Jenkin Lloyd Jones, had served as secretary of the Western Unitarian Conference and founded All Souls Church in Chicago;[4] and William Rea (W. R.) Holway, an engineer who was instrumental in the development of Tulsa's water resources.

The group, originally calling itself All Souls Liberal Church, met at Tulsa's City Hall, Jones's house, Temple Israel, and the Majestic movie theater before erecting their own building at 14th and Boulder in 1930 and 1931.

He became prominent as a liberal activist in Tulsa's predominantly conservative politics, and his church grew to become the largest Unitarian congregation in the world.

The Tulsa Council of Churches (TCC) had previously excluded groups whose beliefs did not coincide with those held by the majority of its members.

[2][9][10][11] In 1974 All Souls began a broadcast ministry, initially known as Univision, that included a multipart series hosted by Wolf called Faith in the Free Church.

[17] Not only did he study the main religions along the route (Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity), he searched out Unitarian-related communities on Negros island in the Philippines, in the Khasi Hills of Northeast India, and in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania.

Then he was sent as pastor to the North Shore Unitarian Church in Deerfield, Illinois, where he became better known throughout the UUA for developing the "Soulful Sundown Service", designed to attract young people.

[18][19] Lavanhar presided over the 2004 memorial service for Fern Holland, a Tulsa lawyer and human rights activist who was the first U.S. civilian to be killed in the Iraq War.

[2][22][23] In the summer of 2008 the church rented space to New Dimensions, the congregation of Carlton Pearson, a prominent evangelist, former protégé of Oral Roberts, and bishop of the Church of God in Christ, who was declared a heretic by a group of Pentecostal bishops[24] for preaching his "Gospel of Inclusion", a message that salvation is afforded to all persons including non-Christians.

[25][26] At the end of the summer, Bishop Pearson dissolved New Dimensions and invited the members of his congregation to join him in signing the membership book at All Souls, and to enroll their children in the church's religious education program.

[27] The influx of new members received attention for the concurrent move to introduce a worship liturgy with the livelier, predominantly African-American Pentecostal style of Pearson's followers during one of the church's two Sunday services.

The block, donated by three families who have been long-time members of the congregation, is bounded by Frankfort and Kenosha avenues and Sixth and Seventh streets.