A Sanctuary in the Trees of North Raleigh
Church of the Nativity sits on Ray Road in the northern reaches of Raleigh, a wooded campus of three buildings - the nave, Curry Hall, and Estill House with its red door - that serves one of the larger parishes of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina. For four decades the congregation has described itself as "a sanctuary in the trees of North Raleigh," and its members gather under the gospel verse from Isaiah: "For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples." The welcome is unmistakable from the entrance, where the church's motto in practice has long been: No matter who you are, or who you love, you are welcome here.
On Sunday mornings the parish gathers twice for worship - a said service of Holy Eucharist Rite II at 8:30 am and a principal celebration at 10:30 am with the choir, children's homily, and live-streamed video for those at home. Children may stay in the pews or, after the opening prayers, follow their teachers out to Kid's Club in Curry Hall for a lectionary-based formation hour before returning to receive communion with their families. Childcare is offered at the later service. Midweek programming for adults runs from Monday-night Education for Ministry and Tuesday-evening yoga to small groups, retreats, and book discussions that draw on the intellectual and cultural life of the Triangle.
Forty Years from a Gymnasium to a Pipe Organ
The story of Church of the Nativity begins in 1985, when a small group of lay people from several Raleigh churches noticed the rapid population growth in North Raleigh and approached the then-Bishop Estill about planting a new congregation. Bishop Estill celebrated the first service on December 5, 1985, before seventy-five people. A founding charter was signed by forty-five members, and in January 1986 the name Church of the Nativity was chosen. With the Bishop's urging, St. Michael's Episcopal Church agreed to sponsor the new mission, lending prayer books, hymnals, communion silver, and celebrants until the congregation could stand on its own.
Weekly worship for the first eighteen months moved from one borrowed gymnasium to another - first at York Elementary, then at Ravenscroft School, and finally at what is now St. David's School. Supply priests served the growing body until the Rev. Rick Callaway was named Vicar in 1987, the same year land was purchased on Ray Road. The first building on the property, now called Estill House, was opened on Epiphany 1991 as worship space, classrooms, and offices. Callaway left shortly thereafter, and the Rev. Diane B. Corlett was called as Vicar in September 1992. Two years later, at the Diocesan Convention in January 1994, Nativity became a fully self-funded parish, and Mother Diane became the church's first Rector.
The present worship building was consecrated in September 2001, the Andover pipe organ was installed in 2007 and completed a decade later, and the education building now named Curry Hall opened in 2011 with eight classrooms for a growing children's and youth ministry. After Mother Diane's retirement in 2009 and a period of interim ministry, the Rev. Stephanie Allen was called as second Rector in April 2011. In October 2023 she accepted a call to East Carolina, and the Rev. Stephany Yancy and the Rev. Dr. Cathy Deats served as co-interim Rectors. The Rev. Dr. Grey Maggiano, who had served as Rector of Memorial Episcopal Church in Baltimore since 2016, was called as third Rector; his first service at Nativity was September 8, 2024.
By January 2026 the parish had marked its fortieth anniversary. From seed money of two thousand dollars it now operates on a budget approaching half a million dollars; from ninety-two members in its first year it has grown to more than two hundred fifty households while keeping what longtime members describe as the feel of a small church. The church's logo, drawn from the Chi-Rho, recasts the Greek letters into a manger topped with a crown and a shepherd's crook encircled by a wreath - the victory of the Resurrection over death.
Worship at Nativity
The Sunday rhythm is set by two celebrations of the Holy Eucharist from the Book of Common Prayer, Rite II. The 8:30 am service is a quieter, said liturgy without music, while the 10:30 am principal service features the choir, congregational hymnody, and a children's homily. Both follow the Episcopal Church's three-year lectionary, with Nativity using Track 2. The principal service is livestreamed, and recordings of both the full service and the sermon remain available afterward in the worship archives.
Communion is offered to all baptized Christians - including children and non-Episcopalians - and those of other faiths are invited to come forward to receive a blessing by crossing their hands over their heart. Communicants may kneel or stand at the altar rail, may drink from the common cup or intinct the wafer, and may skip the wine if they prefer. Congregants who find standing or kneeling difficult are welcome to sit, and the building accommodates wheelchairs and rollators easily. The liturgy typically lasts about an hour, after which many remain for the organ postlude, for coffee in the narthex or Estill House, and for the priest's greeting at the door.
Special services mark the seasons of the church year. Ash Wednesday brings noon and evening liturgies. Holy Week includes Stations of the Cross on Thursdays, weekday noonday Eucharists on Monday through Wednesday, a Maundy Thursday Eucharist with foot washing and an all-night vigil, a Good Friday Proper Liturgy and Stations of the Cross, a Holy Saturday liturgy in the Memorial Garden and the Great Vigil of Easter, and Festival Holy Eucharist on Easter Day. Christmas brings a pageant at the 10:30 am Fourth Sunday of Advent, an early afternoon Christmas Eve service, a Festival Holy Eucharist at 9 pm preceded by a musical prelude, and a Christmas Day service. Choral Evensong with the Raleigh Convocation Choir is sung on select Sundays, and the parish gathers for occasional concerts in the nave.
Coming Through the Red Door
Visitors arriving at the campus find three buildings. The nave, where worship is held, is the largest. Curry Hall behind it houses classrooms for Christian formation. Estill House, identifiable by its red door, contains the parish hall and the church offices. The parking lot serves all three, and a large or regular-print bulletin is available at the entrance for anyone who would like one.
Style of dress at Nativity runs from casual to dressy, and visitors are not singled out. As the parish likes to say, pew etiquette is a moving affair - parishioners stand, kneel, and sit throughout the liturgy - and anyone who needs communion brought to them can ask an usher. Clergy are happy to follow up by phone or visit with anyone experiencing illness, hospitalization, the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, or any other pastoral emergency. Office hours are Monday through Thursday from 10 am to 2 pm.
Children are welcomed from their first visit. Coloring pages, crayons, I Spy packs, and Lego building activities are available in Create Your Worship Bags just outside the nursery, and the Nativity Peace Library at the back of the worship space invites young readers to settle into bean bags with books that celebrate welcome and diversity. Throughout the year the children are drawn into the wider life of the parish through the Christmas Pageant, the Easter Egg Hunt, the annual Blessing of the Animals, and Vacation Bible School.
Clergy and Pastoral Care
The Rev. Dr. Grey Maggiano came to Nativity from Memorial Episcopal Church in Baltimore, where he had served since 2016. Ordained in 2013 after completing his Master of Divinity at Virginia Theological Seminary, he previously worked with Latino congregations as Associate Rector of Trinity Cathedral in Miami. He also holds a BA in Political Science and Spanish literature from Williams College and a Master of Public Policy from Georgetown, and served with AmeriCorps in Raleigh and as a foreign affairs officer with the US State Department, mostly in Afghanistan. He and his wife Monica have two children and he is pursuing a Doctor of Ministry from St. Mary's Ecumenical Institute.
The Rev. Ryan Parker, Priest Associate, leads the Veterans@Nativity ministry. A native of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, he holds two undergraduate degrees from William Carey University, a Master of Divinity from Duke Divinity School, and certification as a CPE Educator. He serves as a Staff Chaplain at the Durham VA and is Board-Certified through the National Association of Veterans Affairs Chaplains with special competencies in PTSD and suicide prevention. The Rev. George Ardrey-Black, also a Priest Associate, is an ordinand for Holy Orders in the Episcopal Church, holds a Master of Divinity from Virginia Theological Seminary, and brings more than eighteen years of youth work and pastoral care to the parish. The Rev. Deacon Cuyler O'Connor has returned to Nativity after serving El Buen Pastor in Durham and St. Bartholomew's in Pittsboro, and offers Centering Prayer and a Wednesday-evening prayer service alongside his pastoral care.
Pastoral care at Nativity extends well beyond the clergy office. The Daughters of the King pray daily for members, friends, and the wider world. Stephen Ministry, a one-to-one lay caring program that has been part of Nativity for more than twenty years, partners with St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church and North Raleigh United Methodist Church to train and deploy about thirty-five Stephen Ministers across the three congregations. A prayer chain lifts up special requests, the Lay Eucharistic Minister team brings communion to the homebound, and a Caregivers Support Group meets on Sunday afternoons for anyone walking alongside a loved one.
The Andover Organ and Sacred Music
The organ at Church of the Nativity is Opus 115 of the Andover Organ Company of Methuen, Massachusetts, designed in the manner of small nineteenth-century New England parish instruments and voiced for the intimate acoustics of the nave. Installed in 2007 and completed in 2017 when eight additional stops filled out the prepared chests, it now comprises twenty stops played from two manuals and a pedal-board, with a swell division enclosed in a mechanically operated swell box. The action is mechanical throughout, giving the organist full control of pipe speech and articulation. The façade pipes are of seventy-percent polished tin; the keyboards are covered with cow-bone naturals and ebony sharps; the draw knobs are Pau Ferro with faux-ivory labels; and the solid-walnut pipe shades sit in a solid red oak case that matches the trim of the church. A Zimbelstern and a turning star sound with the bells.
The choir leads congregational singing at the principal Sunday service and at seasonal liturgies. Choral Evensong is sung on selected Sundays, often with the Raleigh Convocation Choir, and the church hosts occasional concerts featuring the Raleigh Ringers - one of America's premier handbell ensembles - which rehearses and records in the nave. A bell choir rings from the loft on festival occasions, and solo musicians and small ensembles round out the parish's musical life.
Children, Youth, and Adult Formation
Christian formation at Nativity is meant to follow each person through every stage of life. Kid's Club, the children's formation program for preschool through fifth grade, meets during the Liturgy of the Word at the 10:30 am service. Children begin in the pews with their grown-ups, come forward for a children's homily, and then process with their teachers to a classroom in Curry Hall where they explore the day's gospel through story, conversation, crafts, and games before rejoining their families at the altar for communion.
Middle School youth (grades six to eight) gather on Sunday mornings from 9:50 to 10:20 am in Curry Hall Room 205 for a gospel-based lesson cycle aligned with the lectionary. High School youth (grades nine to twelve) meet Sunday evenings from 6:00 to 7:00 pm in Curry Hall Room 202. Older youth serve as acolytes - carrying torches, bearing the Gospel book, and leading processions - and at sixteen may be licensed as Lay Eucharistic Ministers to assist with the distribution of communion. High-schoolers also travel on an annual pilgrimage that has in past years taken them to Jamaica, the Pacific Northwest, and New Orleans, and they join diocesan events such as Bishop's Ball, Happening, and Genesis.
Adult formation runs throughout the week. Sunday mornings from 9:30 to 10:20 am feature lectures, book studies, films, and outreach presentations led by guest speakers drawn from across the Triangle. The four-year Education for Ministry program from the University of the South meets on Monday evenings for in-depth study of scripture, church history, and theology. Small groups and book groups meet at other times, and the parish periodically undertakes adult pilgrimages and retreats - recent years have included a journey through sites of Celtic Christianity in the north of the United Kingdom.
Feeding Neighbors and Healing the Earth
Outreach at Nativity is organized around three strategic priorities - food security, environmental stewardship, and social justice - and the parish has helped seed organizations that now serve well beyond its walls. The Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, a member of the Feeding America network, was co-founded in 1989 by the Rev. Jill Staton Bullard, then a Nativity member, and the congregation continues to pack meals for seniors once a month and to serve on the board. Members also help pack meals with Rise Against Hunger during an annual multi-generational event that produces more than ten thousand meals in about two hours. On the first Sunday of each month, donations collected in the Narthex and Corlett Hall are delivered the next day to Leesville Elementary School, two miles away, where volunteers assemble weekend Pride Packs for food-insecure students. On the first Thursday of each month, members pack and deliver one hundred grocery bags to seniors at three Wake County apartment communities.
Creation Care is woven into the identity of the parish. Two of the buildings are powered by solar panels. Recyclable cups and plates are used throughout, and a recent grant supports composting through CompostNow on the north end of the parking lot. A community garden on the parking-lot side of the Education Building gives youth and adult parishioners raised beds; a percentage of every harvest is shared with a nearby low-income housing development. Through Audubon NC the campus is certified bird-friendly, with ten brown-headed nuthatch nesting boxes installed in 2015. A parishioner serves as Chair of the Executive Committee of NC Interfaith Power & Light, and Nativity contributes annually to the Haiti Reforestation Partnership, which has planted more than fourteen million trees in the Leogane province of Haiti over thirty years through the Comprehensive Development Project (CODEP).
The parish also participates in long-standing diocesan and global ministries. Each January, members help sort and donate more than a thousand pounds of dried pinto beans and peanut butter to Urban Ministries of Wake County in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy. In partnership with other Episcopal churches, Nativity helps fund and build a Habitat for Humanity house each year in Wake County and supports Thompson Child and Family Focus and Penick Village through diocesan giving. Through the US-Uganda Orphans Education Fund, a 501(c)(3) founded with the encouragement of Bishop Samuel Kamya of West Buganda, members provide educational sponsorship for orphaned girls in Uganda. The Abukloi project, begun by Angelo Maker - one of the lost boys of Sudan - supports secondary schooling in Rumbeck, South Sudan, and graduated its first class of sixty students in 2018. Nativity is also a member of ONE Wake, a non-partisan, multi-ethnic, multi-issue organization of more than forty congregations working on affordable housing, public transportation, mental-health crisis response, and a permanent white-flag homeless shelter.
The Nativity Peace Library and Social Justice
In the spring of 2022 the Social Justice Team established the Nativity Peace Library at the back of the worship space, filling it with children's books that share Nativity's core values of welcome and inclusion and that celebrate diversity among God's people. Children can settle into bean bags and read during the service or check books out to take home. Parishioners contribute regular reviews of titles such as Troubled Waters, Grandad's Prayers of the Earth, Going Down Home with Daddy, These Hands, The Energy Bus for Kids, Black Boy, Black Boy, Black Girl, Black Girl, A Rose for Abby, The Library in the Woods, Sonia Sotomayor: A Judge Grows in the Bronx, The Acorn and the Oak, One Big Heart, A Day for Rememberin', We Are Water Protectors, Sweet Justice, Freedom on the Menu, and Love Is Powerful - many of them illustrated histories of civil-rights struggles, faith traditions, and the natural world. Each review includes discussion questions, suggested activities, and scriptural reflection tied to the Baptismal Covenant's call to respect the dignity of every human being.
Through the Episcopal Farmworker Ministry, Nativity supports farmworkers, meat-processing workers, and immigrant families in rural eastern North Carolina with direct services, leadership programs, and advocacy. The parish partners with the Rural Advancement Foundation International on a Farm to Church Community Supported Agriculture program that supports local Black farmers, and works through the Episcopal Public Policy Network to advocate on environment, immigration, criminal-justice reform, domestic poverty, and human-trafficking issues at the national level. In 2023 the parish helped establish a new faith community in Durham called the Beloved Community at the Trees, specifically focused on those who have experienced religious trauma, including the LGBTQ+ community and other minorities - paying forward the sponsorship that St. Michael's Episcopal Church gave to Nativity at its own founding.
Becoming Beloved Community
Nativity's beliefs are anchored in the Baptismal Covenant of the Book of Common Prayer. Members affirm belief in God the Father, creator of heaven and earth; in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, who was crucified, died, was buried, and rose again; and in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Five promises follow: to continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to resist evil and seek reconciliation when they sin, to proclaim the Good News in word and deed, to love neighbor and serve others, and to strive for justice and peace while respecting the dignity of every human being.
Across the congregation, members come from many backgrounds and traditions. Holy Communion may be received by all baptized Christians, not only members of the Episcopal Church. Lay people share in governance and ministry at every level. Men and women, married or celibate, gay or straight, may be ordained as bishops, priests, and deacons. Same-sex couples may be married in the church, and the clergy perform these weddings. Creation is understood as a gift requiring good stewardship. Episcopalians recognize grace after divorce and do not deny the sacraments to those who have been divorced. The parish's welcome is meant to be absolute, as the parish says it: All are welcome to find a spiritual home in the Episcopal Church. By all, Nativity means all.
Getting Involved and Giving
The rhythm of stewardship shapes much of the parish's life. Members make an annual pledge each year to support the operating budget, with most giving through the CDM+ Engage online platform or through Venmo at @nativityonline; checks and cash placed in the offering plate are also welcome. A Day of Giving each Advent invites a concentrated outpouring of support, and the parish encourages proportional giving as an expression of the biblical tithe. Stock gifts can be transferred through Merrill Lynch, and Planned Giving through wills, retirement accounts, life insurance, or charitable gift annuities is supported by a Planned Giving Committee and the Nativity Legacy Community.
Plenty of other doors invite participation. The Kinder Garden Preschool, a nature-based program for children ages three to five, shares the campus during the week. The North Carolina Chamber Music Institute rehearses in the nave. A gentle yoga class meets in Corlett Hall on Tuesday evenings. Girl Scout Troop 4440 meets in Corlett Hall on first and third Wednesdays. A community ukulele jam gathers in Curry Hall on first and third Thursdays. The Memorial Garden behind Estill House holds the ashes of parishioners and others with ties to Nativity, with simple natural-stone markers in keeping with the garden's quiet design. Weddings, baptisms, confirmations, and funerals are arranged through the clergy office, and a Funeral Preplanning form is available for those who wish to record their wishes in advance. Becoming a member begins with the parish office and is followed by formation tailored to each new Episcopalian's background.
From its first seventy-five worshippers in a borrowed gym to more than two hundred fifty households gathered today under the trees along Ray Road, Church of the Nativity has held to a simple conviction: that a house of prayer for all the peoples is built and sustained by the steady, generous, and hopeful work of ordinary people answering God's call together.