Staff Team

Our staff team is a group of leaders who serve our community together as friends and equals, bringing their passion and experience from other areas to this work. Using their gifts and training, they support a community of co-ministers working together to embody Christ's transformative Kin-dom.

    Rebecca Hewitt-Newson, Pastor

    Rebecca grew up in Virginia, then studied at Elon University and Wake Forest University School of Divinity. Before coming to Emmaus Way in 2020, she was a hospital chaplain in Los Angeles and a children's minister in North Raleigh. 


    As a pastor at Emmaus Way, Rebecca brings passion for the ways that adults and children can learn and grow together through embracing common joys, igniting imagination, and working alongside each other to build just and loving community. Rebecca lives in South Durham with her husband, Ryan, and two children, Atticus and Isaac. 

    Molly Brummett WUDEL,Pastor

    As co-pastor of Emmaus Way, Molly focuses her time on curating the weekly worship gathering, creating space for theological and spiritual formation, cultivating deeper community relationships, facilitating our artist residency, serving on Durham CAN's strategy team & clergy caucus, and visioning alongside staff and lead teams. In addition to pastoring at Emmaus Way, Molly lectures on dialogical preaching, and has been a teaching assistant within the Department of Homiletics at Duke Divinity. She also serves on Wake Forest University School of Divinity's Board and The Alliance of Baptist's Board.


    Molly is the recipient of Baptist Women in Ministry’s Addie Davis National Award for Excellence in Preaching (2013), and is published in The World is Waiting on You: Celebrating the 50th Ordination Anniversary of Addie Davis (2014) and Believe the Women: A Journey of Liberation with Alliance of Baptists' Women (2019). 


    Molly lives in Durham with her husband, James, and their daughter George. 

    Claire Shelnutt, Youth Minister

    Claire Shelnutt is a third year MDIV at Duke, studying Christian Education and the intersection of theology and the arts. She hails from Athens, Georgia, where she attended UGA and studied Art History. Since beginning at Duke Div, Claire has been a children’s teacher at Emmaus Way, then our ministerial intern, and now the Youth Director. Claire likes coffee, knitting, and hanging out with her two cats, Utah and C.S. Lewis. 


    Lead team

    Lead Team is a governing body of lay leaders drawn from and representative of the co-ministers of Emmaus Way. Lead Team serves its fellow ministers by facilitating Emmaus Way's community and missional life, and overseeing the finances and logistics of our community. 


    2024 Lead Team Members

    Year Three: Dave Thiessen, Elan Hope

    Year Two: Phil Jakes (Lay Leader), Amanda Haas, Nidia Flores-Bayne

    Year One:  Zach Hutchinson, Martín Witchger, Dave Efird

      Artist in residence

      Adam Barnard has been making music since he was 14. He’s gotten to play with a wide range of artists in Texas and North Carolina. His latest projects have focused on themes of class, capitalism, and that persistent and unrelenting yearning for a more livable world. When he’s not making noise in front of folks, he’s usually hanging with his son, Townes or trying to make something cool happen at Jubilee Music Hall.