Sunday Talks / Random Musings

How many atheists does it take to change a lightbulb?

Sunday Talks / Random Musings
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David Hines

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David Hines © 19 November 2017

I’m relatively new to being an atheist. I took that step in my mind back in 1986 …. but it was mixed in with my Christianity….. and I didn’t join an atheist organisation till five years ago … so I’m speaking today as a learner. And I want to focus on what difference it makes to our lives. Because atheists, Christians, humanists, Jews have a lot in common, which is possibly more important than the things where they are different. Continue reading How many atheists does it take to change a lightbulb? →

Reclaiming the Common

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Rev. Clay Nelson

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Rev. Clay Nelson © 12th November 2017

This week has been an uncommon one for me. I spent the first three days as a guest speaker at the Sea of Faith Conference in Upper Hutt. I was joined by six members or friends of this congregation. The focus was on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. The structure was for each of the four keynote addresses to be followed by small group discussions of the questions raised by the talk. Continue reading Reclaiming the Common →

Flower Communion

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Rev. Clay Nelson

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Rev. Clay Nelson © 5th November 2017

Introduction to the Flower Communion Service

In 1870, in the last days that Czechoslovakia was ruled by the Austrians, a poor village tailor and his wife lived with their only son. They named him for the saint’s day he was born on, Norbert. The couple having little money for proper food or schooling, sent him to live with his Uncle Victor in Vienna. Continue reading Flower Communion →

Día de los muertos

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Rev. Clay Nelson

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Rev. clay Nelson © 29 October 2017

Decades before he was diagnosed with cancer, the late, great Unitarian preacher Forrest Church described religion as “our human response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die.”

Día de los muertos is a celebration of that reality. Continue reading Día de los muertos →

How many white lies is too many?

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David Hines

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David Hines © 22 October 2017

Introduction

I got a surprise recently to count how many white lies I had told in a single week, or deliberate evasions to keep people in the dark and my score was five. I should add a couple to that for the times when other people said things that were wrong; and I zipped my lip, and deliberately left them with a false impression, because the truth was not something I was not ready to talk about with those people.

And of course there have been dozens of these white lies in the media over the couple of months of the election campaign. Continue reading How many white lies is too many? →

Th’ whole worl’s in a terrible state o’ chassis

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Rev. Clay Nelson

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Rev. clay Nelson © 15 October 2017

As most of you know, Rachel and I took off for paradise last week to celebrate her birthday. We hoped to get off the grid on a 14-hectare island 45 minutes by boat from Nadi, Fiji. We weren’t disappointed. We did find paradise. Temperatures in the low 30s. Gentle tropical breezes. Sea turtles to feed. Excellent food served by a friendly staff. Coral gardens and a flamboyant tapestry of diverse fish feeding from them, oblivious to their face-masked observers. Time to read books with no obvious use for a future sermon, on hammocks strapped to coconut palms, interrupted only by colourful parrots squawking overhead.

Yes, it was paradise but, sadly, I must report it is nearly lost. They have Wi-Fi. Paradise is officially on the grid. Continue reading Th’ whole worl’s in a terrible state o’ chassis →

Relentless Positivity

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David Hines

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David Hines © 1 October 2017

Introduction

Its quite difficult trying to pick a sermon topic a month ahead, so Clay can put it onto the church noticeboard.
So a month ago I took a big gamble, and I thought, On October the first we will have had the election, but we still won’t know who is going to be the government. Continue reading Relentless Positivity →

Compassion: The Doorway to Faith

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Rev. Clay Nelson

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Rev. clay Nelson © 24 September 2017

I wrote this sermon prior to knowing yesterday’s election results. All I know is that those results will be very much on our minds this morning. It has been a roller-coaster campaign with leadership changes in three of the parties. Poll results shifted almost daily, sometimes dramatically, leaving confusion in their wake. There were the usual outbreaks of dirty politics and debates about what influence they would have on the final outcome. There were the debates about the debates and who “won”. But once the dust, or stardust, if you will, settles I believe historians will see this as the “compassion election”. Continue reading Compassion: The Doorway to Faith →