PDF

Follow this shortcut to the bottom of the page for the various readings, videos, etc. shared in the service.

Laurie Ross © 17 May 2026

Kia Ora, E te whanau.

I am delighted to be invited to speak to you again today in this beautiful building and in this beautiful fellowship. Tēnā koe Shirin, Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

Introduction:

The development of Science, Technology and Military Intelligence has not been balanced by collective development of Spiritual Intelligence. This is essential for Evolution of Human Consciousness, in order to save Humanity from Nuclear War Apocalypse and Ecological Destruction of Earth.

Guest speaker Catherine Delahunty has had a lifetime of working for justice. She is an ally and champion of the people of West Papua, who live under occupation.

Speaker:- Catherine Delahunty
Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

Catherine Delahunty © 19 April 2026

No text this week.

Meditation / Conversation starter

• What did you learn today?
• How will it affect what you do to live our values of Justice and Interdependence?

Links

Opening Words:- “West Papua: A freeman’s dream” by Krystal Selwood Juffa

Chalice Lighting:- “We Are Not Alone” Adapted from Michael DeVernon Boblett

Reading:- “The Buddha, the angry man, and the gift”

What if fear is not a flaw to be fixed, but an invitation to be answered? This sermon explores stories of courage – what it means to take trembling steps into the unknown and what holds us when we do. If you have ever stood at a threshold you did not choose, wondering whether you had what it takes to cross it, this one is for you.

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Keola Whittaker

Read below, or download the PDF

Follow this shortcut to the bottom of the page for the various readings, videos, etc. shared in the service.

Keola Whittaker © 19 April 2026

I. INTRODUCTION

Now picture the crowd in this story.

Jesus is passing through Jericho, and the whole city has come out to see him. It is loud and pressing and alive with anticipation. And somewhere at the edge of that crowd is a man named Zacchaeus — a tax collector, a collaborator, a man who has made himself comfortable by extracting money from his own people. Everyone knows who he is. Everyone knows what he’s done.

And this man wants to see Jesus. But he cannot get through. He is short, and the crowd — the very people he has harmed — are standing between him and what he is reaching for. So he does something that must have looked absurd: he runs ahead and climbs a sycamore tree.

I want you to hold that image. One of the most compromised men in town, up in a tree, alone above the crowd that has every reason to keep him out. Straining toward something he is not sure he deserves to see. Not knowing whether the door is open. Not knowing whether, if he came down, anyone would make room for him.