Who We Are

The Emmaus Church
Nashville, Tennessee

Jesus has been murdered. There are rumors that he is alive again, resurrected from the dead, but no one is sure what to believe. Two of his followers are on there way from Jerusalem, where Jesus was killed, to Emmaus, which is about a seven mile walk. They were in deep conversation, going over all that had happened over the last several days when a man walked up beside them and asked what they were talking about. “You seriously don’t know?” they asked, “You’ve got to be the only guy in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard.”

They explained to the man all that had happened, and the rumors of the resurrection. He responded, “Don’t you believe all that the prophets have said?” He began to explain to them how, from the beginning, the prophets had said that the Messiah would suffer and die, and then be raised from the dead.

When they arrived at Emmaus, the stranger bid farewell to the two men, but they were so taken with him and were so desperate to know if Jesus really was alive, that they begged him to have dinner with them. The stranger sat down with the two men to eat, and as he blessed the bread and passed it to them, they recognized him, it was Jesus.

They had been with him the whole time and hadn’t known it. They had wanted to believe so badly, but just weren’t sure if it was all true. After Jesus left, one of the men said to the other, “When we were walking and talking, I knew something was different about him. I felt alive when he spoke, I felt hope when he was talking to us.”

The men wasted no time and ran back to Jerusalem to tell the other believers what had happened, and right in the middle of it, Jesus showed up again and talked with everyone there.

The Emmaus Church is a community of people who identify on a lot of levels with the two men who were walking to Emmaus. We have been completely taken with Jesus, and we’ve had very real encounters with him. We also admit that some days life is overwhelming and, as individuals, we sometimes struggle to believe.

The name “Emmaus” means, “people despised and obscure.” At Emmaus, we really want to connect with people who have no interest in “church,” or at least what church has become. There are plenty of churches for “normal people,” out there, but we believe we have a unique calling to reach out to the un-reached-for.

Whether outcast by society or by the church itself, we’re finding lots of people can identify with the term “despised and obscure.” At Emmaus, we recognize that we all have struggles and addictions, we are all in need of a savior.

We feel we have an incredible opportunity to truly embody the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a hurting, broken culture. We can’t promise it’s going to be easy. We can’t promise there won’t be pain, misunderstandings, or surprises ahead. We can promise that it will be a wild ride though, and that our motives are right, even if sometimes our methods are wrong. At Emmaus we’re simply inviting the life of God to rise up all around us and we’re doing our best to give our lives to something so much bigger than us… the Kingdom of Jesus.

That’s us in a nutshell. Emmaus is church for people who are sick of “church.” It’s church for people who are struggling with belief, addiction, faith, relationships… life. It’s church minus all the politics and religiosity. Church for people who are living, or at least want to live an epic faith adventure.

Emmaus… Nonreligious Faith, Passion and Truth.