TRIANGLE AREA CHURCHES
attended by Duke CMDA students/residents/docs
Orientation for new students to the Christian Community
in Durham, Chapel Hill, and Raleigh
These churches all have Duke CMDA students/residents/docs who attend, so you can contact them to attend a service or find out more:
Blacknall Presbyterian Church:
Description:
Blacknall Memorial Presbyterian Church is an evangelical congregation in the PCUSA. Begun as a church plant in the early 1900s, Blacknall has shifted from a blue-collar mill church to a thriving congregation with a broad range of ages and educational backgrounds. There is a large community of medical practitioners within the congregation. Blacknall is marked by rich, genuine worship, biblical preaching and deep community.
Contact:
Website:
Steve Hinkle (919-452-6788)
(Tons of Duke doctors/attendings/residents also attend this church)
Chapel Hill Bible Church:
Description:
CHBC is a non-denominational, large, vibrant Christian church located between Chapel Hill and Durham. It has a young congregation, filled with plenty of college/graduate students, professors, and familiesfrom Duke and UNC. It also has several international mission teams each year, many guest-speaker and guest-artist events, and volunteer involvement in the local community.
Services:
Sunday services includea time of worship (including contemporary music), multimedia presentations, and a relevant message based on scripture. Services meet at 260 Erwin Road in Chapel Hill at 9:30 & 11:05am. There are also several Young Adults groups which meet on Sundays at 11:05am in a room adjacent to the chapel; these groups get together oftenfor social events and fellowship(trips to Mapleview Farms Ice Cream, movie nights, concerts, hiking and camping trips, Chapel Hill Art Walks, etc).
Contact:
Duke Chapel:
Description:
-Traditionally a Methodist university chapel, but now withan Anglican dean, Reverend Canon Sam Wells. Dean Wells and the other three ministers, Rev. Craig Kocher, Rev. Nancy Ferree-Clark, and Rev. Keith Daniel, preach approximately 2/3 of Sundays
through the year, with well-known Christian speakers preaching the remainder of the year. It has the largest university church worship attendance in the nation.
-The main Sunday service is a combination of Episcopal and “high” Methodist styles, and it has the widely acclaimed Chapel choir throughout the university academic year.
-Mission: 'Keeping the Heart of the University Listening to the Heart of God'. This is the official mission-of-the-chapel headliner, and they really do a wonderful job of it. The chapel strives to not only serve the congregation that's a mix of the local Durham population as well as University-associated faculty/staff/students, but also really tries to
find out how the chapel can have an impact on the University and how the University can have an impact on the non-University affiliated Durham community (see Pathways program and other community service opportunities)
-Mission opportunities: local and world missions committees, along with several others for congregation members, as well as a newly formed graduate student group begun Spring 2007
-Services: Main service at 11:00 am on Sundays, and 5:30pm student-focused service in Goodson Chapel. Communion held every other week during main service.
-Special Events for Students: Welcome Sunday for all students held in late
August annually, with a lunch on the Chapel lawn provided. The Graduate
Student committee will also offer lunches and breakfasts throughout the year.
-Numerous special services throughout the calendar year, including noon services
during Holy Week, a Service of Footwashing, a Stripping of the Altar on Maundy
Thursday, Stations of the Cross and a Service of Tenebrae on Good Friday, an
Easter Vigil, a Christmas Eve service, a service of Lessons and Carols during
Advent, weekly Vespers on Thursday afternoons with parts of the chapel Choir, etc.
- Church Members: Again, a mix of community members, faculty/staff and students. There are a good number of graduate students that attend service, but they are just beginning to pick up the grad student ministry again. For a few years there was a Sunday School for graduate students, but interest waned. Now they are trying several different
options, including service opportunities, after-service fellowship lunches, before-service breakfasts, etc. A great time to get involved!
- Minister: Dean Wells, really a fabulous speaker and a wonderful thinker and interpreter of the Bible with incredible knowledge of historical and contemporary Christian faith. Although I have considered leaving the Chapel for a smaller church community (it's only real con), Dean Wells has a wonderful way of really challenging you to think about what you believe and why, and how that impacts your life. I found that after a while, if you put forth the effort to get to know Craig Kocher (assistant
Dean), Megan, and other Chapel assistants, the community becomes much more tight-knit.
Contact:
Joel Boggan, MSIII+, .
Emmaus Way Church Fellowship:
Description:
Emmaus Way is a friendly, personal, inter-denominational Christian community that meets at 5pm on Sundays. We are committed to service, whole-life expression of worship, social justice, and supporting each other in faith, family, friends, and profession. We are a fellowship marked by hospitality, and we hope to be a community for life instead of one defined by programs and events. In our weekly sermons (more like conversations than didactic lesions), our pastor Tim Conder stimulates us to think about different aspects of Scripture, Jesus and the Disciples’ roles within their historical context, the responsibilities/callings of Christians today, etc. On Thursday nights at 8pm, we also have a pub/book group that gathers at Dain’s Place on 9th Street to discuss the intersections of theology, life, and social issues. We are also regularly active in many local service projects such as field gleaning, work with Durham CAN, refurbishing/gifting computers with the Kramdon Institute, running a summer camp for middle schoolers, and many more. We are a fairly young church, with many new families and tons of students/residents, most of whom are from the Duke Divinity, Graduate, and Medical schools.
Contact:
Website:
Dana Hornbeak (MSIII):
Kemi Ogundipe (MSIII):
The Church of the Good Shepherd
Description:
We are an evangelical congregation committed to the historic Christian faith and affiliated withThe Presbyterian Church in America. The mission ofour local churchis to make disciples of Jesus Christ on the northwest side of the research triangle, calling them into a devoted community of worshiping and maturing brothers and sisters, and sending them out into their culture and across cultures to be salt of the earth and light to the world to the glory of God.Our Senior Minister is Rev. David Bowen, PhD and we offer a specific ministry tograduate students and young professionals under the leadership of Rev. Troy Albee.During the academic year we offer two worship services each Sunday (9:30 and 11am), Sunday School and various small groups in the community during the week. Our worship services are a mixture of traditional and more contemporary expressions of praise with a focus on biblical preaching.
Contact:
If you want to discover more, please feel free to contact Patrick Pun (919-484-3964 or ) or visit our web-site:
Holy Cross Catholic Church
1400 S Alston Ave
Durham, NC27707
Denomination: Catholic
Pastor: Father Francis O'Connor, SJ
Contact:
Joseph Eble, MS4, , 919 883 4395
Eric Lee, MS4, , 919 883 4395
Raleigh Chinese Christian Church
Description:
We are a non-denominational Bible-based church. We seek to provide fellowship and ministry opportunities to people with Asian backgrounds, who consititute over 90% of our membership, although we gladly welcome anyone from all cultures and heritages! We have a dedicated worship service conducted in English on Sunday mornings, and we enjoy progressive, contemporary music from several different worship teams. Our senior pastor is Pastor Wing Yip, and we frequently enjoy guest speakers from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Our various English ministries include: a vibrant youth group; the Alpha Omega Christian Fellowship campus ministry involving undergraduate students from Duke, UNC, and NC State; a young adult group; and GenXsis, which is a fellowship group for young couples. Please check us out at: . We look forward to getting to know you!
Contact:
Ivan Chinn, 4th year Fellow. Email: . Phone: 919-599-3366.
The Summit Church:
Description:
The Summit is not your typical Southern Baptist church. While it certainly provides the requisite gospel choir, hard-hitting messages, and good ol’ fashioned Southern hospitality, this is Southern Baptist with a modern twist.
Sermons: While guest speakers are a regular occurrence, more often than not you’ll find Senior Pastor JD Greear, a Southeastern Theological Seminary graduate, at the pulpit—or rather, near the pulpit. A young, dynamic preacher who can’t preach standing still, JD uses both his sense of humor and of God’s vision to deliver challenging, Gospel-centered messages which speak to all generations of people. JD is especially passionate about reaching students and young-professionals. He recently created a blog to better reach the internet generation at and you can even podcast sermons online at
Music: worship through music is phenomenal, with a full band and choir at both the 9 and 11 AM services. A diverse song-set combines well-known hymns with the newest worship songs from Chris Tomlin to Kirk Franklin.
Congregation: With weekly Sunday attendance nearing 2000, the Summit has quadrupled in size the past 3 years. The church is composed of families, young-professionals, and students from Durham, Chapel Hill, and Raleigh.
Location: this fall, the church will meet in two different locations—a more intimate setting at Cole Mill Road Campus 5 minutes from Duke, and the main campus at Briar Creek toward Raleigh.
Ministries: the Summit has an extensive list of SummitLife small groups, as well as a monthly prayer meeting. The church coordinates several short term missions trips to Central and East Asia each year, as well as supporting long-term missionaries overseas and in sister churches in the States and around the globe. Local ministries including ESL tutoring for the Durham Latino population, a Chinese ministry, an addiction-recovery program, a Habitat for Humanity house, and other ongoing community service projects.
Contact:
Heather Faw (DPT student), Ian Han (MD student), Ellis Johns (MD student), Matthew Uhlman (MD Student), Esma Holley (Nursing student)
First Baptist Church
Description:
FirstBaptistChurch, Durham ( is a growing dynamic church in the resurgent part of downtown Durham with an excellent teaching pastor in Andy Davis. Andy has his BS in mechanical engineering from MIT and is originally from Boston. He has his PhD in church history. He communicates well to the university student and academic groups. The church also has a very strong overseas missions ministry, local international ministry, urban outreach and very good 'Bible For Life' teaching before Sunday morning worship and excellent Sunday night home groups.
Contact:
Ronald F Halbrooks [ (Duke Internist and CMDA faculty sponsor)