Worship and Music

Composed of inspiring words and stirring music, our services seek to provide spiritual sustenance for our living.

Worship

Join us for worship on Sunday mornings at 10:30 in person and online. Composed of inspiring words and stirring music, our services seek to provide spiritual sustenance for our living.

Our worship theme changes on the first Sunday of the month and then woven throughout the month via the Time for All Ages, readings, music or reflections from the worship associates.  We use them to frame Adult Spiritual Development programs and Children’s Religious Education programming.

A woman and a man on a stage in a church, with the woman at a lectern and the man in front of a microphone, both with eyes closed and hands raised as if in prayer. Flowers are visible at the front left of the stage.

Vespers

People gathered in a church or hall for a memorial service or prayer, some bowing their heads in prayer, with a woman at a table lighting a candle and a musician playing guitar in the background.

We gather monthly for a Vespers service, on the second Wednesday of every month (September through June) at 7:30 pm. Vespers is modeled after the traditional Taizé worship service which uses silence, scripture, prayer, and repetitive singing of short chants and rounds to quiet the mind and promote deep meditation. The Vespers service also meets online via Zoom. 

The Taizé community, an ecumenical monastic order in France, was founded in 1940 to promote peace and justice through prayer and meditation. This All Souls Vespers service mirrors Taizé-style attention to silence, holy words, prayer, and singing, but has also evolved to include other meditative traditions such as yogic singing and Buddhist chanting. For more information, please contact MJ Crom.

For those whose worship style is even more meditative, Mindful Souls meet weekly at the church for meditation followed by discussion.

Music

A choir of diverse individuals singing in a church, with a woman in a green sweater and earrings in the foreground, and a woman conducting stands on a raised platform behind them.

Throughout the history of the church, music has played a central role in the life of All Souls. Whether the All Souls Choir, one of the first multiracial choirs in Washington; the founding of the Jubilee Singers by Sweet Honey in the Rock member, Ysaÿe M. Barnwell; the installation of the historic Rieger organ; the voices of children and youth, the “By Your Side Singers” congregational care choir, or the robust congregational singing on Sunday mornings, music is a tool of opening the heart and connecting with values and precepts of Unitarian Universalism. You are invited to find your place in All Souls music ministries.