Brief History

St. Thomas More Parish has a long history backing up to the year 1973 since its first construction date and has come a long way ever since. It was in 1973 when St. Thomas more began with only 98 families who would gather together for worship in the premises of Walt Disney Elementary school under the guidance of Father Bernard Jewitt.

As the community continued to grow, it was no longer possible to gather at Walt Disney Elementary, for which the first part of the construction of the church broke ground and it wasn’t until Palm Sunday March 30, 1975 that the first community of St. Thomas More celebrated its first mass in its new building.

As the Parish continued to grow so its staff and buildings. In 1978 the front office area and northside classrooms were added. In 1978 St. Thomas More had over 900 families enrolled and growing for which the Chapel and day care building were added to complete the complex in 1982.

St. Thomas More has had amazing pastors since it was founded. It was in August of 2008 when father Samuel Perez took over as Pastor of St. Thomas More. It sure was a challenge due to many repairs that had to be done to the entire buildings, but with his leadership and the help of good stewards and parishioners the building of St. Thomas More have been fixed and upgraded to its best of its capacity.

Registered Members

The Parish comprises of mostly of a Hispanic Spanish-speaking community, Anglo English-speaking community, and a small number of Vietnamese, Chinese and Micronesian speaking community. According to parish records we have presently 1,386 fully registered family members with home addresses not only from Tulsa but also from vicinity cities such as Bixby, Broken Arrow, Catoosa, Claremore, Coweta, Haskell, Inola, Jenks, Owasso, Mounds, Sand Springs and Wagner to name just a few.

Even though our records only show 1,386 families registered, there is way too many other families who have not registered especially within our Hispanic community. The Hispanic community do come to mass weekly and attend parish activities and are actively involved in parish ministries, but unfortunately most of them are not accustomed to register and belonging to one certain parish.

St. Thomas More receives approximately about five thousand parishioners every Sunday.

Building and Grounds

A couple years back improvements started to take place within the complex of the church buildings and grounds. The two most recent constructions to the Parish has been the newly build Rectory and the expansion of the parking lot.

Church:a new entrance was added in the southside of the main church, allowing the flow of traffic to enter and leave the building more efficiently and to main safety standards with the city of Tulsa in case of an emergency.

Chapel:The chapel received a makeover, upgrading the altar façade, adding new lighting in the altar and adding new decorative ceiling beams.

Office:A new reception and waiting area was built in the front main office to better serve the needs of parishioners.

Grounds: The parking lot has been expanded following all safety measures advised by the city of Tulsa.

Parish Activity Center:The former Henderson Hall now Our Lady of Guadalupe Conference Center, received a major makeover from new floorings, new ceiling vaults and lighting. New chairs and tables were also purchased thanks to the generosity of the Parishioners.

Rectory:St. Thomas More did not count with a rectory in the complex premises but in 2015 that changed with the construction of the new rectory.