The Walk to Emmaus is a spiritual renewal program intended to strengthen the local church through the development of Christian disciples and leaders. The program's approach seriously considers the model of Christ's servanthood and encourages Christ's disciples to act in ways appropriate to being "a servant of all."
The Walk to Emmaus experience begins with a 72-hour short course in Christianity, comprised of fifteen talks by lay and clergy on the themes of God's grace, disciplines of Christian discipleship, and what it means to be the church. The course is wrapped in prayer and meditation, special times of worship and daily celebration of Holy Communion. The "Emmaus community," made up of those who have attended an Emmaus weekend, support the 72-hour experience with a prayer vigil, by preparing and serving meals, and other acts of love and self-giving. The Emmaus Walk typically begins Thursday evening and concludes Sunday evening. Men and women attend separate weekends.
During and after the three days, Emmaus leaders encourage participants to meet regularly in small groups. The members of the small groups challenge and support one another in faithful living. Participants seek to Christianize their environments of family, job, and community through the ministry of their congregations. The three-day Emmaus experience and follow-up groups strengthen and renew Christian people as disciples of Jesus Christ and as active members of the body of Christ in mission to the world.
The Upper Room, a ministry unit of the General Board of Discipleship of The United Methodist Church, sponsors the Walk to Emmaus and offers it through local Emmaus groups around the world. Although connected through The Upper Room to The United Methodist Church, The Walk to Emmaus is ecumenical.
Excerpted with permission from What is Emmaus? by Stephen D. Bryant. Copyright © 1995 by The Upper Room.
HISTORY
The Emmaus Movement has its ancestry in the Roman Catholic Cursillo (coor-see-yo). The early Cursillos were five to seven days long and were held during special occasions, but gradually they were shortened to three to four days. Leadership was strong laity, of militant independence almost to the point of being anti-clerical. In time, these Cursillos evolved into Cursillo de Christiandad -- short courses in Christianity. A National Secretariat was formed in 1963 and received Papal approval. It grew into a shared clerical and lay directed movement, which essentially it is today.
In 1967, Danny Morris, Director of Developing Ministries for The Upper Room, participated in a Luthern Cursillo in Florida and recognized the need for Cursillo to be offered ecumenically. In 1977, Maxie Dunnam, then World Editor of The Upper Room, participated in a Cursillo weekend and, together with Danny Morris, began to take steps towards including Cursillo as an Upper Room program. The Upper Room's first two model weekends were held in Peoria, IL in 1977. They involved the leadership of the Reverend Robert Wood, who then came to the staff of The Upper Room to launch the new Upper Room Cursillo Movement.
In 1981, by mutual agreement with the National Secretariat of the Roman Catholic Cursillo who held copyrights to the Cursillo program, The Upper Room Cursillo became The Upper Room Walk to Emmaus. The primary issue involved in this action was The Upper Room's commitment to being ecumenical. The National Cursillo Secretariat had established a policy that each denomination's exspression of Cursillo must be limited to sponsorship of persons of their own denomination. An agreement was struck for The Upper Room to develop a new program based on Cursillo, but with distinctive leadership resources. Further, The Upper Room agreed not to use the traditional Cursillo language carried over from its Spanish origins. The Upper Room then developed the Walk to Emmaus design; talk outlines, and leadership manuals for use by an ecumenical, largely protestant audience.
Bob Wood served as the National Spiritual Director until September 1985. The Rev. Stephen Bryant succeeded him in January 1986. The Walk to Emmaus is not only active throughout the United States, but also continues to grow in Australia, Brazil, and Mexico. A version of Emmaus was developed for high school youth, under the title of Chrysalis. And a version of Emmaus was developed for prisons, under the title of Kairos.
Because of the desire to have a more local community in which to serve, "Heart of the Ozarks" was formed in the spring of 1994 by a group of local people that had taken their Walk to Emmaus with the "Noah's of Ark" Community in October of 1985. In the spring of 1996, members of the "Heart of the Ozarks" Emmaus community in southwest Missouri formed the "Show Me The Way" community, to better serve their local area.
And just in this way, the Emmaus movement has and will continue to spread to all the four corners of the earth, to every place there are people who want to love and serve the Lord.
