Coventry Unitarians

13/02/2025

Shiny new doors installed!

08/04/2023

We all went to our national meeting this year.

08/03/2023

Spiritual Not Religious: A new online group, open to everyone!

Would you describe yourself as spiritual but not religious? Outside of ‘traditional’ religious activities, there are many ways that people in Britain today enrich their spiritual lives - from yoga and meditation to creative projects, from walking, gardening, and serving others to simply being outside in nature. There is much we can learn from each other in exploring the ways in which we find meaning and transcendence in our everyday lives.

You are welcome to join our new monthly online gathering to explore these themes and build connections with others.

Come along and join us, via Zoom at 7pm, Wednesday 15th March. The first gathering will involve a discussion about what it might mean to be 'spiritual but not religious', between Rev. Mark Hutchinson and Rev. Laura Dobson. We will then move into a time for questions and a chance to share your experiences and thoughts. Future sessions will host other speakers with time for discussion and sharing.

Unitarian communities have a free and inquiring approach to religion and spirituality, with no doctrine or dogma, and an openness to continually evolving ways of gathering while drawing on wisdom from all sources; these values have been core to our ethos since our inception as part of the non-conformist Christian community 300 years ago and remain central now that Unitarians’ beliefs have expanded to include perspectives outside of Christian traditions.

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/94223648779?pwd=UEVkejhLQnkxV2VrMHU5THg2ZUJNdz09
Meeting ID: 942 2364 8779
Passcode: 3c9Pb1

Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and room systems. Zoom Rooms is the original software-based conference room solution used around the world in board, confer...

23/11/2022

Kieren and Jeffrey will be happy to talk about your wedding ideas.

Looking for somewhere special to tie the knot? 💒💍💕

Our weddings are very different; we don’t have a standard marriage ceremony. Instead, our talented ministers work with you to determine exactly what your wedding sounds, looks and feels like. We can provide a more traditional service if you like, but we’re equally happy providing a more innovative service.

There are over 160 Unitarian churches, chapels and meeting houses in the UK, so there’s almost certainly one near you, or where you’d like to get married.

Choose a Unitarian wedding venue and you will enjoy a truly unique celebration of your love.

Image: Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel

Find out more: http://ow.ly/gF5d50DTX0Q

31/10/2022

Radical Roots ❤️✊🏺

Josiah Wedgwood - English potter, entrepreneur, anti-slavery campaigner, grandfather of Charles Darwin, and founder of Wedgwood pottery.

Born in Staffordshire in 1730 into a family of potters, Josiah himself was a skilled potter by the age of nine. His family were Unitarians and he remained so throughout his life. Josiah became extremely wealthy, building a pottery empire which served the flourishing middle and upper classes as well as royalty, including Catherine The Great of Russia. His factory was progressive for its time, offering decent working conditions and an early form of sick-benefit plan.

Wedgwood was a prominent abolitionist, campaigning against slavery and mass-producing an image of a black slave in chains, asking "Am I Not a Man and a Brother?" - a popular image which came to symbolise the struggle for abolition.

He died at his home in 1795 and was buried in Stoke-on-Trent parish church.

Find out more about Josiah here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josiah_Wedgwood

09/10/2022

Our Harvest service display.

09/09/2022

Coventry City Council has cancelled all its Heritage Open Days events. They were planned to take place during these days of mourning for H M Queen Elizabeth.

Coventry Unitarian church will be open briefly on Saturday 10 September 2022, around 10 am for those who wish to come and share a quiet time. We will meet for our usual service at 11 am on Sunday.

20/08/2022

14/08/2022

White suffragists were fascinated by matriarchal power within tribes, but quickly forgot them by 1920. “The Indian woman rejoices with you,” one woman told Alice Paul, but she was quick to remind too that the fight was far from over. The 19th Amendment didn’t grant voting rights to Native women— at that point, they weren't even considered US citizens.
That woman who reminded Alice Paul was Zitkala-Ša (“Red Bird”), who spent her entire life straddling two cultures. Born and raised on a reservation in South Dakota, she was **taken by Quaker missionaries** to attend boarding school. Later, she wrote on her struggles with identity, the inner conflict she felt between the culture she came from, and the culture she was educated in— the joy of learning to read, write and play music, but also the pain of losing her heritage.
While studying at Earlham College and the New England Conservatory of Music, she began recording Native American oral histories and translating them into English. It was her belief that because many Indigenous customs were passed orally through music, opera would be a powerful way to share her cultural values with a new audience. So in 1913, she wrote the libretto and songs for the first Native American opera— composed in the romantic style, and based on a sacred Sioux dance deemed illegal by the US Government.
She argued that as the original people of America, indigenous people had a right to be citizens and be represented in government with the right to vote. Her relentless work in promoting a pan-Indian movement across all tribes for the cause of citizenship rights led to the passage of the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act. In 1926, she co-founded the National Council of American Indians, lobbying for Native suffrage rights. Her later books were amongst the first to bring traditional Native American stories to white audiences.
On International Women’s Day, it’s important to remember Zitkala-Ša’s call to remember Native women, and the full range of their political and cultural experiences.
🔥Visit and support our Native spirit products: 👇👇https://www.nativelocalshirt.com
-Thanks very much! The incredible history of Native Americans is full of things that are not in the books and are not taught in schools! Hope you can share with your friends so we can all learn from this post! ❤️