Weekly Update 13th June – 20th June

Greetings to you all.

This email contains: 

A link for the Morning Service of Mindful Meditation, Music & Conversation
Important notice of the Life of the Church Zoom Meeting, Wednesday, 17:00
“Talking about Compassion” — a link to the “People So Bold” podcast in which one of our members, Aisha Madha, a professional trainer, is interviewed by Lizzie Kingston-Harrison (the GA Community Connections Lead, who has also been taking some of our services whilst the minister was on sabbatical
A link to the recording of the minister’s third session for the International Association for Religious Freedom’s Free Religion Institute, exploring the practical dimensions of Imaoka Shin’ichiro’s free-religious approach.
Links to the minister’s address/podcast
A link for the Thursday morning/evening Zoom “Kiitsu Kyōkai” Seiza Meditation & Conversation Meeting. The next meeting is on Thursday 19th June at 19:30-21:00
A link to additional national Unitarian news

A link for the Morning Service of Mindful Meditation, Music & Conversation

Our regular Sunday Morning Service of Mindful Meditation, Music and Conversation starts in the church on Emmanuel Road at 10.30 am and finishes at 11.30/11.40 am. Should you wish to join this by Zoom, please note the following new, permanent link:

Join Sunday Morning Zoom Meeting

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86882949446?pwd=kliXbdABEfbU8FjDMtNRNJ4Lr2lb5z.1

Meeting ID: 868 8294 9446
Passcode: 612407

Important notice of the Life of the Church Zoom Meeting, Wednesday, 17:00

Alongside our ongoing work thinking through how to use/reuse our buildings, is the equally important work on better understanding who we are as a contemporary free-religious community and what it is we offer, and do. I hope it is obvious to all that we mustn’t ever our let our building redevelopment project unduly shape our spirituality, rather, our spirituality must actively shape the redevelopment of our buildings.

As part of this process, during the pandemic, and in the three years following, we spent many, many hours together in conversation (both on Zoom and face-to-face) about who we are, what it is we offer and do, and we have achieved two extremely important things.

The first is the change we made in the way we meet together on a Sunday morning by adapting our long-standing evening service of mindful meditation, music and conversation to include a song/hymn and a short address/thought for the day, and the twin centres of gravity our morning service now moves around are meditation and the sharing of ideas that unfold into an ongoing, thoughtful conversation. The morning service sits, remember, alongside our Thursday Kiitsu Kyōkai (Returning-to-One Gathering) Zoom meetings of Seiza Meditation and conversation about free-religion, which have a more international reach than most of the Sunday services.

The second is visible via the extensive redesign of the church website that clearly centres on our own articulation of Imaoka Shin’ichirō-sensei’s “Principles of Living.” These principles (alongside the change in service style) have helped to clarify the basis of our congregation’s unity, and they now stand as a confident statement of our guiding principles and shared purpose as a free-religious community.

That’s a wonderful achievement, and it represents our current stable and settled spiritual/religious offer to the city of Cambridge and the wider world. But, what we now need to do together, is begin to talk about how, rooted in this basic offer, we now nuance and develop this in other ways. To this end there will be a Life of the Church meeting on Zoom on Wednesday 18th June, 17:00-18:00, to get this process going. The gentle agenda for this initial meeting will be:

1) A short report/reflection from the minister, Andrew Brown, about his international free-religious work during the first half of his sabbatical in April and May. A fuller report can be read at this link:

https://andrewjbrown.blogspot.com/2025/05/a-wider-fellowship-free-religion.html

2) A short report/reflection from those who ran the services during Andrew’s sabbatical.

3) A few initial thoughts about how to use June and July to prepare for August and September, when Andrew is away on the second half of his sabbatical.

4) To talk about how to structure the next set of Life of the Church conversations, to be run more regularly than before, over the next couple of years.

And here is the Zoom link for this meeting:

Topic: Life of the Church Meeting
Time: Jun 18, 2025 17:00 London
Join Zoom Meeting

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85018141022?pwd=29np73mtTIaDkhOkgIwp1LaAlm7aJn.1

Meeting ID: 850 1814 1022
Passcode: 600371

“Talking about Compassion” — a link to the “People So Bold” podcast in which one of our members, Aisha Madha, a professional trainer, is interviewed by Lizzie Kingston-Harrison 
In the latest People So Bold podcast, Lizzie Kingston-Harrison (our GA Congregational Connections lead) talks to Aisha Madha, a professional trainer (and member of Cambridge Unitarians) about self-compassion, reminding us that “the more self-compassionate you are, the more compassionate you are”. That is an important message that often gets lost, especially when we are feeling overwhelmed by current events.  

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1fDx1W45FFpPsMRohjoyrj?si=N2fBurJ4QKGg-Uajufb2Cg

A link to a recording of the minister’s third session (and the previous two) for the International Association’s for Religious Freedom’s Free Religion Institute exploring the practical dimensions of Imaoka Shin’ichiro’s free-religious approach. Wednesday 8th June at 08:00

https://andrewjbrown.blogspot.com/2025/03/imaoka-shinichiro-1881-1988three.html

Links to the minister’s address/podcast:

In written form at:
https://andrewjbrown.blogspot.com

Or as podcast episodes at:

A link for the Thursday morning/evening Zoom “Kiitsu Kyōkai” Seiza Meditation & Conversation Meetings:

This coming Thursday, being the fifth Thursday of the month, there is no Kiitsu Kyōkai meeting but, below, is the usual reminder for the following weeks.

“Kiitsu Kyōkai” Seiza Meditation and Conversation Meetings on Zoom
1st and 3rd Thursdays of the month: 7.30-9 pm
2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month: 10.30 am-12 noon
No meetings on any 5th Thursday

For more information, please visit:

https://andrewjbrown.blogspot.com/p/kiitsu-kyokai.html
https://www.cambridgeunitarian.org/evening-service/

Join Thursday Zooms at the same link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85775868333?pwd=LEuyKnfbRJORbqsuzkhsonHui4ttwA.1
Meeting ID: 857 7586 8333
Passcode: 970614

For additional national Unitarian news, please click on the following link:

Uni-news:

https://us20.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=1590ea5f53cdc6fb8a17c311c&id=7bce4a21b7

Every best wish as always,

Andrew

Andrew James Brown

(Days off are generally Monday and Tuesday)

Minister
Cambridge Unitarian Church
Emmanuel Road
Cambridge
CB1 1JW
07477 462 110 (Mobile)

http://www.cambridgeunitarian.org/

Blog—Caute
http://andrewjbrown.blogspot.com

Podcast—Making Footprints Not Blueprints
https://footprints.buzzsprout.com