Church Staff

Rev. Mike Duda

Senior Pastor

Reverend Michael Duda has served as Senior Pastor of First Church in Wenham since 2006. He was ordained in the Presbyterian Church USA and currently holds standing in the United Church of Christ (UCC) serving as an active member of the Essex Association.

Mike was formerly Chaplain and Director of Community Services at Endicott College and the founder and director of the Youth at Risk Initiative of the Essex County Community Foundation. For 23 years he was the Executive Director of the Anchorage, Inc., a residential program for at-risk adolescents in Beverly, MA.

He consults for the Public Conversations Project in Boston and has a long history in the non-profit arena. He is currently serving as the President of Family Promise North Shore Boston, a program for homeless families on the North Shore.

Rev. Christine Evans

Interim Associate Pastor of Family Life

In 2011, Christine became the Interim Associate Pastor of Family Life.  The first person to fill this newly created position, Christine has worked with First Church to vision into a vibrant family life ministry, strengthening the church school programs, creating programming and celebrations, and walking with families as they seek spiritual grounding in the midst of our highly-scheduled culture.

Christine grew up in New Jersey, just outside Philadelphia and studied at Rutgers University before moving north to attend Harvard Divinity School.  During graduate school, she was drawn to places where people encountered their bodies and the land, science and spirituality.  She spent time at The Food Project, a non-profit designed to bring youth from diverse backgrounds together to work the land, at MIT’s Lutheran and Episcopal Chaplaincy, and working in Baxter State Park in northern Maine.

After graduating with a Master’s in Divinity in 2006, Christine worked at Haley House, a catholic-worker inspired community in Boston’s South End.  She helped to run the soup kitchen, mentoring and providing spiritual support for high school and college volunteers as they encountered issues of poverty, racism, and homelessness.  In 2010, Christine spent a year as a chaplain-resident at Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

Christine is ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a sister denomination to the UCC.  She teaches yoga in Cambridge and Boston and spends half a day each week working at Appleton Farm.  She finds God moving through bodies and the land, and values the conversations about where each of us find this great connection in our lives.