Speaker:- Tenzin Chosang
Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh
Video to come
Audio to come
Tenzin Chosang © 13 July 2025
No text this week
All posts by Guest Post
A Refugee’s Story
What’s wrong with the growth economy? Pt 2
Systematic Extremes of Poverty and Wealth
Speaker:- Ruth Irwin
Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh
The rate of economic growth is set at 2-3%. Its a finely calibrated complex system of moving parts. As brand new money gushes out of private banks in the form of ex nihilo credit, it pools in “reservoirs of value.” This results in the rich getting extremely rich, and the poor losing the value of their labour to inflation. The economic growth model is exponential. It systematically produces extremes in wealth and poverty.
Video to come
Audio to come
Ruth Irwin © 8 June 2025
No text this week
What’s wrong with the growth economy? Pt 1
The engine of economic growth and climate change
Speaker:- Ruth Irwin
Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh
“Banks create credit ‛ex nihilo’ which means ‛out of nothing’. This brand new credit is the engine that forces economic growth into the system. Technological efficiencies are all absorbed and exceeded by growth. That means that new technology does not result in a reduction in climate emissions. Instead, there is an exponential increase in resource consumption. Understanding the banking industry is vital to begin to unwind the economic growth model, and its production of climate change.”
Video to come
Audio to come
Ruth Irwin © 1 June 2025
No text this week
Love beyond the Threshold
Speaker:- Keola Whittaker
Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh
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 © 20 April 2025
The autumn air has settled around us now, though I’ve noticed it’s been unseasonably warm. Just yesterday, I walked through Cornwall Park, watching the leaves turning color before drifting down to carpet the paths. I watched as a father and daughter played with the leaves together throwing the leaves in the air, crunching them under their feet, and enjoying the season. It struck me how different our experience is here – while people in the northern hemisphere celebrate Easter as spring bursts forth, we in Aotearoa mark this season amid autumn’s gradual transformation.
Continue reading Love beyond the ThresholdBeing a UU in India
Speaker:- Daniel Kanter
Worship Leader:- Viv Allen
Daniel Kanter is senior minister of the First Unitarian Church of Dallas, one of the largest UU churches in the USA, and author of the book, Faith for the Unbeliever.
In this second talk for us during his sabbatical visit to Aotearoa New Zealand, he will share his views on Unitarian Universalism in India, based on his recent visit to India as part of his sabbatical.
Video to come
Audio to come
No text this week
Meditation / Conversation starter
- What is the quality of your spiritual life?
What does it mean to be a UU? A Texas pastor’s perspective
Speaker:- Daniel Kanter
Worship Leader:- Shirin Caldwell
Daniel Kanter is senior minister of the First Unitarian Church of Dallas, one of the largest UU churches in the USA, and author of the book, Faith for the Unbeliever. He is visiting Aotearoa New Zealand as part of his sabbatical. In this talk, he will share his views on what being a Unitarian Universalist means to him.
Video to come
Audio to come
No text this week
Meditation / Conversation starter
- Many of us had our early experiences in different churches; but have chosen to join this church. What influenced your choice to come to the Auckland Unitarian Church either as a member or a visitor?
Links
Opening Words:- include “What is Success?” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Chalice Lighting:- “Different Yet United” by Pat Uribe-Lichty
Reading:- “Don’t Hesitate” by Mary Oliver
Closing Words:- “As we go forward” by Cheryl Block
Treaty Principles:- what are they and where are we going?
Speaker:- Zeo Haami
Worship Leaders:- Rachel Mackintosh and Betsy Marshall
Video to come
Audio to come
Read below, or download the PDF – to come
AUC © 15 December 2024
True to our Unitarian tradition of having an open pulpit, this past week we welcomed Zeo Haami as our speaker. Zeo is Community Organiser with Te Ohu Tāmaki, of which our church is a member.
In her address, Zeo highlighted the difference between Te Tiriti (as the agreement between Māori and the British Crown) and the Principles of the Treaty. To explain the difference, she used the analogy of marriage, where there are two key parts: the legal contract and the relationship. Te Tiriti can be seen as the legal contract while the Principles can be compared to the living relationship part of marriage.
After hearing Zeo, we had an opportunity to stand up for justice by making submissions on the Treaty Principles Bill currently before the New Zealand Parliament.
If you were unable to attend the service and/or the workshop, you still have an opportunity to learn about the Bill and make a submission. As the submission deadline of 7 January is fast approaching, please contact me for background information as well as tips on how to write one.
Submissions:
- can be made by anyone of any age
- only have to be a few bullet points
- can be made online at bit.ly/treatyprinciplesbill or handwritten.
Several members also have offered to make their submissions available as examples.
Betsy Marshall
Unitarian/ Te Ohu Working Group Member
betsy_marshall@icloud.com
Links
Listening for Your Own Truth
Speaker:- Ron Ahnen
Worship Leader:- Viv Allen
Follow this shortcut to the bottom of the page for the various readings, videos, etc. shared in the service.
Read below, or download the PDF
In this sermon, Ron Ahnen (Intern Minister at First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA) reflects on the nature of Truth and how we find especially our own personal truth.
Ron Ahnen © 24 November 2024
Truth. What’s the truth? Can you handle the truth?
I want the truth.
As you all know, we just finished an election in the U.S. with so many different candidates—not just presidential ones—putting forth many competing claims about what “the truth” is. The good news is that we’ve got fact-checkers and journalists all trying to help us sort out exactly what is and is not true. You might think it’s easier to find the truth these days, given that you can Google just about anything in a nanosecond. It turns out, finding out the truth is not so easy. In fact, it’s often really, really hard.
Continue reading Listening for Your Own TruthAnnie Jane Schnackenberg (nee Allen) New Zealand Fighter for Women’s Rights
Speaker:- Randolph Hollingsworth
Worship Leader:- Viv Allen
Follow this shortcut to the bottom of the page for the various readings, videos, etc. shared in the service.
From Viv Allen:-
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 nee Allen, 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 was very excited to find out that Randolph Hollingsworth had done a huge amount of research into Annie Jane’s life and written a thesis about her. I quickly got in touch with Randolph to find out more and was delighted to meet her as she now lives in Auckland. Randolph is now an independent scholar, who enjoys researching women’s history which is how she came to write about Annie Jane. Often in NZ we only hear about the main characters in history such as Kate Sheppard but there were many more women who helped fight for women’s rights. Now I’m going to let Randolph tell you more about this fascinating women, Annie Jane.
Randolph Hollingsworth © 15 September 2024
We’ve no text of the talk this week but Randolph has provided extensive notes by way of a draft PDF of the content of this talk.
Links
Opening Words:- “Equality” by Maya Angelou
Chalice Lighting:- is by Albert Schweitzer
Closing Words:- “Phenomenal Woman” by Maya Angelou