Emmaus Way Church

Emmaus Way is a holistic, missional Christian community meeting in the Brightleaf area of downtown Durham, NC. We gather Sundays at 5pm at the Reality Center, located at 916 Lamond Ave., Durham, NC 27701.

The tone of our worship gatherings is very relaxed. We meet in the round and practice a dialogue style of "sermon" conversations. Our style of music could be called a fusion of contemporary acoustic & folk alternative, but includes music drawn from a variety of sources and centuries. We've made a commitment to supporting local, professional musicians and have a remarkably gifted community of musicians who play during our Sunday evenings together. The worship gathering, though casual, is liturgically shaped by the rhythms and organization of a typical "mass." We celebrate an open table Eucharist at every gathering.

The founding dreams of Emmaus Way included being missional/activistic and building common lives shaped by hospitality. In terms of mission and activism, we hoped that the "doing of church" would not prevent our community from being deeply involved with the work of justice, compassion, community building, and hope in Durham. We also hoped to not see ourselves as always the initiative-takers or creators of this work. To this end, we have a number of diverse and deeply valued partnerships in this work, including Durham CAN (Congregations, Associations, & Neighborhoods), Reality Ministries, ABC (Antioch Builds Community, a partnership with Antioch Baptist Church), and Africa Rising.