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.
Staff Team
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.
Ian Thomas, Youth Director
Ian, a native of Indianapolis, studied agriculture at Huntington University. By way of midwestern food banks and Peruvian coffee farms, he landed in Durham in January 2023, where he quickly found community in Emmaus Way. He is thrilled to have the privilege of walking alongside the youth and helping to cultivate a space designated for them to build community, ask big questions, and explore faith and its place in their lives. In addition to his work with Emmaus Way, he works as a greenhouse research assistant for an agriculture company in RTP. He can often be found at the local cinema, the houses of friends, or at home reading about his latest topic of curiosity.
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.
2026 Lead Team Members
Year Three: , Dave Efird, Zach Hutchinson, Martín Witchger (Co-Lay Leader)
Year Two: Bri Barrera (Co-Lay Leader), Aaron Forbis-Stokes, Jesse Troy, Gayle Thomas
Year One: Avery Lamb, Katie Mangum, Chelsea Rhodenhiser, Kim Thiessen
Artist In ResidencE
Chessa Rich is a singer, songwriter, teacher, and multi-instrumentalist based in Durham, NC. After a period of living and teaching in Spain, Chessa moved back to her North Carolina home in 2013 and quickly became a sought-after collaborator, adding keyboards, flute, and vocals to projects by NC artists including Dante High, Skylar Gudasz, and Hiss Golden Messenger. She grew up singing hymns in the choir at First Presbyterian Church in Burlington and experiences spiritual connection most often while making music with other people. She currently teaches music to young people and released her debut full-length record, Deeper Sleeper, in 2023.