First Unitarian Church of Dallas

Easter Sunday
2026-04-05 09:30 - 12:00 (America/Chicago) | First Unitarian Church of Dallas, 4015 Normandy Ave., Dallas, TX, 75205, United States
A celebration of love, hope, and renewal! Invite your friends, family, and neighbors to join us for worship and our annual Egg Scramble. Be prepared for lots of beauty and special surprises this year.

Egg Scramble between services at 10:40am
Bring a basket and don’t be late!
Children 4 years and younger meet on the Preston playground.
Children Kinder – 3rd grade meet on the playground patio
Children 4th grade and over meet on the patio between the playground and Memorial Garden.

Multi-Generational Worship at 9:30am and 11am
Rev. Daniel Kanter is preaching and music will be provided by the Sanctuary Choir.

No Sunday School classes.

Livestream at 9:30am, 11am and 7pm.

Legacy Giving Informational Meeting
2026-04-12 12:30 - 13:30 | TX
Learn how legacy giving can sustain your values and your church into the future.
Presented by Martha Norton, Director of Finance and Stewardship
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Earth Day Sunday - 10th Anniversary
2026-04-19 10:00 - 12:30 | First Unitarian Church of Dallas, 4015 Normandy Ave., Dallas, TX, 75205, United States
Sunday, April 19, 2026
10 am – 12:30 pm in Channing Social Hall
Celebrate and learn with the Climate Action Team! Join us for a Native Plant Sale with Texas Conservation Alliance plus art sales, info tables, electric vehicle showcase, and family fun.

Spring Concert Series: Earth Day Concert with the Sanctuary Choir
2026-04-19 13:30 - 14:30 | First Unitarian Church of Dallas, 4015 Normandy Ave., Dallas, TX, 75205, United States
A program celebrating the Earth, featuring selections from Randall Thompson’s Frostiana and Nancy Galbraith’s setting of the Aurora Levins Morales poem Resurrection, which we commissioned and premiered in May of 2025.
In-person and streaming on dallasuu.org/live.
Click to register in Realm.

Creative Community Art Show - Reception
2026-04-25 14:00 - 17:00 | First Unitarian Church of Dallas, 4015 Normandy Ave., Dallas, TX, 75205, United States
Celebrate creativity at First Unitarian’s Creative Community Art Show and Sale! Enjoy an inspiring display of artwork, meet the talented artists behind the pieces, and find beautiful works to take home. It’s a wonderful opportunity to meet artists from the church and connect with our vibrant community. We hope to see you there!
Reception in Channing Hall
Saturday, April 25
2 PM – 5 PM
Show in Channing Hall
Sunday, April 26
9 AM – 1 PM

Creative Community Art Show - Sunday Show
2026-04-26 09:00 - 13:00 | First Unitarian Church of Dallas, 4015 Normandy Ave., Dallas, TX, 75205, United States
Celebrate creativity at First Unitarian’s Creative Community Art Show and Sale. Enjoy an inspiring display of artwork, meet the talented artists behind the pieces, and find beautiful works to take home. It’s a wonderful opportunity to meet artists from the church and connect with our vibrant community. We hope to see you there!
Reception in Channing Hall
Saturday, April 25
2 PM – 5 PM
Show in Channing Hall
Sunday, April 26
9 AM – 1 PM

A History of Race and Racism in Dallas, Part 1: Highlighting the Women who Fought for Equality and Equity in Dallas
2026-04-26 12:30 - 14:00 | Sanctuary, 4015 Normandy Ave, Dallas, TX, 75205, United States
Please join Jerry Hawkins, Director of Equity Initiatives, as he explores Part 1 of a chronological history of race and racism in Dallas, featuring stories, primary sources and event recaps. This presentation will highlight women in Dallas who struggled to make Dallas a more equitable city!

90 minute presentation with a 10 minute Q&A break in the middle and 20 discussion/Q&A at the end.

Click to register in Realm.

Childcare is available for this event. Please register in advance by clicking here.

Men's Retreat - Spring 2026
2026-05-07 18:00 - 21:00 | First Unitarian Church of Dallas, 4015 Normandy Ave., Dallas, TX, 75205, United States
We will join to discuss how to deepen supportive relationships in our lives and our communities. Retreat Leader Dave Snell will return to share some of us new findings about connection and community building. Dinner will be provided.

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Ken Cowan, Organ & Lisa Shihoten, Violin: Concert Celebrating the Walker Pipe Organ 35th Anniversary
2026-05-24 13:30 - 14:30 | Sanctuary, 4015 Normandy Ave, Dallas, TX, 75205, United States
Internationally celebrated organist Ken Cowan is joined by his wife, violinist Lisa Shihoten, for a recital commemorating the 35th anniversary of our Walker pipe organ.
About Ken Cowan
Regarded as one of North America’s finest concert organists and praised for his dazzling artistry, impeccable technique, and imaginative programming by audiences and critics alike, Ken Cowan maintains a rigorous performing schedule that takes him to major concert venues in America, Canada, Europe, and Asia.
Mr. Cowan has been a featured artist in recent years at national conventions of the American Guild of Organists in Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Houston. He has performed at many regional conventions of the AGO and has been featured at several conventions of the Organ Historical Society and the Royal Canadian College of Organists.
A native of Thorold, Ontario, Canada, Mr. Cowan received the Master’s degree and Artist Diploma from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, studying organ with Thomas Murray. Prior to attending Yale, he graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where he studied with John Weaver. Following initial studies with his father, David Cowan, his primary teacher during his high school years was James Bigham.
Numerous critically acclaimed compact disc recordings by Mr. Cowan are available. His most recent releases are Dynamic Duo, (Pro Organo), featuring Mr. Cowan and Bradley Welch in a program of works for duo organists, performed on the monumental Casavant organ at Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, TX and Ken Cowan plays The Great Organ (Pro Organo), recorded at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City. Many of Mr. Cowan’s recordings and live performances have been featured on the nationally distributed radio show PIPEDREAMS from American Public Media.
Mr. Cowan is currently Professor of Organ and head of the organ program at The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. He is additionally Organist and Artist-in-Residence at Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church in Houston, TX

About Lisa Shihoten
Violinist Lisa Shihoten enjoys an active career as a chamber musician, soloist, and teacher. She is a member of the prestigious New York City-based Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, where she appears regularly alongside some of the world’s most prominent musicians. Her solo appearances have included concerto performances under the direction of Kurt Masur, Robert Spano, and David Shallon. As a chamber musician and soloist, she has appeared in concert halls throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Her numerous awards include honors from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, the Caramoor Center’s Evnin Rising Stars program, the Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists, and the Paganini International Violin Competition. Her appearances at summer festivals have included the Caramoor Music Festival, the Ravinia Festival, the North Shore Chamber Music Festival, the Norfolk Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Verbier Music Festival. She regularly performs duo recitals throughout the U.S. with her husband, organist Ken Cowan. Upcoming engagements include solo appearances in China.
A native of Chicago, Ms. Shihoten earned her bachelor’s degree at The Juilliard School as a student of Dorothy DeLay and Masao Kawasaki, and her master’s degree from the Yale School of Music as a student of Peter Oundjian. After a decade on the violin faculty at Princeton University, she is currently a faculty violin instructor at the Michael P. Hammond Preparatory Program at Rice University in Houston. Ms. Shihoten is also a guest instructor at the Betty Haag Academy of Music in Chicago, where she has the great honor of working with her childhood violin teacher, Betty Haag-Kuhnke.

Meet & Greet Your Elected Church Leaders
2026-05-31 12:15 - 13:00 | First Unitarian Church of Dallas, 4015 Normandy Ave., Dallas, TX, 75205, United States
Sunday, May 31
12:15 – 1:00 pm
Don Krehbiel Music Center
The Nominating Committee invites members interested in exploring service on the Board, Nominating Committee or Endowment Committee to a special opportunity to meet and hear from our elected officials currently serving on these groups. This is your chance to engage, learn about their work, ask questions, consider serving and connect!
Click here to learn more about volunteer leadership at First Church.
CLICK TO REGISTER IN REALM.

Parish Meeting
2026-06-07 12:30 - 13:30 | First Unitarian Church of Dallas, 4015 Normandy Ave., Dallas, TX, 75205, United States
Click to register in Realm.
The Board of First Unitarian Church of Dallas invites you to join them on Sunday, June 7th at 12:30pm in the Sanctuary or on Zoom for the Parish Meeting. (Zoom link provided with registration.)
🍕There will be pizza before the meeting in Channing Social Hall.
Rev. Kanter will share updates about the work of the church and the Board will provide updates on their priorities for the coming year.
All are welcome – youth, adults, new members, friends of the church, people who have never been to a Parish meeting, and those who have attended for years. We hope to see you there.
Childcare is available during the Parish Meeting until 2:00 p.m. Pizza lunch is provided to all Meeting attendees, including their children. If your child needs snacks or food other than the pizza, please bring it with you. Paid caregivers will be ready to receive your child at the Nursery Desk shortly before Parish meeting begins. Please register in advance at this link.

The Political Theologies of Populism: Virtual Book Talk
2026-06-11 18:00 - 20:00 | TX
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Join us for a virtual book talk with Rev. Dr. Colin Bossen, discussing his new book “The Political Theologies of Populism.”
The Zoom link will be sent upon registration to the email address you used to register.
Click here to purchase the book from the publisher.
It is also available from Amazon, www.bookshop.org, and for order through local bookshops.
An excavation of populist movements in the US and their associated religious tropes.
In this work, author Colin Bossen argues that for over a century, American populist movements—even explicitly secular ones—have drawn on religious ideas and practices to infuse their politics and bring people together. Bossen explores Pan-African populism, white supremacist populism, and early twentieth-century pluralistic populism in the United States that coalesced into well-known, vastly different groups with a lasting presence in the American imagination: the Universal Negro Improvement Association (also known as the Garveyites), the Ku Klux Klan, and the Industrial Workers of the World (also known as the Wobblies). This book employs both historical analysis and political theory to unpack the trajectory of these groups and to illustrate how their respective search for belonging showcases as similar principles, despite their extremely different beliefs. This is a finding that, Bossen argues, exemplifies the mechanisms behind twenty-first-century politics, including the rise of Trumpism. This groundbreaking comparative analysis challenges readers to consider the repetition of history in today’s political landscape and shows them how to rise to the challenges of our current political moment.
About Colin Bossen
Rev. Dr. Colin Bossen is senior minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston and a visiting fellow with Harris Manchester College at the University of Oxford. He is the coauthor of Resistance and Transformation: Unitarian Universalist Social Justice History and author of the forthcoming publications American Populism and Unitarian Universalism and Unitarian Universality Theologies: A Global Study.

Screening of Wall-E
2026-06-18 18:00 - 20:00 | First Unitarian Church of Dallas, 4015 Normandy Ave., Dallas, TX, 75205, United States
As part of our Inspiration Sermon Series, we will screen Wall-E*, a film that explores resilience: our ability to survive hardship, reclaim what matters most, and imagine a better future. The film will be followed by a brief discussion.

Rev. T. J. will preach on these themes the following Sunday, June 21.

Register in Realm.

The Purifying Knife: The Troubling History of Eugenics in Dallas - Book Discussion & Signing
2026-06-21 12:30 - 14:00 | First Unitarian Church of Dallas, 4015 Normandy Ave., Dallas, TX, 75205, United States
First Unitarian Church of Dallas welcomes Michael Phillips and Betsy Friauf for a discussion with Rev. T. J. FitzGerald about their new book The Purifying Knife: The Troubling History of Eugenics in Dallas.
Sunday, June 21 in the Sanctuary
12:30 – 1:15: Discussion
1:15 – 1:30: Q&A Session
1:30 – 2:00: Book Signing
Click to register in Realm.
Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, 32 states passed laws allowing involuntary sterilization on those deemed biologically “unfit”: convicted criminals, the disabled, the poor, and people of color. Texas, despite a history of violent racism, was not one of them. In The Purifying Knife, Michael Phillips and Betsy Friauf explore this curious instance of the Lone Star State’s exceptionalism. The first history of the eugenics movement in Texas, it is a narrative that intersects with debates over race, immigration, abortion, the role of women in society, homosexuality, medical ethics, and the politics of disability in the state—debates resonating today in Texas and beyond.
From the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, Americans embraced eugenics. Yet the Texas legislature ultimately rejected nine of ten laws advocated by the state’s eugenicists and their predecessors. Phillips and Friauf trace this unlikely resistance to a variety of influences: wealthy cotton growers concerned that the anti-immigrant politics of the eugenics movement would deprive them of a source of easily exploitable labor; a populist distrust of higher education and the academic elites who enthusiastically supported the eugenics movement; and the forces of anti-Darwinist fundamentalism and pre-millennial dispensationalism in the 1920s, among others. The Purifying Knife also details how eugenical ideas survived long past their decline in the 1940s and have entered a disturbing afterlife in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
A thoroughgoing look into a rare case where the eugenics movement “failed” in spite of its power in the United States and around the world—while still wielding a toxic influence—Phillips and Friauf’s work offers insight into the history of the LGBTQ community, abortion, and immigration policies in Texas, and persuasively argues that the long arc of eugenics history has helped shaped contemporary politics in the Lone Star State.

About Michael Phillips:
Michael Phillips is a scholar of American racism, right-wing extremism, and apocalyptic religious beliefs. He covered crime as a reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram before earning his Ph.D.in history from the University of Texas at Austin in 2002.
He received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Texas at Austin in 2002. Based on his award-winning dissertation, his first book, White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001, won the 2007 Texas Historical Commission’s prize for best book on Texas history. He recently retired from teaching American history after a 20-year career as a professor.
Since then, he won a one-year senior research fellowship at Southern Methodist University. He has served as an historical consultant for and appeared in the award-winning documentary about the Kennedy assassination and its long-term impact on Dallas, City of Hate. He was also an adviser and appears in a series of short films about Dallas history, Recovering the Stories, periodically broadcast on Channel 13 and available on the KERA website.
In 2019, he won a Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies Community College research fellowship to examine the history of eugenics in Texas. As a result of that research, he most recently co-authored, with Betsy Friauf, The Purifying Knife: The Troubling History of Eugenics in Texas History, published by the University of Oklahoma Press on June 3.

About Betsy Friauf:
Betsy Friauf is a Fort Worth native and a UNT grad. She spent 30 years as a journalist, for the Denton Record-Chronicle and then the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. She then served as deputy chief communications officer for the Fort Worth city manager, senior communications specialist at the UNT Health Science Center and finally Children’s Hospital, Dallas and Plano.
In all these jobs as well as periods of freelancing, she was primarily a writer and editor on a variety of topics from breaking news to emergency instructions during tornadoes to the covid vaccine. Working with Michael Phillips she has won numerous awards as an independent scholar, including for the essay ““Those Boys Didn’t Learn to Hate Here”: Racial Violence in Texas, 1965-2020” which appeared in the book Steeped in a Culture of Violence: Murder, Racial Injustice, and Other Violent Crimes in Texas, 1965–2020, which won the Texas State Historical Association’s 2025 Gail and Chuck Swanlund Award for Best Texas History Anthology.
Now retired, Friauf is active in immigrant rights and resistance to fascism.
