Spring planting season is here, and the All Souls Garden Team invites you to help grow something lasting through the Memorial Garden Legacy Tree Fundraiser.
For a minimum donation of $50, members and friends of All Souls can sponsor drought-hardy trees suited for Oklahoma landscapes. Trees can be planted at your home, delivered if needed, or placed on the All Souls campus as a memorial or tribute. Every donation supports the ongoing care and renewal of the All Souls Memorial Garden.
The project is supported by members of the Garden Team who have been working to restore and revitalize the church grounds, including the Memorial Garden. Among them is longtime member Terry Lastinger.
“As a hobby, I’ve been growing trees for about 30 years and giving them away,” Terry said. “When I moved into a condo with just a balcony, I decided to keep growing them—and eventually started bringing them here so they could find homes.”
The effort has grown into the Legacy Tree Project, now in its second year. Last year alone, trees from the project helped plant nine new trees on the All Souls campus, some grown from seeds or cuttings taken from trees already on church grounds.
“Some of the trees we planted actually came from seeds or cuttings from trees that already exist on campus,” Terry explained. “So in a way, we’re continuing their legacy.”
The trees offered through the project are selected specifically for Oklahoma’s climate and conditions.
“All of the trees we grow are hardy,” Terry said. “They’re drought tolerant, insect tolerant, and disease tolerant—trees that should last a long time.”
Terry Lastinger, All Souls Garden Team
In addition to planting trees at home, members can also choose to have a tree placed on the church campus in honor or memory of someone special. For those who would like help planting their tree, the All Souls Youth group has even volunteered to assist for an additional fee—turning the effort into another way to support the church community.
Ultimately, the project is about more than planting trees. It’s about caring for the land that holds our shared memories—spaces where people gather, reflect, and remember loved ones.
To explore available trees or sponsor one, visit: allsouls.me/trees.
You’re invited to celebrate All Souls Unitarian Church’s 105th birthday at this year’s Heritage Sunday on March 22. The entire congregation will gather for one combined service at 10:30 AM, followed by birthday cake and fellowship in Emerson Hall.
Heritage Sunday is a time to honor the people, stories, and milestones that have shaped All Souls over more than a century.
Founded in 1921, All Souls has long been a place where questioning minds, open hearts, and courageous spirits gather. Generations of members and friends have helped build a community rooted in justice, compassion, and the belief that love can transform the world.
On Heritage Sunday, we take time to remember that story. Through music, reflection, and shared celebration, we recognize the legacy that has been entrusted to us and the responsibility we carry to nurture it for future generations.
After the service, head to Emerson Hall for birthday cake and a chance to connect with friends, meet new people, and share in the joy of this congregation’s remarkable journey.
Whether you’ve been part of All Souls for decades or just recently found your way here, Heritage Sunday is a chance to celebrate the story we share—and the future we are building together.
This week we highlight musician and song writer Sarah Dan Jones. Sarah wrote Meditation on Breathing found in “Singing the Journey A Supplement to the Singing the Living Tradition” published by the Unitarian Universalist Association in Boston, Massachusetts. All Souls knows this song as “When I Breathe in.” David Smith often leads All Souls singing on Sunday mornings as a response to the prayer in our traditional service.
Sarah Dan was born and raised in Southern music and culture. She has shared her gifts for years in the Southeast and beyond. Active as a Unitarian Universalist musician for the past 13 years, her music has touched the lives of folks from congregations of 30 to General Assembly gatherings of 3000.
A true 'generalist', Sarah Dan employs and teaches piano, guitar, flute, djembe and voice while empowering people of all ages to find their voice and share their love of music.
Now living in Concord, New Hampshire, Sarah Dan teaches at a local studio and is active in the UUA community of the Northern New England District. She also is the Past President of the Unitarian Universalist Musicians Network, an organization of over 700 UU musicians members. She has traveled around the country presenting workshops and worship on the theme "Building Community Through Music."
Living in Northern New England, Sarah Dan is currently the Director of Music at Starr King UU Fellowship in Plymouth, New Hamshire. Sarah Dan received her B.A in Music Performance in 1998, from North Georgia College and State University, in Dahlonega, Georgia. She also has a degree in History (1983) from Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, Georgia.
Sarah Dan describes her mission is, “My mission is to spread the Unitarian Universalist faith through music, which I do by empowering congregational singing, shared ministry and active participation in the UUA.”
Details at a Glance:
About the Program
All Souls Day Alliance is excited to welcome this month's speaker, Malinda Blank. Malinda is the Executive Director of Tulsa Foundation for Architecture, and a Tulsa native who has devoted her life to the nonprofit arts management and museum worlds.
Before being appointed to her current role as the Executive Director of Tulsa Foundation for Architecture, she served as their archivist, overseeing the 60,000+ piece collection.
She is a practicing studio artist and one half of BlankHouse Collaborative. In her spare time, she enjoys knitting, cooking, canning, and spending time in the garden with her husband and dog.
The Tulsa Foundation for Architecture (TFA) is a 501c nonprofit organization which champions the art of good design and celebrates Oklahoma's architectural heritage. TFA conducts guided architectural tours, historic neighborhood tours, local artist exhibitions, and a wide variety of partnership programs focused on architecture and design. TFA continues to advocate for historic preservation.
Malinda will be the All Souls Day Alliance speaker on Thursday, March 19, 2026. Please RSVP by Monday, March 16, by emailing [email protected] Lunch begins at 11:30AM at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, OK (2952 S. Peoria Ave); Malinda will begin after lunch.
Day Alliance is our longest-standing group and offers closer fellowship through monthly luncheon meetings and programs over a variety of interests. Day Alliance also provides hospitality support for memorial receptions and donates to support All Souls.
Membership & Lunch
If you haven’t yet renewed your Day Alliance membership for the year, you can do so at the meeting.
Please RSVP to [email protected]
Details at a Glance
About the Event
When the world feels uncertain, singing can be both resistance and refuge — a way back to each other when we’re tempted to feel helpless or alone.
On Thursday, February 19, All Souls Unitarian Church invites EVERYONE - Tulsa-area musicians, churches, community choirs, and all our neighbors - to the Tulsa Choral Resistance Sing: an evening of beautiful choral music, hymns, and protest songs centered on peace, love, unity, and community.
As Dr. Randall Hooper, Music Director at All Souls, puts it: in times of unrest, many of us feel isolated — and singing together is a form of healing. This gathering creates space to breathe, connect, and raise our voices together.
There’s no rehearsal. We’ll simply gather in the Sanctuary and sing as one choir.
Sing In Person or Online
We are excited to stream this event on Facebook, YouTube, and our website. If you can't make it in person, we invite you to sing from wherever you are (and even ask some friends to join).
What We'll Sing
A set of choral works that speak to love and community, including:
Bring your voice — and bring a friend. Whether you sing every week or haven’t sung in years, you’re welcome here.
Details at a Glance
About the Event:
Join us for an evening of Broadway-style music performed by All Souls members and friends—an easy, welcoming way to spend time together and celebrate the creativity that lives in our community.
Whether you’re a longtime music-lover or just looking for a warm and fun night out, you’re invited! Come for the show, stay for the connection (and dessert-theatre).
No tickets required—just show up and enjoy.
Details at a Glance
About the Event:
Leadership at All Souls isn’t about having all the answers—it’s about showing up, building trust, and helping us live our values together. This daylong retreat is a chance to deepen relationships, widen collaboration, and grow practical leadership skills—all grounded in our UU values and our covenant to help one another.
Come ready to connect, reflect, and discover what it can look like to build beloved community—together. All are welcome, whether you’re brand new to leadership or looking to grow in it.
Participants will:
Register now at allsouls.me/leadership.
As we move through Black History Month, we’re invited not only to remember history, but to listen for it—especially in the music that helped carry a people through it.
This Sunday, February 15, our Adult Choir and Chamber Choirs will offer two spirituals arranged by composer and educator William Levi Dawson (1899–1990) in both the 10:00 and 11:30 A.M. services:
Spirituals are a genre of sacred folk music associated with Africans enslaved in America. They include “sing songs,” work songs, and plantation songs that helped shape later traditions like blues and gospel.
While many spirituals draw from biblical stories, they also speak plainly about lived reality—suffering, separation, endurance, longing, and the stubborn insistence that life can be more than what oppression allows.
Originally, spirituals were an oral tradition, passed from one generation to the next—memorized, adapted, and shared in community. After emancipation, many lyrics were published in print, and ensembles such as the Fisk Jubilee Singers(founded in 1871) helped popularize spirituals for wider audiences.
Over time, Black composers and arrangers—among them William Dawson—created what has been called a “new repertoire for the concert stage,” bringing Western classical training into conversation with a tradition born in bondage and held in community.
In The Spirituals and the Blues, theologian James Cone describes spirituals as “songs about black souls”—music through which enslaved people created a new style of worship and a new way of surviving.
Cone writes that through song, people “shouted and prayed; preached and sang,” because they had encountered a new reality—a God not confined to the theology and institutions of white churches. He also notes something profound: while the biblical story tells of a people unable to sing in a strange land, for Black people in slavery, being depended upon a song.
Spirituals, Cone says, provided “both the substance and the rhythm to cope with human servitude,” helping people retain a measure of African identity while building “new structures for existence in an alien land.”
That’s part of what makes spirituals especially meaningful to sing and hear during Black History Month: they are living history—truth-telling and hope-holding at the same time.
They carry grief and grit, but also humor, courage, imagination, and the sound of a people refusing to be reduced.
William Levi Dawson played an integral role in bringing spirituals into choral contexts that historically excluded Black musical traditions.
In 1912, Dawson ran away from home to study music full-time at the historically Black Tuskegee Institute, where he worked to pay tuition and participated in the choir, band, and orchestra—traveling with the Tuskegee Singers before graduating in 1921. He continued advanced study in music theory and composition, and in 1931 he organized and led Tuskegee’s School of Music, developing the Tuskegee Institute Choir into an internationally renowned ensemble.
Dawson’s choral catalog includes brilliant reimaginings of more than two dozen spirituals—music widely performed for its rhythmic vitality, rich textures, and deep understanding of what voices can do together. His arrangements don’t treat spirituals as museum pieces; they sound like living breath and living community—layered, responsive, and alive with motion.
As you listen this weekend, you might notice how these two pieces hold different energies.
Soon-ah Will be Done leans toward release and longing—a prayer for deliverance from “the troubles of the world.” Ain’-a That Good News carries a bright, forward-driving joy—like hope breaking through with confidence and movement.
Together, they offer a wide emotional range, held by a tradition that has always known how to make room for both sorrow and celebration.
May this music meet you where you are—and carry us, together, into something deeper.
Details at a Glance:
About the Event
Join us for a community evening full of friendly competition, great food, and plenty of laughs—while supporting the All Souls Youth Department, at the 2026 Chili Cook Off and Bingo Night at All Souls!
Compete as a Chili Cook
Have a signature recipe (or a secret family classic)? Enter the cook off and bring your best chili for the community to taste. Sign up to cook at allsouls.me/chilicook
Attend as a Taster
Come hungry, sample the chilis, vote for your favorites, and stay for bingo. Registrants can also bring named guests. Register and pre-purchase tickets at allsouls.me/chili.
When you register, you’ll be able to pre-purchase your tasting options:
Reserve your spot (and your chili) today and support the All Souls Youth program.
Details at a Glance:
About the Trainings
Fellowship Congregational Church (UCC) and Fellowship Lutheran are offering two trainings with the ACLU of Oklahoma focused on equipping allies to support and advocate for our immigrant neighbors.
These sessions will provide practical tools, resources, and space for community questions. The first training on February 12 is a “Know Your Rights” training on immigration led by ACLU-OK attorney Travis Handler, designed to help participants better understand immigration rights and what it can look like to show up as a supportive presence in the community.
You’re welcome to attend one or both trainings.
