When you walk through Durham today, you’ll find echoes of Duke Divinity School in community centers, church sanctuaries, classrooms, and nonprofit offices. For many of our remarkable alumni, their callings brought them to Duke Divinity, but what has kept them around is the city of Durham—a place rich with history, resilience, and creativity.
From launching new churches to building inclusive community life or bridging congregations across differences, these alumni are now part of a web that connects the Duke Divinity to the community. But it’s not a one-way story of impact. Durham and its surrounding areas shape our alumni in profound ways.
For them, serving in and around Durham was an intentional choice to become part of a community that challenges and inspires them. The city invites a theology that listens first—to the stories and wisdom of neighbors—and seeks action in the shared pursuit of a more compassionate city. Formed first in the classroom, these alumni have inspiring stories of ministries, with roots placed in and around Durham.
Daniel Childs (M.Div. ’14)
For the Rev. Daniel Childs, pastor of Kindred Church, Durham is “a vibrant, diverse, unpretentious community” that offers “year-round beauty” and a spirit of authenticity that continues to inspire him. After studying at Duke Divinity School and pastoring in Texas, Childs returned to Durham to found Kindred Church, a United Methodist community that worships at Lyons Farm Elementary School near Southpoint.
“Our community is composed of people from many different walks of life and church backgrounds who value vibrant worship, inclusive community, and outward-facing ministry rooted in the way of Jesus,” he said. “It’s a joy to both live and serve in Durham because it makes me feel like part of the fabric of the community.”
His education at Duke prepared him for a ministry that engages both tradition and innovation, concepts he draws on daily as he leads a congregation seeking relevance in a rapidly changing world. “As church leaders strive to adapt our ministry methods to remain effective in the fast-changing world around us, it is vital that we remain anchored in the timeless wisdom given to us in Scripture, the church’s history, and the church’s great theological tradition.”
Childs sees unique potential in Durham’s culture that’s authentic, unpretentious, and open. “Durham is full of people who are both intelligent and caring,” he said. “When we create spaces where we can drop our masks and stop pretending, then we’re free to see and be seen, to love and to be loved, in a way that’s not otherwise possible.”
Breana Van Velzen (M.Div./M.S.W. ’17)
As executive director of Durham Congregations in Action (DCIA), Breana Van Velzen helps coordinate a network of 59 congregations across nine faith traditions.
“Our main focus for the last 50+ years has been to ‘build beloved community,’” Van Velzen said. Under their leadership, DCIA works in relational ministry, liturgy, housing and food security, and conflict mediation. Van Velzen emphasized that the work is quiet—helping congregations collaborate even through deep divides and showing up when emergencies arise.
Durham’s growth, they believe, offers both challenge and opportunity. “Housing is probably our biggest current issue,” Van Velzen said. “It’s an opportunity to build community with people different from one another — and that’s where we will find solutions. Together.”
Van Velzen’s time at Duke Divinity gave them the theological and ethical grounding to navigate this work. “Much of the work I’ve done and do—in the church and in the community at large—requires a deep understanding of applied theology, how culture, theology, and ethics are at play, and that people need to be seen, heard, and loved,” Van Velzen said.
For Van Velzen, being both part of and serving a community means accountability and a commitment to take care of each other. “We lean on each other.”
Dave Allen (B.A. ’04, M.Div. ‘10)
A Duke alumnus twice over, Rev. Dave Allen returned to serve as the United Methodist campus minister at Duke University, guiding students in discipleship and spiritual formation. “I work mostly with undergraduates, building a community of discipleship and providing lots of one-on-one support to students,” he said.
His years at Duke Divinity prepared him to engage a complex, intellectually charged environment with confidence and humility. “My Duke professors trained me with a theological agility that I use every day in my ministry,” Allen said. “I learned that carrying a strong Christian conviction into the world should make a person curious, not defensive. That’s the biggest gift I can pass on to my students.”
For Allen, Durham is an unusually fertile ground for faith. “The presence of Duke Divinity School makes Durham an unusual place to be a Christian,” he said. “Theologically trained people pop up all over town, and not just in church contexts. It’s a good reminder that theology is for everyone, and the desire for holiness of heart and life is not just the province of ordained clergy.”
He continues to draw on friendships formed in seminary to sustain his ministry. “Talking with them helps me make sure I don’t let the pressures of today pull me too far from the conviction and hope of my Duke Divinity days,” he said.
Allen has seen his students’ faith move from reflection to action. When the pandemic abruptly shut down campus in March 2020, his community responded with compassion. “My students immediately wondered about the fate of workers they knew and cared about in their favorite campus eatery, the Divinity Café,” Allen recalled. “They led the charge as we reallocated our unused program budget to benefit the furloughed restaurant staff.” For Allen, it was a reminder of the enduring Methodist rule: “Do all the good you can.”
Angie Wright (M.Div. '96)
After more than four decades as a social justice activist and progressive pastor in Birmingham, Ala., the Rev. Angie Wright returned to North Carolina five years ago. Today, she channels her experience into protecting immigrant communities by working with organization like Siembra NC, United Church of Chapel Hill, and the Resource Center for Women in Ministry in the South. She also authored the book, "Loving My Enemies & Other Outlandish Pursuits," which will be available in 2026.
Her work is grounded in accompaniment—walking alongside families at risk of detention, organizing Know-Your-Rights trainings, coordinating legal clinics, and holding public officials accountable. “We center the leadership of immigrant communities while training and organizing allies—those with the privilege of citizenship—to support affected community members and resist the cruel targeting of those communities,” Wright said.
Wright’s years at Duke Divinity allowed her to connect her prophetic activism with pastoral care. “I went to Divinity School not to be a local minister, but to deepen the theological grounding for my work as a community organizer and social justice activist,” she said. “Building on my education at Duke Divinity, I’ve been able to weave together pastoral and prophetic aspects of ministry.”
The lessons of liberation theology, Black Church studies, and womanist theology remain central to her work. In Durham and especially in the rural surrounding communities, Wright sees both challenge and promise. “There is a vast inequity of wealth and power,” she said. But "there is also the richness of life that is possible when you choose to work in community and to support the grassroots efforts of people most affected by limited resources.”
For Wright, serving the community means being fully part of it. “It’s a delicate dance between being a leader and a supporter of the leadership of others,” she reflected. “It requires a willingness to take on burdens that are not your own and to share your own burdens with others.” Despite the challenges, she finds deep hope in the region’s faith communities: “There is a long history and clear intention to work together for justice and compassion.”
Adrian L’Esperance (M.Div. ’15)
When Adrian L’Esperance came to Duke Divinity, he thought he’d become a professor. Instead, he found his calling in community. “Reality Ministries is what has kept my wife and me in Durham,” he said. Today, as coordinator of community life at Reality Ministries, he helps create spaces where “adults with and without developmental disabilities can experience belonging, kinship, and the life-changing reality of Christ’s love.”
“Reality upholds the value of every person in the incarnation of Jesus Christ,” L’Esperance said. “Each and every person’s presence is of infinite value and unending interest.” His theological studies at Duke—particularly Greek exegesis of the Gospel of Luke—expanded his vision of ministry. “It made me see Jesus’ unique care for the outcast and downtrodden, and enlarged my heart for those in my community.”
Each year, Reality’s community gathers for a talent show at the Durham Performing Arts Center—a joyful celebration of belonging. “There are so many stories of friends who come to Reality who are completely closed off to the world,” L’Esperance said. “After sometimes only weeks, through the community of Christ, they come alive. There is no greater gift than experiencing people for who they really are.”
In Durham, the challenges are real: For participants in Reality Ministries, those challenges to find appropriate housing are often greater. Yet L’Esperance sees possibility in relational work and hope in the compassionate nature of Durham and its faith communities.
“Faith communities that care for the poor, gather in creative and committed ways, remain devoted to Jesus as their only hope, and commune with God provide stability and direction for the hard work that needs to be done in Durham,” said L’Esperance.
Editor's Note: This story was updated on November 24, 2025.