On April 17th in Birmingham I had the honour of being the worship leader at the Anniversary Service of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches. I have no doubt – not least as I am currently still a ‘Probationary Minister’ – that I owe this honour particularly to the Rev Dr Maria Curtis who had in turn been chosen to preach the Anniversary Service. It proved to be a highly enjoyable collaboration, albeit one focused on matters of the utmost importance – thank you Maria.

A video of the service has been provided by UK Unitarian TV and you can find it on YouTube here. Thank you to everyone who took part.

Maria’s sermon is the focal point of the service and can be found in text form here.

The music, provided predominantly by Rev Cody Coyne and Catherine Coyne, and the GA Anniversary Scratch Band was marvellous and inventive and thank you to all who played and sang as part of that effort.

There was a fantastic re-visioning of an old myth ‘The Oak King and the Holly King’, adapted by Maria and told by Rev Lindy Latham with assistance from the GA kids and Youth Officer Gavin Howell. This can be found on the video at the 17m10s point.

The reading was given by Sue MacFarlane, sometime Green candidate for elections in Derbyshire, and a member of Belper Unitarian Chapel, my ‘home’ Chapel. It is from a book called The Universe Story in Science and Myth by Greg Morter and Niamh Brennan, published by GreenSpirit, and, as a text that guided much of our thinking about the service, I thoroughly recommend it.

My own contributions were the ‘glue’, though I would strongly urge Unitarian worship leaders (and perhaps those of other faith traditions too) to at least consider the suggestion I make regarding incorporating a regular ritual ‘Tending the Earth‘ into their worship. The idea is free to use and adapt once the basic principle is grasped.